Subscribe to Breaking NewsVanasco: Obama artist makes gay marriage poster
The amazing Shepard Fairey – who designed the ubiquitous Barack Obama campain image with Obama’s profile in heroic colors – revealed today his Defend Equality poster, which is a protest against Proposition 8.
I like this image, a fist raised in solidarity – or anger – with sunbursts radiating from it.
It is similar in message to the No on H8 poster that’s been circulating – in that case, a rainbow fist.
Both images are interesting, I think, because they’re not about convincing others to join our cause, or portraying us as loving families who are devestated about having our rights taken away. Instead, they are visual calls to action for gays and lesbians to stand and fight for our rights.
Both images, also, are kind of – militant. I wonder if this is a new phase of the gay civil rights movement. Certainly we have seen a lot of anger directed at Mormons and African-Americans. I wonder if this anger, turned to (hopefully positive) action, is the beginning of some kind of Gay Power movement.
The image certainly captures the feeling of gays and lesbians at the moment.
What do you think? Is this image saying what we want it to? What should the slogan of the gay marriage movement be?
It follows Kate Kendalls rewording of Kubler-Ross FIVE Stages of Grief, for our cause… SHOCK,ANGER,BLAME,ACTION, RESOLVE.
ACTION: Defend RESOLVE: it be Equality…our Righteous Cause:
LOVE Unites…us all.
The poster is terrific.
I carried it at our protest march in New Haven last week, and got many comments on it.
I hope some savvy entrepreneur gets the rights to print it on tee-shirts soon!
I love it, but some people are going to think it’s too militant. Screw ‘em. I’ve written a book titled: “Sacred Cows Make the Best Hamburger – How to become a lion and devour the Christofascists, Fundamentalists, Reconstructionists and the rest of all the Right-Wing Christians.” Everyone likes the main title, but they cringe a bit at the words “devour” and “Christofascists”.
This poster makes me feel a bit vindicated about what I have thought all along: gays have always been on the DEfensive and never on the OFfensive. When people started coming out in the 70’s, they thought: “We’ll be accepted eventually after people see that we’re really good people.” That didn’t happen because we didn’t figure on the need for hatred on the part of the Christian Right. Prop 8 showed us just how much the Christian Right is willing to do to keep us down. AIDS helped them a lot in the 80s and 90s, but then people began to see how insensitive the CR was. To this day, the Southern Baptist Convention’s 4300 churches have never sponsored a faith-based AIDS agency (even though they have some in Africa).
While I love and revere the rainbow flag (I think it has many different meanings) I think the poster will take us in a new direction. Always remember: we are dealing with people who NEED to hate and to scapegoat other people. Most of them, of course, are very stupid “sheeple” but their leaders are power-hungry.
Also think of it this way: there are two kind of “Elmers” on their side of the culture war: Elmer Gantrys and Elmer Fudds. Just remember that Fudd is the one with the gun!
the irony of this poster is that while one faction of the our outraged brothers and sisters are venting their ire at the Black community for not supporting No on 8, the poster usurps the most militant aspect of the African Americans quest for equal rights. I see Black Panthers, Malcom X, and reto far-left 1970s Anti-War activism. Its been done. It is time to move on with a new never-before-seen icon. As I see it, our goal is not necessarity love (we’ve never needed a licence to have that) but demanding our constitutional legal rights to our share of the economic pie, tax benefits and universal recognition of our committed relationship.
Finally, my personal opinion is that we gays need to discard the fruity-tuity rainbow banners. What the hell do those really convey? Burn all the rainbow crap – then gather up the chared blackened ashes and use them as the color of our power and our new awareness. Out of the ashes there must be re-birth, hope, determination, and demands for our civil equality. I dare say there is no reward for being politically pretty and sweet anymore!
Thank goodness. I can hang this up on my desk and feel empowered. I am not waving around rainbows I am simply demanding for my rights.
Recently, today matter of fact, I was threatened to be fired because of my “lifestyle”. In todays economy they, my superiors would honestly consider firing both me and my wife for loving each other? Taking away our income and stability, temporarily of course.
We will never lose hope in this movement, because that is exactlly what this is. Not a phase or a gimick, it is our turn, it is me and my wife’s turn, our friends turn.
Our future kids will not be raised in a world where children kill children because of hatred taught by the State, not if I have anything to say about it.
This poster is excellent and well thought out work.
Thank the Lord – some sense. The compulsively vulgar drag queens and mincing middle-aged gays with their culture of infantilism are what drove Prop. 8. The problem with the rest of the non-straight is that nobody can see them, because they look just like people.
Thanks for venting – the mincers need to be constantly reminded that “I gotta be me” doesn’t mean you gotta be your most vulgar, preening eternally adolescent you at noon in public at a pride rally. If I had a son who looked to be turning into that, I’d probably panic too, because it is so unhealthy and a denial of the natural stages of human development across a lifetime.
Perhaps, rather than a single, white-appearing fist, many hands (crossing racial lines) joined together would communicate union that transcends boundaries. Any other symbols should be omitted. Perhaps, rather than leaving the construction of a movement’s symbols, its language, and its strategies to the disembodied voices of the internet, our community should be gathering together in a single place – a convention – to write the GLBTQ Declaration of Citizens’ Rights. It is good that we are being radicalized and that protests are happening; like a body fighting an infection musters its defenses. What needs to happen following the protests is collective understanding and planning. We need to focus now.
we must be angry about ignorance, not about mormons and african americans. it seems that most of the readers on this site are caucasian, because comments reflect an US(gays) vs. them (non-white) division, which is unacceptable. This division makes it even harder for non-caucasians to come out as community members will say things like “oh, only white people are gay” or “only americans are gay” (ie in the asian american community). RESPECT ALL; UNITE AGAINST IGNORANCE.
Just don’t feel good about this poster. Too many negative connotations. Reminds me of angry fisting. Sorry. That’s what I see.
I LOVE IT. It’s strong and effective. I saw many of them at the rally today at City Hall in New York City. He is an amazing artist with strong visual acumen.
I agree with the many who commented that it looks like a Communist Workers Party poster. Am I the only one who noticed the Wiccan symbol in the circle to the lower left of the poster?
I think this poster sums up exactly where we are and where we are headed. It is powerful and gives the sense that we are serious.
I also will add that what happened in CA has really mobilized this movement at a grassroots level and it is exactly what we need to effectively move this issue forward.
We have a constitution that is suppose to protect our rights. A popular vote to take rights away is simply unconstitutional, period!
Just like the Obama posters, this looks like Stalin era politics.
The message is strong but I could do without the communist iconography.
Personal opinion the rainbow has a place but it does portray us as float on your toes and shake your ass kinda people and I like what’s going on right now we found a voice and that voice will grow and keep moving across this country until they HAVE to hear us we are citizens,tax payers and real people and it’s time we stop dancing around everyone and put our lives in their face so they have to see us for too long we have had one strategy which will still work electing people to our gov. that know our lives is great but there has to be more and i think we have finally realized that it will take MANY initiatives going on all at once but i think we can do it
LOVE IT and where can one be purchased/printed off? Also, even though we lost in CA hopefully this will be the straw that broke the camels back and will finally unit the movement.