Source: Washington Post
In an op-ed column published Wednesday, Joe Mathews of the progressive think tank New America Foundation calls the campaign waged to maintain marriage equality in California a "strategic disaster" that has squandered "the considerable political momentum that same-sex marriage had here."
TV ads have been unfocused and confusing, and the far more disciplined Yes on 8 campaign has dominated the narrative in the newspapers and other media. The No campaign recently brought in new public relations and media consultants in the kind of last-minute shake-up that is characteristic of floundering campaigns.
He is distressed that the campaign that started out trying to appeal to Californians' sense of fairness has devolved into messages that sometimes appeal to religious bigotry.
Related in Qnews: Commentary: Mormon stand on Prop. 8 oozes unfortunate irony 2-Nov-08
The appeal to fairness that was the underlying message as the No-on-8 campaign began didn't work.
Polls show that the measure, which would strip from gay and lesbian couples the right to get marriage licenses in the state, could pass. The most recent poll taken by the respected Field Poll showed the measure trailing by only five percentage points with seven percent still undecided. A Field Poll taken in September, before a barrage of advertising on the issue started, showed it trailing by 17 points. Other recent polls have shown an even tighter split.
Mathews attributes the surge in support partly to a highly successful advertising campaign by amendment supporters:
The Yes on 8 campaign has been cynically skillful in changing the subject from whether gays deserve marriage equality to more highly charged questions. Will churches be sued for refusing to marry gay couples? Or will young children have to be taught about same-sex marriage in schools? Both claims, advanced in Yes on 8 ads, have little basis in fact. California education leaders have been particularly adamant in refuting the latter. But these denials have served the purposes of the Yes on 8 campaign by focusing attention on schools and churches rather than on the needs of gay couples.
But, at its heart, the campaign against marriage equality in California is a religious campaign.
According to a right-wing Christian website, "thousands" of pastors in the state have been participating in bi-weekly web-based conferences designed to help them "stay encouraged and on message." Three satellite simulcast rallies linked hundreds of churches across California with a common message encouraging discrimination against gay and lesbian couples.
The right-wing churches have also recruited "thousands", according to the right-wing site's report, who have phoned lists of church members, encouraging them to vote in support of Proposition 8.
Other volunteers -- mostly Mormons -- have gone door-to-door throughout California's 1,600 zip codes to poll likely voters, identifying those opposed to equality for marriage.
Families at one of those satellite-beamed political rallies held in churches were to urged to cast absentee ballots in advance of the election, so that they would be free to help get voters identified in the doorbelling campaign to the polls on election day.
It's a vast campaign that has left supporters of marriage equality overwhelmed.
The No-on-8 campaign admitted in September that it had been blindsided by the vast sums raised by the anti-gay campaign, much of which came from members of the Mormon church.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormon church, has made unusually direct appeals to its members nationwide to support Prop 8 with their time, money or both. And Mormons have responded. By some estimates, more than one-half of the $30 million-plus in donations in favor of Prop 8 has come from members of the church.
Watching the floundering No-on-8 campaign, Mathews is distressed at what he sees as an ultimately harmful message now being offered by some who are working to defeat Prop 8. He sees religious bigotry in the messages coming from some supporters of marriage equality:
So, in these desperate final weeks, the new campaign team for No on 8 has adopted a tough, closing message that may yet salvage victory for same-sex marriage. The message? The people behind the ban are Mormons.
He points out that this might be a successful strategy since religion had a 25 percent favorable rating in one recent survey, and because the church has a "complicated" history regarding marriage. Although, the mainline LDS church ended polygamy in 1890, some offshoots of the religion still condone it.
So Mormons are a tempting target. But by raising the issue of Mormon support for the ban, supporters of same-sex marriage, who have spent decades battling religious prejudice, are now in the awkward position of profiting from religious prejudice.
Mathews calls the tactic a "high-risk" move that might work for this campaign, but it likely to do great harm to the long-term prospects for genuine recognition that gay and lesbian couples deserve to be treated like other couples by the country's laws.
In its final days, the campaign in California feels less like a debate over the nature of marriage and more like a low-down discussion of which is creepier: gay sex or Mormons?
The No on 8 campaign may well prevail in that argument, and a win is usually a win in politics. But that's not true when it comes to advancing a controversial change in a major social institution. An ugly victory in California under such circumstances doesn't provide much of a foundation to advance same-sex marriage rights in the rest of the country.
Source: The Wrong Way to Win Gay Marriage Rights | Washington Post