IF there's another California ballot measure, should our GLBT ads this time...

[David Zephyr]

Is turn around, fair play?

If the Mormons and the Catholics choose to run slanderous, malicious, hate-inspiring, degrading ads filled with lies about our GLBT community as they did in '08, then shouldn't turn around be fair play?

Shouldn't the GLBT community at least consider running ads about the history of the Mormon and Catholic Church abuses here?

If they can spread blatant LIES about our community, then shouldn't we consider telling the TRUTH about theirs?

I say fight fire with fire.

Why should we sit by passively while these monstrous bullies who use tax exempt dollars to advertise against us and hurt us?

Believe me, the very instant that we began to run television and radio ads about their polygamy, about their child rape, about their hiding sexual predators and shuffling them around obstructing justice, and about their absolutely fucking kooky dogmas, the Mormons and the Catholics would shut the fuck up. Maybe we should let them know that we are considering doing this IF there is a next time. Maybe we should put them on fucking notice this time.

One television ad with Roger Mahoney's fucking face on television with his loathesome activities would have these fuckers running for the hills.

When a bully hits you, you knock their teeth out. They get away with this only because they are convinced that we would not retaliate against them. They bank on it. And we lose because of it.

[HillbillyBob]

1. Like you say..go for their guts, lets hang out all the oogly truths.

nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. I'd say 'go to town' with the Mormons.

There's not that many of them and most people don't really like them anyway.

It's more complicated with the RC church. There are many more ... at least nominal... RCs. And the hierarchy likes to take advantage of any opportunity to falsely portray the church as a victim of discrimination. This might resonate with less sophisticated Californians.

The bishops are pretty good at this. There's a quote from Voltaire to the effect that Christianity *must* be divine; how else to explain its survival after 2000 years of uninterrupted "villainy and nonsense".

[sjdnb]

3. The Catholics (as long as they are attached to Rome) will never budge

and the Mormons are not to be trusted/are just freaking nuts. Their recent 'supportive' statements were just political ploys/a con job as is just about everything thing this 'church' has ever done. As a logical person, I don't get religion, but I really don't get Scientology and Mormonism. The whole Golden tablet thing, Eden in Missouri, Aliens dropping something/somebody into a mountain? How can anyone take these people seriously?

There was a time when the Catholic Church in America did good (maybe great) things. Standing for civil rights, anti-war, feeding the poor ... but, as of the late 70's/early 80's the CC became a political arm of whoever could donate more to keep their folk in robes and gold.

[allanrbrts]

4. NO!

Why? To piss off and push away all the Christians & Mormons who are on our side?

NO! This accomplishes nothing.

You can't lump the bad leadership of the Mormon Church and Catholic leaders, as the sound beliefs of all within those groups.

There are many Catholics and Mormons who side with us. Actions like this only rally the base, the majority who make up the "left." It doesn't impact those in the middle, the majority of people we must impact.

This is the reason why I love the Empowering Spirits Foundation's approach to this issue.

http://www.facebook.com/empoweringspirits

[mitchtv]

5. good idea

a picture of a robed Bishop (or Pope Ratzo) attacking Gays cut to a priest with a little boy on his lap. Comment "Gays are a danger to our kids?"> I'm sure the African Americans would love to hear some quotes from the Book of Mormon

[David Zephyr]

6. Even if the ads were made and not launched, it would quell their zeal.

They know they live in glass houses and they are afraid of having stones thrown back at them.

Your ad concept is rooted in truth. Their ads they paid for against us were rooted in lies.

[mitchtv]

9. Good luck getting any network or station to broadcast it

never gonna happen, no matter how tasteful

[David Zephyr]

10. Ah, but just the existence is enough. And then there is the internet and youtube.

It will happen all on it own IF there is a next time.

[dsc]

7. We were total idiots last time

We ignored the African American community. The history of the Mormon church vis a vis the African American community is downright awful and should have been exploited. African American newspapers should have been replete with ads about that history, as should have African American radio stations. The tagline, haters then, haters now, just who will they hate next.

[David Zephyr]

8. Yep. And IF there's another ballot measure we should spotlight that history.

I agree.

We were wimps. We let them spread horrible lies (I saw those fucking ads in my home night after night) and we worry about telling the truth about them? We're nuts.

[ShadowLiberal]

11. Those ads won't work for us, they turn out the base in the short run, but hurt you in the long run

The reason why those kind of ads won't work for us, but work for the other side is because of national trend. It also works better for the other side because it's a lot easier for us to convince someone who opposes gay marriage to support it if we discuss & rationalize it with them enough. It's MUCH more difficult for the bigots to get a person who supports gay marriage to change their minds and oppose it.

The bigots know this, that's why go for slash and burn ads even if they know it'll blow up in their face in the form of local news media debunking their claims. They know their base is easier to motivate to come out and vote then ours, so they try to take advantage of it with those kinds of vile disgusting ads.

If we tried the exact same thing we'd run into problems for several reasons.

1) We'd likely offend some of the very people who changing their minds gradually in our favor over the years, boosting support for gay marriage by 1 or 2 points a year. Offending them by bashing their religion could very well set us back in the short and long run.

2) The fact is unfortunately it's a lot harder to motivate our side to come out and vote. The other side is very monolithic, they mostly oppose gay marriage for the exact same reasons, and it's easier to think up a ad to motivate most of them to come out and vote because they're all so similar. Our side however is much more diverse for why people support gay marriage, and what motivates them. You have some who find the opposition to gay marriage silly, but who can't even be bothered to vote in most elections because of voter apathy. You have some who are gay or know someone who's gay are more likely to show up and vote on gay marriage issues no matter what. And we have lots more different kinds of supporters to.

The bigot's strategy of running those vile disgusting ads of lies may be working in the short term, but it's hurting them in the long run, just look at how much faster support for gay marriage has been growing in recent years, we've passed the 40% mark nationally, and some outlier national polls even claim we're ahead a bit (though they are still definitely outliers).

[David Zephyr]

12. I think you underestimate the cowardice of the bully.

I ask in my OP is it should be considered. I don't support ballot measures on my civil rights as they are unconstitutional. I think my position is firmly established here on that subject.

If there's another ballot measure, I suspect that the last moment surprise we endured (by their smear ad campaign against our community on television and on radio) will not go unpunished this time. There will be retaliation. The GLBT community is not monolithic and we have no appointed leaders. That is, in my opinion, a great strength, not a drawback.

Consider the myriad of independent, brilliant internet ads by Obama enthusiasts against Hillary during the primaries including, but not limited to that single amazing Macintosh ad. Those ads were not from the Obama campaign, but were created by his supporters acting in a very effective decentralized way.

Our GLBT community is very creative and I don't think that the Mormon leadership and Roger Mahoney are going to want to see their faces in mini ads (televised or not) circulating on the internet with their sordid histories exposed.

The one thing I have learned for certain in my life is that every bully is always a real coward.

[mitchtv]

13. May a thousand Gay Freewway bloggers bloom

street theater, flash mobs, real leaders need to step foward. Meet the Catholics and their Prot allies on Sunday morning with gross photos of children maimed in their acceptable war and of the Gay martyrs assinated by Xians. Oh Christ where are the sixties when you need them?


* edit to add DISRUPT , DISRUPT , DISRUPT

[David Zephyr]

14. You are so my kind of guy.

The chains and leg irons around our ankles in our GLBT community did not just miraculously fall away. Every victory we have won came from pushing, demanding and making noise.

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will," said the great Frederick Douglass. The heterosexual majority in this nation did not wake up one day and feel magnanimous and decide to decriminalize homosexuality, to extend domestic partnership rights within corporations, municipalities, to create hate crime protections within some states and finally at the federal level, and more without our demanding it for a very long time.

And younger GLBT sisters and brothers should know that we had to use every tool in our toolkit to secure these rights from polished diplomacy and negotiation and winning hearts to in-their-face activism, outrageous behavior from the likes of ACTUP, Larry Kramer and those rock throwing drag queen heroes at Stonewall in 1969.

Yeah, out-fucking-rageous behavior with the demand. That demand that Frederick Douglass spoke about.

The film "Milk" clearly showed how nefarious those nervous nellies, those Knob Hill queers were in the 1970's and how they felt it necessary to lecture Harvey Milk about pushing too hard, being too demanding, about being so outrageous. Well, history always proves cowards wrong.

You write: "May a thousand Gay Freeway bloggers bloom street theater, flash mobs, real leaders need to step forward." ABSOLUTELY. That's why I like you so much and we have to have lunch together again.

[mitchtv]

15. I've been to a few very nasty demonstrations

Jailed for one, too old to go again, but i'll buy donuts!

[hypocrisyandlies]

16. I don't think so...

While I would love to see those commercials, I think you would just be hurting your cause and alienating a good portion of the people you want voting your way.

[dickthegrouch]

17. I wish we had used some obfuscation though

I suggested to the campaign leaders a very simple ad:

Video of Joe Biden from the VP debate:
"Neither Obama nor I support changing Marriage in California"
Voice-over
"Don't change marriage in California. Vote "No" on Prop 8".

Very simple, extremely cheap to make - should have been very effective.

They wouldn't even consider it!!!!

I'm still sore about that.

[beyurslf]

18. A big problem that liberals have is fighting "fair" and being "civil" when our

opponents never do. We should not only tell all of their horrible abuses, we should go ahead and characterize it in the most extreme way possible. They will hold NAMBLA as a normal gay rights group, so we should hold up Phelps as a normal Christian group.

[David Zephyr]

19. Spot on observations.

You summed it all up quiet well. The example you provide is classic and representative of why we lose to the bully/cowards.

We win when we fight and demand, just as Frederick Douglass pointed out.

We lose when we let them push us around and we only whine about it.

Thanks, beyurslf.

[beyurslf]

20. Thank you! I get tired of losing the battle and then standing around saying how we fought

a good fight and they fought dirty. Guess what? The people who WIN, still win regardless of their dirty fighting and feeling good about myself for fighting fair means NOTHING when they take away our rights!

[mitchtv]

21. you are soooo right

I don't care how many concern trolls this thread gets

[David Zephyr]

23. "concern trolls"

You rock.

[queerunity]

22. The New Less is Moron Parody

Well this whole spreading their truth can be started with this new Betty Bowers clip.

http://www.miketidmus.com/blog/2009/11/23/mrs-betty-bowers-less-is-mormon/

[mitchtv]

24. that's perfect

on to my FB page