Category Archives for noonprop8

How to NOT advertise against yourself

Thanks to @qrty for this blog post today:

Masterminds Behind ‘Yes on 8’ Reveal How They Did It

I’ve spoken before of some of the tactics used online in campaign to pass Proposition 8, but at the moment I want to call out this one, as underscored from the Yes campaign in the above blog, and more specifically how to protect yourself against it:

A Google surge. You may remember that even gay websites running Google Ads were running ‘Yes on 8’ ads in the final days of the campaign. That’s the power of internet advertising dollars at work.

“As the campaign headed into the final days, we launched a ‘Google surge.’ We spent more than a half-million dollars to place ads on every single website that had advertising controlled by Google. Whenever anyone in California went online, they saw one of our ads in the final two days of the election.”

I was alerted to this tactic by the No On Prop 8 online community itself, during the last few days of the campaign.  Gay and straight people alike called out with concern about what was happening on their blogs. Many wrote to tell me how to defeat it, and I’m thankful that, because I was able to pass it along.

Here it is, courtesy of @calipidder — please spread it to anyone who has an AdSense account they’re concerned about now or in the future:

In your Google AdSense account, go to AdSense Setup -> Competitive Ad Filter. You can block ads from specific URLs or destinations.

In this case, the Yes ads came from “protectmarriage.com” – so that’s what you would enter in your filter list if you wanted to not serve ads from them.

Says @calipidder:

The only thing sitting in my Filter list is protectmarriage.com. I was so angry to see that on my site I took down the ads until after the election, PLUS I blocked it here just in case they kept running them.

Amen. And thanks again, Rebecca.

Telling Three: “Passion Unites”

San Francisco CA 2004 (#1)

San Francisco CA 2004 (#1)

Today is a bright day in the Bay Area and as we emerge, gradually, into the sun my “loss” mood — sort of — disperses. I got a great email this morning from an old colleague that also helped me feel bright, and I wanted to share it.

Knowing of my involvement in the No On Prop 8 campaign, she, like many of my friends, wanted to personally contact me after watching the deeply moving Courgage Campaign video, Fidelity.  In addition to Fidelity, there’s another parallel initiative happening right now that puts a face on the current affairs of marriage equality: Tell3 — the “pledge to Tell3 people what it’s like for you or your loved ones to be LGBT.” The exchange with my colleague made me think of Tell3.

Particularly at work, coming out — as the only “whatever you are in the room” — can be a scary business. In my job, I work day-to-day with people from all around the world, including places where you could be jailed, or worse, for being gay. I remember that day almost exactly five years ago, when Leanne and I were married at City Hall, and how bubbly and yet awkward I felt when I came back to work after the weekend. I was practically tumbling all over the place that Monday, not able to contain anything about my weekend yet finding myself within the curious confines of a conference room with my team, every single one of whom spoke a different native language than I. Many teammates were surprised when I told them I was married over the weekend. Most were, at a minimum, highly confused or even thought I must have been joking. One told me that I was “brave” — which to this day I still wonder about. How was I brave? I could not say that any one of them was less than supportive, but the moments were not easy.

But every once in awhile I’m reminded of why the clumsy business of just being who I am — this “coming out” — continues to be the brightest, most worthwhile endeavor in my life. That’s how I felt this morning when I read Darlene’s mail:

Michael and I both cried (no laughing!) when we saw the slideshow, and then we signed it (of course) and forwarded it to friends and family members. Oddly enough we’d received it from our old Realtor in Dallas that we hadn’t spoken to in years. What’s so inspiring about that is how passion unites people….even from afar…..and even from those that are not directly involved. If only the world functioned like that for everything we do!

Did I mention that I have THE BESTEST Hubby in the whole world? I thought about it a lot. and I truly cannot imagine how it would feel if state could revoke our marriage. Putting all emotion aside, there’s just no logical/legal justification for the state to reverse/dissolve marriages (of any kind). IMHO, it appears that it’s a purely subjective stance that’s been taken and I don’t see how it could be reversed. Taking a step backward is just too risky for California (known to be trailblazers) and I don’t believe it will happen. My $.02.

“If only the world functioned like that” indeed. But when you do this — when you reach out and come out and share about WHATEVER it is — it does. And that makes all the difference under the sun… Thank you, Darlene, and everyone else who makes it your business to reach out with your stories.

Loss

Oh this rain — the kind so constant that the sky and the ocean seem to become indistinguishable. I crave it; I want to be in it.  Dry under my roof tonight, I read this — Pro-gay-marriage movement looks to ‘Obamify’ (SFGate) — and what I feel? Is loss.

It’s not specifically the loss of the election (which I imagine will retain its special hole in my heart well beyond the time when equality isn’t even an issue anymore). I feel no loss about the purpose of the report, which talks about all the great energy going into galvanizing grassroots and online activism. It’s truly both the seeds and the fruition of the Internet united: Not only can everyone tell their story, but they need to — and it changes everything. The world is our neighbor — now more than ever.

Nor do I just feel loss about the massive support we built online during the campaign going unrecognized in passages like this:

It would involve pairing new media technology with old-fashioned, door-to-door outreach – two tactics that were not used well in the unsuccessful opposition to Proposition 8 in November, according to a report by Marriage Equality USA, an Oakland-based organization that supports gay marriage.

… as similarly played out countless other articles like this and the endless comments threads they have spawned since the election.

In fact it’s not totally clear to me, the source of this loss, but here it is again:

Adina Levin, a Palo Alto software company co-founder and gay marriage supporter who is not gay, recalled a friend telling her that Prop. 8 supporters were holding signs on a corner in his San Carlos neighborhood. When Levin asked the campaign if she could use the micro-blogging service Twitter to quickly gather a counterprotest, No on 8 organizers said no, because it might tip off the opposition to their movements.

I don’t know who Levin talked to in the campaign, but connecting people online about protests is one of the major things we did on Twitter and in other online channels particularly in the days escalating up to the election. We didn’t do it out of a concerted tactic, we didn’t plan it, we didn’t strategize it — we simply listened in to the hundred-plus thousands of regular people, people not unlike you as you read this, who reached out and shared their stories via online channels. We did mobilize, we connected, we supported — not because it gave us a good reputation or a good story — but because there was the need.  And it’s not just no longer serving this essential purpose that I count as a quite personal loss.

The people I knew on the campaign dedicated themselves day and night, but afterwards went back to their originating, excellent organizations — far from the failed campaign — and yet I continue to exist in this crazy post-election nowhereland vacuum.  Articles like this remind me I feel strongly about not betraying the actual No On Prop 8 online community, which did and continues to thrive, because these people were literally unsung heroes.

As I sit here in the dark and try to put it all together, the rain pounds on the roof and my head hurts. My wife says I’m just hurting myself.  A pal from the campaign told me I just needed to let go.  I do — but I struggle with losing hope. And I hope I always do.