How do you get voters in a supposedly tolerant state like California to vote to take away rights from people without making yourself look like a hateful bigot in the process? Simple – you cast yourself as a victim of hate, even though you’re the one trying to take rights away from people.
One of the most powerful weapons in the Yes on Prop 8 campaign’s arsenal was the argument that same-sex marriage rights would somehow limit religious or parental freedoms. The No on 8 campaign never effectively countered this, and this conservative victimology helped insulate Prop 8 supporters from being called to account for their bigotry.
As the marriage equality movement racks up victory after victory – Iowa, Vermont, and soon New Hampshire – the opponents of equal rights are plotting their counterattack. The National Organization for Marriage is running this creepy ad shown at right arguing that a “storm” is coming – that the “rights” of religious people and parents to teach hate and inequality are under attack by those damn liberals who want to turn all your children gay.
Their arguments are based on lies, and always have been – marriage equality in California wouldn’t have changed how preachers preach or how teachers teach, and Vermont’s new marriage law makes clear that religious freedom is still respected.
But these arguments are also powerful. Conservative victimology has been one of the key methods by which Prop 8 supporters have escaped responsibility for their actions or even acknowledging what Prop 8 was – an attack on the legal equality of thousands of Californians merely for their sexual orientation. When framed this way the Yes on 8 position becomes almost unassailable, immune to criticism. “They’re just protecting their freedoms,” we’re supposed to think, and not be allowed to ask them to face the realities of what they have done, not be allowed to criticize them for voting to take away equal rights and destroy existing marriages, and not be allowed to act with our own conscience by demanding equal rights for everyone. Each of those acts is cast as an aggressive and hurtful act, where the oppressed are cast as oppressors.
These folks have nothing left in the tool box after the Iowa ruling decimated the excuse that religious opposition should govern civil law. So now the folks at the National Organization for Marriage have decided to send out e-blasts and a new video that uses a multi-racial set of actors to portray the aggrieved heterosexuals affected by same-sex couples being allowed to marry.
You might laugh at these fundnuts, but they are crafty, and don’t mind continuing to promote outright lies and deception.
Jeremy at Good As You has an excellent video response:
We’re winning the battle for equal rights. But to ensure that equal rights prevail across the nation – and here in California – we have to push back against these lies.
UPDATED by Brian: It seems the audition videos tape was leaked, and it’s now on YouTube. Yay, fun! Nothing makes you cynical like seeing a bunch of actors saying the same thing, because they, you know, really care about it. Check the video (h/t CapAlert) over the flip.
I’m convinced that the core of fundamentalist belief is male supremacy. In this bronze-age patriarchal world-view, marriage has but one purpose – procreation of “legitimate” offspring.
Marriage Equality shifts the entire paradigm of marriage from “dutiful sexual reproduction” to “loving committed relationships”… and it opens a pandora’s box of trouble for the patriarchs.
A lot of conservative women have bought into the myth of male dominance. But they might just be the ones who can be persuaded that marriage equality is good for everyone, not just gays.
Just ask any one of them if they would trade their “marriage” for a “reproductive union”.
Now is a good time to get the word out to our allies in other states to follow the money behind the National Organization for Marriage and related groups.
Now, tell me that guy isn’t hiding something from himself? 😉
I howled at the line near the end of the original ad about “coming together in love.” Love has nothing to do with what they’re doing–unless it’s a love of control.
That said, this campaign uses two tactics that wingnuts have used quite successfully for years. Robert correctly identifies one–painting the aggressor as the victim. I read a book years ago that discussed how fringe religious groups have used this technique to keep the faithful in line for centuries. The Nazis used it in their rise to power. And there are lots of other examples.
The second is sheer misinformation, as the smaller video on the right points out. Though the “facts” the original ad presents are not true, they reinforce people’s feelings of being forced to do things they do not agree with by the government. And they are hard to check because they have so little detail. Besides, the truth is fairly nuanced. You could argue that pulling the New Jersey tax breaks was a way of “forcing” them to follow the agreement to allow full public use. Americans, unfortunately, aren’t big on nuance. Nor do many of them have a lot of time for fact checking. Working 2-3 jobs to keep a roof over your head does tend to eat up a lot of time. Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh have done well for themselves by assuming this. They have also proven that, if you repeat even the most blatant lies loudly and often enough, a lot of people will believe them.
So the bad news is that these tactics have been proven to work. Reasoning with people, as the rebuttal does, does not usually work. Ask John Kerry about this. The rights activists would be better off doing a piece that shows people who have or could have their rights taken away. And talk about the fact that you could be next. It would use a similar tactic to startle people into realizing that we’re not just talking about the rights of gay people. After all, the Mormons who financed so much of the yes on 8 work, have themselves faced discrimination. Blacks, Jews, women, and the disabled have. They need to realize this. The list of possibilities there is long, and I’d be happy to help write it if anybody is interested.