Let me begin by admitting that the plural of anecodote is not data–unless you have a statistically significant number of anecdotes.

That being said, in the aftermath of the California Supreme Court’s ruling on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 yesterday, I have been hearing some of the same arguments in favor of the ruling that I heard during the campaign.  It is especially irksome because some of the people making these arguments against equality are people who logically should be on our side because they support equal rights.

As a professional qualitative researcher, I know that when you’re doing focus groups on a particular subject, one of the first things that you ask is, “when you hear the term ‘x’, what comes to mind?”  It may be a long stretch from there to the advertisement or concept that you’re actually testing, but the purpose of the question is a sound one: you can’t make a proper judgment on you successful your executions are unless you know the baseline of the instantaneous emotional associations your target audience makes with a particular phrase or idea.

So let’s take “marriage.”  What if you asked a hypothetical focus group the question outlined above regarding the term “marriage”?  You’d get a lot of emotional associations, most likely from women.  You’d get some discussion of the idea of commitment, and the joy it brings.  And, true enough, these are some of the ideas that marriage equality leaders have been using to win support for marriage equality in the state of California–and rightfully so, because they are emotionally persuasive to a particular section of the electorate.

But let’s move on to the legal rights issue.  For an exercise in contrast, it would be useful to examine a second question: where does a wedding take place?  You might get a few different responses, but religious institutions are likely to be high on the list, while the county courthouse and city hall are likely to be very low on the list.

Marriage equality advocates know that when we’re talking about gay marriages, what is really under discussion is the right for a same-sex couple to be able to go down to the civil institution of their choice to get a marriage license to obtain the full legal rights of marriage to that individual, without regard to any private or religious ceremonies being held in recognition of that couple.

Now, marriage equality advocates will never be able to reach the deeply religious who feel that homosexuality is an affront against God, in the same way that parental notification advocates shouldn’t go fundraising from Emily’s List.  However, there is a sizable–and persudable–middle ground: the people who want to maintain the exclusivity of their cultural trappings, but whose sense of fairness still dictates that gay couples should have equal rights.

Without hard statistical evidence to back up my assertions, I believe that this is the key segment that needs to be won at the ballot box in 2010.  And the problem is, we’re losing them.  The opponents of equality were out there with their advertisements front and center in 2008 with a very targeted message that said two things:

1) gay couples already have all the legal rights of straight couples through civil unions;

2) given the fact above, the only reason they’re pushing for this is to wage a culture war against your churches and schools.

It was persuasive, and left marriage equality advocates defending themselves against the accusation that they were waging a culture war by trotting out the likes of Jack O’Connell.  But the underlying argument had already been lost, simply because the opposition had done such a good job of convincing people that civil unions allowed all of the same legal rights as marriage.

And this fact was again borne out in the aftermath of Tuesday’s decision.  On the radio, on comments of other online opinion pieces, and in my inbox were all variations of the same theme: that gay couples already had equal rights through civil unions, and that they should be happy with that as opposed to trying to insinuate themselves into full acceptance at churches and schools.

So what’s the bottom line: Until marriage equality leaders outline concretely in their communications the specific rights that are available to married couples that are not available to straight couples, they will continue to leave themselves open to this argument.  And making that same argument will not just refute an attack, but actively win the votes of those who do legitimately believe in equal rights, but voted for Prop 8 anyway.  The road to victory at the ballot box will be difficult, and we can’t just rely on changing demographics to enable victory.  We have to change minds.