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Loading ...Vote for Equality gets the message
While we’ve had some lovely judicial and legislative victories lately, you may have noticed that the LGBT community doesn’t necessarily do well when it comes to ballot measures. In fact, according to Vote for Equality educators David Fleischer and Regina Clemente, we’ve lost 33 of the last 34 ballot initiatives relating to same-sex marriage.
Vote for Equality is working to change that with a bold, smart social science experiment. So many people wailed, “What were they thinking?” after the Prop 8 results that Vote for Equality decided to find out.Vote for Equality is the organizing arm of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, and with the help of dozens of volunteers, they are organizing a “1,000-hour conversation” – one-on-one conversations with California residents to find out what people really think about gay marriage through door-to-door canvassing and phone banking.
By studying the conversations we have, we can gain insight about what really moves people and learn how to make future campaigns more effective.
The canvassing is combined with a fascinating look at ad campaigns from past ballot initiatives. Taking a hard, honest look at what has and hasn’t worked in the past will help us make more persuasive campaigns in the future.
One of the most important focuses of the messaging trainings is on understanding the point of view of the opposition or the undecided voter. Ads that move us won’t necessarily reach someone outside the community.
A voter who is strongly opposed to gay marriage won’t respond to an ad that just tells her she’s wrong – she’ll probably just dig her heels in even harder. And a voter who isn’t tuned in to the gay marriage debate won’t necessarily be moved by things that are meaningful to those of us who are.
Reaching that tuned-out or undecided voter is tricky. It’s important to have a clear message – and to repeat it. A voter who half-sees a commercial while he’s making dinner and talking on the phone needs to see it five to ten times before the message really sinks in.
And about those messages…
Fleischer and Clemente’s first session focused on contrasting the ads the GLBT community tends to use with the ads of anti–gay marriage activists. Ads for our team tend to be focused on fairness and rationality, because duh: If you really think it out, same-sex marriage bans make no sense.
Unfortunately, the other side bypasses the brain and goes straight for the gut and the adrenal glands. Our commercials sit the voter down for a nice chat over a cup of herbal tea. The other side grabs him by the lapels and starts screaming about how the gays are going legally force him to turn his church into a venue for naked gay circuit parties and there is NOTHING HE’LL BE ABLE TO DO ABOUT IT.
And with a lot of voters, that wins. You can’t think rationally when you’re panicking. It’s like asking someone to finish up her taxes before dealing with the zombie attack.
Ads from anti–gay marriage forces tend to focus on loss of control (“It will be illegal for your church to voice its views on homosexuality”) and wide-eyed children being turned gay by storybooks. In other words, they jab at the voter’s instincts to defend his rights and protect the innocent.
Both of those themes come up over and over, so we need to stop being surprised by them and deliver quick responses. And since the other side is already working of the voter’s emotions, it might be time to be less afraid of using emotional messages ourselves.
We don’t have to whip up the hysteria any further, but getting people in touch with a different set of feelings can’t hurt. In training for door-to-door canvassing, we learned to talk about personal experiences rather than falling back on detached logical arguments. It’s scarier, yes, but it does get the conversation going.
Perhaps the hardest – and most interesting – challenge is learning to empathize the voters who are against gay marriage. As hurtful as they’ve been to the LGBT community, most of them don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “Myoohoohahaha! Can’t wait to get started on the oppressing!” And most would be offended at the suggestion that they’re bigots.
Starting a debate by jabbing a finger in someone’s face and telling that he’s wrong and an awful person will cause him to shut down. It certainly won’t help him change his mind.
As hard as it is sometimes, we need to assume the best and give people credit for being the good people they are sincerely trying to be. That’s when we can get a real dialogue going instead of just a slogan-shouting competition.
There are a lot of questions to be answered – and hours and hours of conversations to go – but Vote for Equality is making some exciting progress toward creating clear, direct, honest messages that can help change minds.
On the other hand, what if we made a really awesome commercial about a storm instead?
To learn more or volunteer for Vote for Equality, contact the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center.
New marriage equality site! http://whatmarriagemeans.org/
Thank God, finally someone with sense. The people who voted for Prop 8 generally aren’t bad people, they were just mislead and uninformed. Heart-to-heart talks and true communication is the only thing that will change that, and change their minds.
It sounds like a great idea, but I’m not going to hold my breath. I’ve had hundreds of conversations about marriage equality in the last few years, and if someone has a religious objection to homosexuality, they are completely closed to any conversation about it with a known “homosexual activist”, which is how they see canvassers. That doesn’t mean they can’t be moved, but it can’t be done by talking with strangers. It has to be someone close to them who comes out of the closet.
The religious right is what is standing in our way. They are numerous, influential and don’t mind lying about us. Their congregations do not, in large part have any daily interactions with openly gay people, so they don’t know they’re being lied to.
The most commonly heard lies for Jesus today include:
1) Gays are unhealthy, and die young most of the time. This nasty “lifestyle” shouldn’t be encouraged or sanctioned by the state including marriage rights.
2) Gays are much, much more likely to be child sexual predators. Allowing marriage equality for pedophiles is linked to bestiality, incest, etc.
3) Gays aren’t able to reproduce, so they have to recruit in order to maintain their numbers. So any attempt to achieve marriage equality is seen as a means of removing societal disapproval, and gaining closer access to kids they can recruit.
4) Gays choose to be gay, and it’s a bad choice, so if the government encourages bad choices, then impressionable young people might be more likely to make those bad, unhealthy choices.
Obviously, there is no logic to any of these lies. They are not even plausible lies. But to someone who has no close gay friends or relatives who are open, they cannot see how obviously wrong those lies are. They have no evidence to the contrary, and their religious leaders aren’t going to present them with any. And they aren’t likely to seek any out, as most of the conservative religious denominations do not encourage dissent or dialogue, just blind faith and unquestioning loyalty and obedience.
The only benefit to dialogues with strangers about marriage equality is that in rare cases, I’ve had people say I was the very first openly gay person they’d ever spoken to. Amazing, especially since I live in MA, where we are protected by law, and have had marriage equality for five years. But it’s true. So they get to see with their own eyes that we’re not creepy, sleezy or stupid. And if they are willing to listen at all, then they may hear about our love and commitment for our own families and loved ones, and recognize the similarity with their own.
Canvassing works amazingly well with those who aren’t particularly or unusually religious, but isn’t terribly effective with those who are. But it may help galvanize our community as well, which is also a huge part of the battle. We have to learn to be much more visible, and organized.
This is an incredibly astute and keen observation which has been unfortunately overlooked – and I hope that our organizers take notice. What has been overlooked is familiarity. I would guess that a huge majority of voters against gay issues have never had any meaningful interaction and are left to believe the shock tactics of the conservatives. To them, we are the zombies – they have to learn we won’t eat them….
I really hope something constructive comes out of this. After watching the anti-gay marriage ads I really wanted to see an ad with a child heartbroken that their parents couldn’t get married, and having to explain their parents relationship at school and being totally confused and upset by the responses. We need to viscerally show what effect this has on our families. I don’t want to whip up hysteria, but I do want voters to know what they are doing when they walk into the ballot box.
Personally, I would rather see us winning many more states with civil unions (or domestic partnerships) equal to marriage, except for the name.
Since we have much more support with a marriage equivalent, it would be more difficult for our opponents to overturn our victories.
If we were pushing for civil unions, we would have many more vocal supporters, including the President, VP, many Governors as well as many Republican moderates and independents.
After we won Federal recognition, we could work for marriage equality through the courts.
This sounds great and all… but what makes you think they will even bother to give us a second of their time let alone an entire conversation in their homes or over the phone? People dont want to hear what we have to say, and many of them dont even want to explain why they are against gay marriage because deep down they know we will have a better reason why they should be for gay marriage. Plus we already know what they will say, and what they think about gay marriage: “God said its a sin!”, “You chose to be gay”, “Marriage is ment to be between a man and a woman”, “Its unnatural”, “Its a disease, you can be cured”. Its the same old stuff, except this time we are the ones to ask them what they think, instead of them just telling it to our face.
HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is what I have been waiting to hear for over a year! I’ll give money to this effort! Where’s the collection plate?
Why has it taken so long for this message to be understood by our “leaders(???)?”
For over a year what we have done is exactly what was said in this article: “let’s sit down and chit chat over a nice cup of herbal tea.” Yeah, BULL SHIT.
If the other side wants to grab the voters by the neck, we should grab them by the balls!! LET’S ROLL!
There are several books that discuss the Bible, specifically where it is claimed that it speaks against us. And these books are written by scholars who know what they are talking about. Those who rely on the Bible are totally ignorant of what is says and does not say and can be challenged with reasonable contridictions to their beliefs. There is NO reason to roll over on any of these issues, NONE.
“dealing with the zombie attack”. Great now I’m in the mood to play Left 4 Dead on XBox. Gamer Tag: Aiden Raccoon. Who’s in?
I can’t for the life of me understand why you or any other gay person, wants or needs the approval of the straight community, their certainly not looking for ours!
I don’t need or want anyone to accept me, especially the religious right, and lets face it, that’s the enemy.
Have you ever heard or seen any black person during or after the civil rights movement, trying to get the southern kinfolk into an accepting enlightened conversation!
Oh, and the Jews probably didn’t have the right speaking strategy for Hitlers Germany to accept them.
My equal civil rights should never be put to a vote, they are not something the straight community, nor a religious one, have the power, I repeat power, to give and take from me.
I will not give anyone the power to allow, or deny me my equal civil rights, Not only do I demand, I am by law entitled to them, in spite of what anyone feels, believes. or thinks.
Come to my door and I will sit you down with the Bible…you know, the book that our Founding Fathers valued so highly. They wrote our Constitution and Bill of Rights with Christianity in mind. Read their papers. Our country’s values are built on the Bible. You can mock me, get angry at me, hurt me but I believe in the teachings of the Bible.
Homosexuality is not a civil rights movement…not even close. Sin is sin is sin. I am amazed at the lack of ‘tolerance’ of homosexuals toward heterosexuals. Homosexuals react like hateful little children when they don’t get their way. Just look at the response to Carrie Prejean, Miss USA. Where is the respect for opinion there? Where is the tolerance for diverse opinion? Where is the respect and tolerance for the Majority of Californian voters who passed Prop 8?
Don’t bother to rail against my Bible or my heterosexuality. Give a respectful comment, something that I can think about rather than close the door to you because of name calling. Respect my opinion and I’ll respect your opinion.
Gage, respect is a two way street. Where is your respect for my 30 years of a committed relationship? Where is your respect for my family. And be very careful when throwing that book you call God’s word around. My partner graduated for the Bible Institute of Los Angeles; studied the Bible in Greek. Any time you want to argue about what is or is NOT in your Bible be prepared to respond with what you studied, not what someone else told you to believe.
You believe in a FALSE god – a god created by man in the image of man to be used, as the Taliban does, to control mankind. Hiding behind your bible is like hiding behind a paper mache wall. Your god is a jealous, vengeful, hateful god. The TRUE GOD is the essense of Unconditional Love who knows none of those human characteristics. My GOD recognizes the love between two souls; gender is of no importance where love is concerned.
Gage, you have no idea what love is. Your version of love, like your god, is built on conditions. That is not love.
Too bad you have such a closed, evil, narrow mind. If not for that you could begin to use the brain with which you were born and realize that that book you call your bible is nothing other than a anchor around you neck. Your crowd works well with the Taliban and the other Islamic extremist. You operate on fear and ignorance.
You need not fear that granting gays the right to marry will ruin the institution of marriage. It is already ruined! Today’s marriages last an average of 5 years before ending in divorce. What’s to save?
Such hypocracy. How can you stand yourself?
Gage – THINK for yourself; ask quesions and don’t be afraid of the answers should they challenge what you have been forced to believe out of fear! It won’t make your hair hurt. Walk out of SHADOW and see the LIGHT!
Lb Gage, the majority of Californian voters who passed Prop. 8 will earn my respect and tolerance when they equally lose their right to marry.
lbGage, I’d respect your opinion more if you didn’t bring the Bible into every discussion about gays. This country wasn’t founded on the Bible, as you say, but on principles that guaranteed freedom and liberty to all. Do you understand the meaning of the word liberty? There was also that part that said there would be no state (read Government) sponsored religion because they’d seen what happens when you let one religion become law.
So now we have people of religious bent telling others what can and can’t be the law. Kinda goes against what the founders wanted, don’t you think? And then we have others who scream out how it’s a sin, all the while they’re committing sins of even bigger proportions against their fellow man (and woman).
Last but not least, I have no problem listening to the opinion of any person, but when that person claims to be such a profound Christian but has altered her body, not for her self but to look better for a freaking contest, well, it’s kinda like being a hypocrite in my mind. Want me to be a hypocrite too? Here I go, I don’t mind being told my feelings and committment to another human being is less than yours just because they’re aimed at someone of the same sex. I don’t mind having to move out of the home I lived in for 15 years because my partner died and their family won’t accept my partner’s will. And again, last but not least, I don’t mind not being able to be in the room with my partner as they die because the hospital won’t recognize our 15 year partnership as the loving committed relationship it has been without that piece of paper from the government that says we’re married, that we can’t get because religious folks like you want to preach your religion over my liberty.
The Bibles were written by men in an ancient time,but the words homosexual or marriage were never mentioned. It is not possible to respected people who viciousl transpose and create a literal bible to suit their own purposes and to hurt, harm, marginalize and kill homosexuals. CP is a phony evangelical who lied and broke her contract commitment by posing nude. Many of us believe in a different God, or religion, or credo but the homophobes ask us to treat them with respect, while they gay bash and terrorize the lgbt. They ask for respect while they take our(and our children’s) equal rights away. They refuse to recognize us but demand that we respect their equal rights to discriminate. Marriage equality is a civil, fundamental, inalienable right, and can not be taken away by popular ballot. Why are you so dedicated at destroying equal children of God?