As with every article analyzing “what went wrong,” one crucial question is never fully analyzed: Why was the “princess” ad so effective? The ensuing argument about whether or not gay marriage would be taught to young children in school was beside the point. It was a red herring.

The real underlying issue was in the little girl’s statement, “I can marry a princess.” That pushed a hot button, gut-level, emotional response that bypassed all reasoning. As shown by the reaction of the “mother” in the ad, it raised the fear that your children could become gay.

That fear is rooted in the widely held assumption that being gay is a choice or an induced perversion. The radical right understands that fear and plays to it at every opportunity. “No on 8″ never did anything to counter the fear.

I’m glad more information on how the “No on 8″ campaign was not effective enough. So much of their effort was focused on raising money. At best, they didn’t use this money to good use (probably overpaid their non volunteer staff). There was no consistent messaging and they did not do enough outreach.

I personally tried to volunteer online, on the phone, and in person. I either got no response or told “there is nothing to do.” It was apparent now in retrospect that there is much to do.

More analysis of Equality California who managed the “No on 8″ campaign should be seriously looked at and derive lessons learned.

As a GAy man in California, it seems clear to me that California has already given us all the rights the State can. Why did we go in a attack the phrase “marriage” and expect to get away with it? After the vote , we have acted like a bunch of Highshool losers throwing a fit. We are attracting negative attention to ourselves. We are attacking the people, businesses and churches that stood up and voted to protect themselves from our “adult sexual lifestyle choices”. Yet we complain when any one of our businesses are targeted. What happened to the tollerance that we DEMAND, is not the other side allowed the same tollerance? We are hipocrites, somehow we think we are going to take, by force, a phrase that is already taken “marriage”. We are doing something that is not marriage, we want to be recognized as different, we need to chose another phrase, like “civil unions. We are letting the ACLU and extremists run us. We need to keep the pressure on to legalize “civil Unions” nation wide and for Federal rights. But why try to take something from another group? That is dumb

gay senior Said: “sam: just what exactly do you mean by “adult sexual lifestyle choices”???”

It means he thinks homosexuality is a choice, which means either Sam isn’t gay, or he’s writing from prison.

Sam,

First of all, the term marriage is not a religious term, it’s not owned by anyone. It’s wrong to allow religion to ‘own’ it out of bigotry, simple.

Secondly you said, “What happened to the tollerance that we DEMAND, is not the other side allowed the same tollerance?”

The other side is not being tolerant by voting to ban gays from being able to marry. Would you be tolerant of blacks by voting to ban blacks from marrying whites? No, of course not. The same applies to gay marriage – it doesn’t matter WHY or HOW they justify being intolerant, it is still being intolerant.

Gay aren’t protesting to make straight marriages illegal or protesting to make religion illegal. Gay people are protesting the fact that other people voted to make them less, to have TAKEN AWAY their legal right to marry.

If the same thing had happen to straight people they would be protesting as well.

Don’t forget that what happened in California was that the right to marry for gay people was taken away. It was declared a fundamental right for gay people to have – this has not happened anywhere else in the country.

RJLigier,
“Do you honestly believe that the plethora of nationalities within CA does not have to competence to ascertain whether they believe LGBT behavior is innate or learned?”

Yes.

“That’s the height of narcissistically hostile behavior toward individuals that are not neurotic and recognize the difference between neuroses and immutable characteristics.”

No it’s not. Think of it this way:

Is religious practice and belief immutable? No, it’s not.

Is following the teachings of Christ or Muhammed immutable or innate?
No, it’s not.

Does that therefore mean a particular religious belief and its practice should not be protected as a fundamental right since it is not immutable and/or innate?

See the problem with that kind of argument regarding human rights?

Look at another example involving interracial marriages:

Is it immutable and/or innate for a black person to CHOOSE to marry a white person instead of a black person?

Is marriage immutable or innate itself? Considering how the definition of marriage has changed throughout history and how people divorce and re-marry all the time or choose not to marry at all – I think you would have to say that marriage itself is not immutable nor is it innate.

See what happens when you start to argue the basis for human rights like that?
Now you tell me how many religious people who argue that homosexuality should not be treated equally regarding civil rights because they believe it is a choice would also support religion being treated the same way, since any particular religious belief and its practice is itself obviously a choice?

Now read again your qout at the beginning of this post..

Thank you Sam for everything you said.Plant or not You are so right. All adult lifestyles are a choice.