Much examination has been done of late on the strategic missteps taken by Equality California and others opposing anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives. For example, statistician and political analyst Nate Silver writes:
When gay marriage is polled, it is almost always framed as a positive right, as in: "should the government permit Adam and Steve to get married?".... But there is a different way to frame the question that is no less fair, and flips the issue on its head. Namely: "should the government be allowed to prohibit Adam and Steve from getting married?" ... And it turns out that if you frame a polling question in this particular way...you get a very different set of responses. Take a look at what happens:
When USA Today asks whether gay marriage is a private decision, or rather whether government has the right to pass laws which regulate it, 63 percent say it's a private decision. This contrasts significantly with all other polling on gay marriage. The highest level of support gay marriage has received in the more traditional, positive-rights framing is 49 percent....
[A]dvocates for same-sex marriage can do a better job of framing their argument. Generally speaking, appeals to government noninterference are fairly popular; people don't like government telling them what they do and they don't have the right to do....
Equality California was still stuck in the positive rights paradigm. Gay marriage was something given to California by the state Supreme Court in its benevolent wisdom, not an intrinsic (negative) right for which the government had a duty of noninterference.
And this week, the Washington Post's God and Government blog posted Gay Rights Groups Ignored Religion on Prop. 8, noting a report that shows:
Gay-rights groups made a major strategic error in their failed effort to stop California's Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage, by ignoring the faith community and trying to make their case purely on secular grounds....
During the Prop. 8 campaign, the report said, pro-gay religious leaders who opposed the measure were told not to use the religious language of their traditions to voice their opposition to the measure and, when they were finally encouraged to speak out as people of faith, it was too late.
I'm aware that hindsight is 20/20. But we'll see if, going forward, the strategic mistakes of the past - mistakes premised on "progressive" tropes of demanding positive rights from government and appeals to secularism - are corrected.
6 Comments for “Learning from Our Mistakes”
posted by Regan DuCasse on
I have already signed on to volunteer to repeal Prop. 8, but I am concerned about the strategy AND how to posit why the repeal is necessary.
It might not have to be posed as an issue of MARRIAGE rights, but the damage done to the Constitution and it’s NON PROTECTION of marriage, marriage tradition or families and children.
It would make more sense to point out that religious institutions are ALREADY protected and the redundancy of having to name that all over again.
More importantly that the Constitution is about several amendments that protect minorities from tyranny, from unequal access to Constitutional protections and that hetero couples are responsible from marriage to marriage as INDIVIDUALS to protect the integrity of marriage and not base that on the backs of gay people.
The public has a LOT to learn about the creed and definition of the Constitution too.
And THAT is where I would start.
posted by David Link on
I think strategic considerations are important during an election, since there is a fixed target with defined language and ends laid out.
What is most fascinating to me about this effort (and what makes me so hopeful) is that we are actively engaging the citizenry now *outside* the context of them being voters. Right now, they’re just our fellow community members. Since we don’t have an immediate need to persuade them or convince them or urge them, I think events like the Fresno rally and others give us some freedom to simply talk with people, share our perspectives and stories, and get to know them in the same way we’re letting them get to know us.
And what that means is that nothing we do now will be wrong. It’s all good.
posted by David Heersink on
Finally, we completely and totally agree.
It wasn’t just the positive rights claims that caused the problem, as any Californian saw the proponents of Prop. 8 use tape of Mayor Gavin Newsom threatening voters with his, “whether you like it or not,” rhetoric. Even my parents, who defend SSM, voted FOR Prop. 8, because they dislike threats of “whether you like it or not.” (Besides, Beloved and I have no intention after 25 years of becoming “married” as we regard as regressive from the natural facts of pair bonding.) The tape only ran frequently in the Bay Area, already conceded by Prop 8, but Southern California and Central California made the 2% difference, mostly from the Prop 8 campaign running the tape of the mayor.
Equality California, as you know, is a joke. Who vacations the final two weeks BEFORE an election? Geoff Kors is pathetic, as are the rest of EQCA.
posted by TS on
The positive/negative right framing concept is an interesting study in rhetoric and attitude measuring, because I must assume our switching voters hold a consistent attitude from question to question.
The one thing that unsettles me me is that the “it’s still wrong, but I concede to privacy” idea still fails in the long run. For example, opponents of pro-life are pro-choice, not pro-abortion, and a great many of them are actually personally opposed to abortion. And they are, for the first time since the question has been asked, losing in the polls.
I am pro-abortion, not pro-choice. I don’t merely think people should stay out of women’s business, I that a) life is not magic or sacred and that the termination of a fetus with no quality of life or attachment to the ethically ledgered community is not wrong, and b) a prospective mother’s decision to terminate her pregnancy if she doubts her ability to provide quality of life for the prospective child is right.
Similarly, I am pro-gay, not pro-privacy. I don’t merely think people should stay out of my business, I think that a) homosexuality and gay relationships harm nobody and are not wrong, and b) a homosexual’s decision to have gay relationships and perhaps even get gay married is right.
I don’t believe that the positive/negative right dichotomy is really tapping into a deeper split between people over their ideas about the proper role of government. Sadly, such nuances seem to be above most activists. They cheer when their cause wins a battle and boo when it loses, regardless of whether government grows or shrinks.
posted by Catherine on
As a Prop 8 volunteer, I noticed a lot of petty partisan politics going on.
1. Gay Democrats and Republicans could not — would not — work together professionally. Made all sorts of snide comments and had little interest in appealing to Independents.
2. The arguments put forth by the videos were generally flawed and did not address the core concerns — however misguided — of people who can be reached, but are not socially liberal, secular or libertarian.
3. Same-sex couples outside of California were basically told to focus everything on winning this State. Many gays were needless pushed to the side, and came out feeling a bit ticked off that California gays (with civil unions) were demanding to the central of gay usa, while same-sex couples in other states have nothing, zip, nada.
posted by The Gay Species on
The entire “rights” language is misplaced. What most people respond to is the “equality” argument. But that requires something more than the “will to power” of activists, it requires a sustained argument by advocates. After 40 years of advocacy, it only takes a village of queer activism to alienate the public — and individuals with some smarts to exploit it.