By now, most of us have seen the despicable ad unleashed in several key states this week in response to our two historic victories in Iowa and Vermont.
It was commissioned by the National Organization for Marriage (but only if you’re straight) whose website reveals some of their misleading tactics, thoroughly dissected on Pam’s this morning.
What strikes me most is their desperation. Turning themselves into victims is the only weapon the anti-LGBT industry has left. Yes on 8’s Frank Schubert himself has said that attacking LGBT folks directly doesn’t work anymore. We can be thankful for that, but must we must learn to effectively respond with the truth to this new tactic.
To succeed, opponents of the freedom to marry must convince moderates that loving, married same-sex couples somehow pose them a risk. They must stir up enough fear and doubt that otherwise fair-minded people will err on the side of discrimination.
They claim this is not just about marriage. They’re right.
As their ad implies, they want to hurt LGBT people any which way they can. This is part of a much larger anti-LGBT agenda to dismantle existing rights.
Tuesday, there will be a hearing on a suit in federal court against SB 777, a law sponsored by Equality California and authored by Senator Sheila Kuehl, requiring basic nondiscrimination protections for LGBT students in California public schools. EQCA has joined with other civil rights groups to fight this unfair attack on youth. This has nothing to do with “redefining marriage” but the usual suspects are all over it.”
It’s easy to laugh at this ad with its hokey special effects and its saccharine melodramatics. One of the suggestions on its accompanying website was that people fight against marriage equality by eating at fast-food chain El Pollo Loco! Yet they cry foul when Prop 8 opponents vote with their dollars. It’s indeed easy to laugh, but these extremists are not to be dismissed.
The Yes on 8 campaign subjected the LGBT community to untold trauma, as we were forced to watch our neighbors and fellow Californians turn on us, stripping us of our rights and dignity.
Opponents of the freedom to marry say they don’t want their children to learn about same-sex couples, yet they’re spending millions of dollars to broadcast this garbage in homes all across the country.
Likewise, ads like this one create a toxic environment, and send homophobic and transphobic messages to our nation’s youth. In recent years we’ve seen an increase in anti-LGBT hate crimes, and just yesterday we saw the suicide by hanging of an eleven-year-old-boy who had been relentlessly bullied and taunted at school—just because other students perceived him as gay.
This isn’t just about marriage. This is about our very lives.
—Geoff Kors, Equality California
Reposted from the California Ripple Effect.