James Oaksun, a Maine-based libertarian activist and analyst, has published what strikes me as an astute analysis of what went wrong for same-sex marriage advocates in Maine. It's available, in PDF format, here.
Like me and others, he argues that the pro-gay-marriage side must get beyond defensiveness and evasion on the schools issue, and he offers an interesting suggestion for taking the bull by the horns."Perhaps the framing is to talk about what modern society asks the schools to do. Educate, yes. But also prepare the leaders of tomorrow to function collaboratively in a diverse society. The reality of life is, yes, there are gay people and they are not going away."
Not bad. My own first-cut thought about a non-defensive message was "teaching kids that discrimination is wrong and that everyone deserves a family."
Time for some focus-group research?
In any case, it's good to see recognition spreading that, like it or not, we can't talk about same-sex marriage without also talking about teaching same-sex marriage.
Memo to the anti-SSM right: having picked this fight on education, be prepared to lose it. Sooner or later, teaching about gay marriage won't seem so scary. Your ads may even help normalize it.
6 Comments for “Learning from Maine”
posted by Ken Harvey on
This is on target, I think. The more we say, “Oh, no, we’d never talk about gay people in school,” the more we give the impression that there’s something wrong with such discussion. In fact, it will be impossible NOT to talk about it when, in a first grade class, two married dads drop off their daughter in the morning. We need to address this head-on, and deprive the anti-ssm forces of their fear tactics.
posted by Steven Barton on
During one health care town hall meeting this summer, the topic of government “indoctrination” in the schools came up. The crowd went ballistic! It was the most emotion-evoking issue of the evening. So when it comes to political campaigns over civil rights, it is critical that the matter of education curriculum be diffused. We cannot underestimate the magnitude of this issue.
posted by Amicus on
Sweet Annie Proulx, look at the rural correlations!
Looking at ‘buyer demos’ is only a part of designing (and evaluating) a strategic ad campaign. Accordingly, I’d take some exception to James’s strong conclusions about what is “abundantly clear”. Among other things, it is not clear that “advertising” ought not to be going on right now, post vote, in Maine, to prevent solidification of views, as part of _the long view_ of things, that folks like the Gill Foundation could finance, when on-the-spot contributions dry up, etc.
It’s plain that focus groups could be a big help. Summary stats only take one so far. Groups can tell how and why people were influenced, _if at all_. Also, they can tell you more about these groups that James thinks should be targeted – middle income, less education. What would change these people’s vote, had they known it at the time, etc? What was most memorable to them, from all that they heard (I’d bet it was something that resonated with pre-existing prejudices).
Last, I’d give the school education thing a *fighting* edge, tying it into defining the opponents of the measure. Two ways, could be ‘played’ soft or hard. 1. “They” are not entitled to their own facts, even if they can teach their kids what morals “they” want. Gay couples exist and will continue to exist, no matter which way these votes go. 2. Put yourself in the shoes of the parents of the boy who shot and killed Lawrence King, in the eighth grade. Would you rather your kid have a positive, open, affirming gay ‘teacher’, role model, or school-led affirmative experience, or risk being that parent? I don’t exaggerate. Some 11 y.o. was just pummeled yesterday for being a ginger.
I’m sure there are some more ways to convey the point.
Last, has anyone systematically refuted this bungle of stuff from the Manhattan declaration? For instance, are we really ready to accept that ‘marriage is the first institution of society’, the cornerstone, quite the way they make it out to be? Ditto with Blankenhorn’s stylized anthropology, that is making its way, now, indirectly, into CNN smiley-spots? Now is the time to do so, quietly even, not when there is a polling deadline…
posted by Amicus on
1. “They” are not entitled to their own facts, even if they can teach their kids what morals “they” want. Gay couples exist and will continue to exist, no matter which way these votes go.
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humm… we’ll call this ‘Facts are Fit for School’.
That works as a lead, for many settings, no?
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Memo to the anti-SSM right: having picked this fight on education, be prepared to lose it.
Yeah, somehow, I don’t see that happening, not given what sort of books the gay community and its leadership are demanding be taught as required reading in schools.
Add to that the demands of the gay community and its leadership that schools should teach gay sex to five-year-olds and that dressing children as sexual slaves and taking them to a sex fair is an “educational experience”, and it’s pretty easy to see that education is and will remain a target rich environment as long as the gay community insists on pushing promiscuity on children.
posted by Debrah on
“…..and it’s pretty easy to see that education is and will remain a target rich environment as long as the gay community insists on pushing promiscuity……”
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Stellar.
It’s like knocking on the doors of people with split personalities when you try to bring them into reality.
They fake—(no one can be so clueless)—shock when questioned by observers.
When I approach a topic, I generally try to become somewhat informed and I can say without a doubt that most all those gay fora are chock-full of hydra-headed networks of hardcore, dirt-nasty porn.
On the surface, it might be a “Looking for Mr. Right” — relatively tame little theme; however, check out the subscribers and their uploads.
It’s all a pathetic internet porno factory and people sign on as if it’s not something about which normal adults should be embarrassed by.
Then you see the same people dropping lofty logorrhea on other websites dripping with disdain for those “unenlightened” who will not sign onto this “gay marriage thing” at the ballot box.
Even IGF, with respectable writers, previously had a link to “Gay Tube” which is a raw porno site. It was recently removed.
It’s mind-boggling that we always see this split universe with gays.
What is it going to take for you to realize that when voters vote for gay marriage they feel they are signing up themselves and their families to this mindset and this way of life?
You say that teaching children about same-sex marriage in schools should be thought of as a good thing. Another normal side of life’s prism.
Then why do you continue to display this particular layer and pretend you are not also saying these kinds of things should be shown to children as normal, everyday fare?
You will lose every time.
But none of the more stable and low key members of the gay community ever object to these kinds of elements being represented to the public what it is to be gay.
Strange, that.