I was just on the verge of typing up this post when I saw Julia Rosen’s latest about not knowing what went wrong. A strong campaign, good fundraising, excellent field, a state that would have seemed fertile ground…and still, no go. 0 and 31. To my mind, it’s not that anything went wrong. It’s simply that not enough went right. And I have a good thesis as to why.
On a lengthy car trip one time, my brother read me a big excerpt of Drew Westen’s book The Political Brain. It’s all about the role of emotion when deciding for whom or what–or against whom or what–voters are going to cast their ballots.
One thing the book makes pretty clear is that there’s only a certain amount of the electorate that’s persuadable. On an issue like marriage equality, there’s likely around 40% who are dead set on supporting it and 40% who are dead set on opposing it–and there’s nothing any campaign can do to change the minds of these voters. That leaves a “mushy middle” audience of persuadables that both campaigns are vying for. That audience of persuadables is likely going to consist of political moderates who don’t have religion-based intolerance of gay people, but probably think less of gay people and hope their children don’t “end up that way.” That seems to me to be a fair middle-of-the-road depiction of the persuadable audience on these things.
Now think about the strategies that equality campaigns and their opponents are using to persuade voters. The anti-equality strategy is very simple: take the supposed worst face of the equality movement, put it front-and-center, and tell these voters that the gay agenda wants to turn their children gay starting from the first grade. Meanwhile, the supporters of marriage equality run a very good, relentlessly positive message featuring gay families–oh, and by the way, that stuff about us indoctrinating your children isn’t true, really.
Between those two, where do you think the persuadable voter is going to turn? Are those persuadable voters going to vote to provide benefits to other people they probably don’t know when they’re being told that rogue elements will seek to indoctrinate their children? Probably not.
Opponents of marriage equality are very good at one thing: making people vote against the other cause. It’s the only thing they’ve got. And what the marriage equality movement in Maine was very good at was motivating people to vote for their cause. But what marriage equality movements have been afraid to do is motivate people to vote against the other cause. Best as I can tell, rarely, if ever, were voters told in a repeated, systematized way that their opponents were so desperate to preserve intolerance that they were willing to lie about schools to get it done. Opponents of marriage equality use fear exceptionally well–and that’s a stronger emotion than the sweetness and light of equality, especially when those voters don’t stand to benefit directly.
One way to counter fear? Anger. Make the voters angry at your opposition. Does that lead to the dark side, as Yoda proclaims? Perhaps. But at 0-31, as someone who wants marriage equality for my LGBT brothers in the coming decade, not in the one after that, I figure it’s worth a shot.
But mixing love and anger in a message isn’t easy.
What you’re saying about the political brain is part of the problem. Majorities are not good at protecting minority rights and ballot initiatives are not good for deliberation.
Both Maine 1 and California 8 are examples of why so-called “direct” democracy is a huge problem, and it is a different kind–not a different degree–of democratic government. Its proponents liked to think of it as mass rule, but it’s actually mob rule, because the process lends itself to mob dynamics–so hate and fear work so well.
In a generic case, the courts are the part of the government that are supposed to protect minority rights, and have applied heightened scrutiny to cases involving majorities taking rights from minorities for over 60 years. In the specific case of gay rights, politics has infected even that process. Nevertheless, I still support the Boies/Olson challenge–it’s looking better all the time.
Gay marriage that has come from the courts or the legislature has been taken away by the people. I believe this is the third time (Hawaii in the 90s).
It’s a systemic problem that is the result of a broken government. We must limit or eliminate direct democracy and reform our legislature. We’ve already ruined the state and now our disease is spreading to other states.
If, as you suggest and I concur, this was the strongest argument by the anti-marriage equality folks directed to persuadables, did the Maine statute even address the point? People like Jack O’Connell said it wasn’t true in California but I suspect most of the persuadables did not believe him. If current California law requires a discussion of marriage in sex education class(or whatever the circumstances that triggers a discussion of marriage in school was) it is not unreasonable to believe that lawyers or legislators will ensure that both gay and straight marriages will be required subjects of study.
So why not write into a direct democracy marriage equality measure a provision that says nothing in this measure can be used to require a local school district to mandate discussions about marriage? And include a provision clarifying that anything in current law couldn not make discussion mandatory?
It might not make a difference but as close as things have been and given the strength of the argument, why not?
“who the hell are these people that think they can pass judgement on us? what business do they have telling us who’s moral and who’s not, who can marry and who can’t? these people don;t have the decency to mind their own business and they’re not going to stop with the gays. they want to tell everybody how to live, and they’re all a bunch of hypocrites.”
take the lifestyle canard and throw it back in those babbitt’s faces. people might not be comfortable with gays and lesbians, but a lot of them also hate the moralizing religious busybodies.
the trick is to make it clear that these people are passing judgement on straight bystanders, that this isn;t just a gay rights thing. given the religious right’s attacks on abortion, divorce, contraception, hallowe’en, and pretty much anyone who doesn’t kowtow to their moral authority, it’s not a hard case to make.
this will be more effective in “mind your own business” new england and the west than elsewhere, i suspect.