Tag Archives for noonprop8

The kryptonite that bought Prop 8

via creative commons license from courosa on flickr

via creative commons license from courosa on flickr

Freeze-frame in memory from my daughter’s infancy:

She’s rolling around on the floor several feet away. I’m talking with someone on the couch. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a tall lamp post begin to fall in a trajectory towards my daughter’s head. I leap up from the couch and my body flies horizontally, lingering in mid-air to barely intercept the lamp post before it makes contact with her head. Then everything returns to normal, I’m back on the couch, and we resume our conversation.

In fact, what was happening behind the scenes was that my body was transforming from mild-mannered “parent” into cape-clad superhero, faster than the speeding lamp post that threatened my child. Parents in particular are instinctually familiar with this state, but I have learned that these powers used in service of good are also highly vulnerable to purposeful deception when the safety of kids is involved.

In Behind the numbers of Prop. 8 today in the LA Times, David Fleischer takes us through the revealing study of just how effectively the awesome power of parental instincts was exploited to move a half a million parents to pass Prop 8 in California:

The Yes on 8 campaign targeted parents in its TV ads. “Mom! Guess what I learned in school today!” were the cheery-frightening first words of the supporters’ most-broadcast ad. They emerged from the mouth of a young girl who had supposedly just learned that she could marry a female when she grew up.

Among the array of untrue ideas that parents could easily take away: that impressionable kids would be indoctrinated; that they would learn about gay sex; that they would be more likely to become gay; and that they might choose to be gay. California voters, depending on where they lived in the state, were exposed to the Yes on 8 ads 20 to 40 times.

This deception is the kryptonite that bought Prop 8. It’s important to note that these parents are far from evil. They are not motivated by hatred, as Fleischer points out most crucially:

Another misconception was that those who voted for Proposition 8 were motivated by hate. This does not describe most of the 687,000 who changed their minds in the closing weeks. After all, they supported same-sex marriage before the opposition peeled them away. Yes, they turned out to be susceptible to an appeal based on anti-gay prejudice. But they were frightened by misinformation.

Although it is is not news to folks close to the campaign that we lost because of these school scare tactics, it’s good to see it validated in today’s report. Yet while the No On Prop 8 campaign reacted as if stunned by the explosion of kryptonite, and the other side knew all too well we didn’t have time after the ad-bombs to recoup in the dwindling days of the election, we’ve all had no excuse to not see this coming again. In fact, the exact same ads were used with success to beat gay marriage just last year in Maine.

The blame is not on the parents who are only doing what they are instinctually conditioned to do. Likewise, the solution lies not in further trickery and deception. To truly help parents continue to do what they do best is to expose these scare tactics for what they are, but sadly, the element of fear remains a top-seller in our world. I have asked myself how to neutralize this element every single day post Prop 8.

Fearing Harassment

The Supreme Court ruled today that the names of petition signers of Washington State’s Referendum 71 must be made public [Update: however, according to Courage Campaign, the ruling is complicated and whether R-71’s signatures themselves are to be released remains an open issue].  The referendum passed last fall, preserving domestic partnership rights and hence legal protections for gays, lesbians, and seniors.

Protect Marriage Washington had sought not only to fail this referendum, overturning domestic partnership and legal protections for gays and lesbians (and this isn’t even about marriage — this has been called the “everything but marriage” law), but also to keep the names of those who sought to do so private — apparently because of fear of retribution from “violent homofascists.”

Let’s get it straight, Protect Marriage, because you know this already but I’m not sure you want your signers to know this. Equating me to a violent homofascist is your attempt to continue to enjoy legal protections exactly while continuing to harass me. Don’t get me wrong, harassment is not OK – but just as it’s not OK for you to be harassed, you may not legally continue to do this to me.

Make no mistake: The real harm is where harassment of gays continues to enjoy legal protections.

I know this well. During the Prop 8 campaign, there was plenty of harassment on all sides to go around. Whereas the No On Prop 8 campaign officially sought to speak out against violence perpetrated on and by any side, however, the Yes On Prop 8 messaging, ignoring the real harms against LGBTs and supporters during the campaign, simply fanned the flames, in many cases equating gays with Hitler and categorizing us and bands of — well — violent homofascists:

And here’s the outcome of that (PDF).

While at the press conference after last week’s closing arguments in the federal trial against Prop 8, I had the opportunity to engage with a person working for Protect Marriage. He choked up when he told me of his inner conflicts, and that he saw how we (LGBTs) have been treated and it’s not OK.  He related that his colleagues at Protect Marriage had also received death threats. (An aside: read Karen Ocamb on the backstory on Prop 8 witnesses and fear of harassment in this case).

I’ll say it again. Harassment is not OK. But let’s be clear.  There is a solid history of real harm against folks like me and at the root of what most of us want is simply to live without that harm. I think most people, given the chance, understand this. So, Protect Marriage, try some honesty the next time, and make sure your petition signers know that overturning gay legal protections is akin to continuing to legally protect harassment against gay people, and if you sign for that, you stand by it publicly.

Fear of harassment is real.  You can feed it, or you can work against it every day of your life.  Make your choice today. I choose the latter.

Prop 8 Trial Closing Arguments: What really separates you from me?

Charles Cooper and Judge Vaughn Walker: view from the overflow2 room

Charles Cooper and Judge Vaughn Walker: view from the overflow2 room

My wife and I arrived at the Federal Building an hour before the closing arguments began at 10am, but by then we were already number 30 in a line waiting to get into the overflow room. We were told the overflow room was full and only press could reserve passes. By 10am, the line to get in looked to be 150 people at least – and luckily they had opened an additional two overflow rooms.

So we had plenty of time while standing in line to talk to people around us.  Though we were mostly too full of nerves to talk, we did meet one really nice guy behind us in line and talked about the trial, and about how my wife and I wish we could just invite the people who don’t want us to marry over for cocktails so we could really talk to each other and see how we are alike and how we are different. He told us he’d also be honored to have us over to visit him and his wife.

We finally all got in to overflow room nr. 2 and Leanne and I tweeted the entire way till the trial concluded at 4pm.  (There were brief breaks — we rode the elevator UP with David Boies; we rode the elevator UP with Cleve Jones and Dustin Lance Black; we got to talk to the many great NCLR folks there… we felt starstruck).

Charles Cooper - speaking after intro from Andy Pugno (to his right) and before Ron Prentice (to his left)

Charles Cooper - speaking at press conference after intro from Andy Pugno (to his right) and before Ron Prentice (to his left)

There’s obviously much of record there and much to say about what Olson and Cooper and Walker said during the trial — and there’ll be much written elsewhere, now and for a long while to come — but to me the most amazing thing happened after the trial so I want to write this now.

Thanks to Marriage Equality USA’s Molly Mckay, we got into the press conference right after the trial. We immediately met the smiling man we had shared the “nr. 30” spot in line with before the trial, and he gave us a big hug.  I then asked him what his interest was in being there — “I work at the California Family Council and with Ron Prentice at Protect Marriage,” he said.  To my other side was Kate Kendell, tireless and amazing director of NCLR, and to this side was “the enemy.” And we were already friends.  It was an amazing and bizarre moment.

Olson: "Our clients - they're not plaintiffs, they're human beings who stand for everyone"

Olson: "Our clients - they're not plaintiffs, they're human beings who stand for everyone"

As I listened to “his side” talk at the press conference about the wrongs people like us were doing to people like my daughter, I kept receiving pictures on my cell phone of my daughter, who was at that moment twirling with a friend in the playground in the brilliant light. And he and my wife and I kept talking about our families, and re-extended the invitations to visit. We shared pictures of beautiful family. I thought about the truly thin line that separates “our side” from “their side” and what in the end we are really fighting for.  I felt like the future is a bright light toward which we run, and one day none of this will matter anymore.  We’ll be beyond.

When shall we learn what should be clear as day

We cannot choose what we are free to love

W.H. Auden