-The Obama Administration releases its civil rights agenda.
-Chad Allen and Robert Gant’s movie, Save Me, is now available on DVD.
-KABC in Los Angeles refuses to air a public service announcement that positively depicts gay families.
-Exodus International takes over management of the Alliance Defense Fund’s so-called “Day of Truth.”
-Focus on the Family resorts to scare tactics to steer its supporters away from Lifetime TV’s upcoming movie Prayers For Bobby.
-Matt Foreman offers his take on why Proposition 8 passed.
Regarding Matt Foreman’s position paper:
As my German husband would say: BS. BS. und BS. And Quite a load of self-serving political BS at that.
We lost on prop. 8 for two very simple reasons. First, this campaign was conducted with the invisibility of the closet. Gay people were invisible. Marriage was invisible. Our lives were invisible. Our families were invisible. Prejudice was invisible. Religion was invisible. Religious prejudice was invisible.
the campaign was a lie from start to finish. It was based on shame and fear. It has never worked in a marriage campaign, and has rarely worked any place else. Why would you expect it to finally work now? Oh, i know. focus groups. We have been focused over–BIGTIME.
Studies have shown consistently that people who know gay people tend not to vote against them. So maybe the closet isn’t such a good idea?
the second reason? Stupidity. Every vote counts. Yet the central valley was basically ignored. Phone banking was king in a state where 40% of the population use unlisted cel phones, and nearly everyrone has caller ID, and prefer not to answer calls from unknown strangers. Community outreach was nil. Public speaking was nil.
This approach has been tried for the last 30 campaigns. and it has lost for the last 30 campaigns. but it has kept a lot of political operatives employed. I firmly believe that we did as well as we did not because of your campaign, but despite it.
and even if your arguments are correct, which I do not believe for a moment, I do believe this (and please forgive my shouting)…
I WOULD RATHER LOSE THE CAMPAIGN BECAUSE WE TOLD THE TRUTH (for once) THAN LOSE IT BECAUSE WE TOLD A LIE as we have continued to do, and as you have advocated.
I know not one out, thoughtful, conscious, grounded gay person who thinks this campaign was anything but a loser. If you want to deal with the ICK factor, then you need to make gay people un-icky. you’re not going to do that by hiding us in the closet. the closet just re-inforces the idea that there is something icky there. your focus groups may show that people respond with the ick factor, but is that in just one ad show, or does that continue over multiple showings?
All of his cogent argument boils down to just one thing: please don’t blame us. We did the very best we could.
BS. BS. und BS.
Exodus isn’t doing so well at the moment, so I hope this is a death knell for the “Day of Truth”.
And Ben, I can’t add or subtract from what you said. I can’t believe they wasted time and money on phone banking. May as well have used smoke signals.