-- Excerpts from "Make Change, Not Lawsuits" by the ACLU, HRC, and a variety of homosexual advocacy organizations
Now that we’ve won marriage in California, should we be bringing cases in other states or suing the federal government? If not, what can we do to help secure the freedom to marry nationwide?
Bottom Line. If you’re ready and it’s right for you, get married in California. If you do, claim the name and act like what you are -- married. But don’t go suing right away. Most lawsuits will likely set us all back. There are other ways to fight which are more likely to win.
Summary: The fastest way to win the freedom to marry throughout America is by getting marriage through state courts (to show that fairness requires it) and state legislatures (to show that people support it). We need to start with states where we have the best odds of winning. When we’ve won in a critical mass of states, we can turn to Congress and the federal courts. At that point, we’ll ask that the U.S. government treat all marriages equally. And we’ll ask that all states give equal treatment to all marriages and civil unions that are celebrated in other states. Couples who want to should get married, call themselves married, and ask (sometimes demand) that family, friends, neighbors, businesses, employers and the community treat their marriages with respect. Making the marriages of same-sex couples a conspicuous part of American society will help us get something we’ll need to win ultimately: public acceptance of equal treatment for lesbian and gay families.
But one thing couples shouldn’t do is just sue the federal government or, if they are from other states, go sue their home state or their employer to recognize their marriage or open up the health plan. Pushing the federal government before we have a critical mass of states recognizing same-sex relationships or suing in states where the courts aren’t ready is likely to get us bad rulings. Bad rulings will make it much more difficult for us to win marriage, and will certainly make it take much longer.
To read the entire six-page PDF document, CLICK HERE.
And, the LA Times reports, "Flamboyant images from same-sex ceremonies, activists say, could be used by opponents to convince California votes that gays and lesbians shouldn't have the right to marry."
-- From "Gay couples are emphasizing low-key weddings" by Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 6/16/08
The gay and lesbian couples who packed a Hollywood auditorium last week had come seeking information about California's new marriage policies. But they also got some unsolicited advice.
Be aware.
Images from gay weddings, said Lorri L. Jean, chief executive of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, could be used by opponents in a campaign designed to persuade California voters that gays and lesbians should not have the right to marry. Those getting married, she cautioned, should never lose sight of what they might be supplying to the other side.
Sitting close to his husband-to-be in the audience, hairstylist Kendall Hamilton nodded and said he knew just what she meant. No "guys showing up in gowns," he said.
"It's a weird subject," added Hamilton, 39, who plans to wed his partner of five years, Ray Paolantonio. "We want everybody to be free, but the image does matter. . . . They are going to try to make us look like freaks."
"One of the things that have hurt the gay effort in California is the exhibitionism in San Francisco," which doesn't always play well elsewhere, said political analyst Tony Quinn.
"One of the things about the gay and lesbian community is we're known for our outrageousness, our flamboyance," said West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran, who is president of the board of directors of Equality California, an organization pushing for same-sex marriage. "But we're under this incredible political pressure not to have those portrayals" right now.
To read the rest of this LA Times article, CLICK HERE.
-- Commentary by Laurie Higgins:
The LA Times article discusses the effects of exposure to various kinds of images. Homosexualists in CA want to tightly control the nature of the images to which the public is exposed--only Norman Rockwell-esque partners need apply. These efforts at image control reminded me of the following passages from After the Ball, "the gay manifesto" that was published in 1989 as a blueprint for cultural revolution:
"to desensitize straights to gays and gayness, inundate them in a continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible. If straights can't shut off the shower, they may at least eventually get used to being wet."
The authors Kirk and Madsen go on to describe a later step in the process of transforming cultural views on homosexuality that they call "Conversion":
"by Conversion we actually mean something far more profoundly threatening to the American Way of Life, without which no truly sweeping social change can occur. We mean conversion of the average American's emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media. . . . in Conversion, the bigot who holds a very negative stereotypic picture, is repeatedly exposed to literal picture/label pairs in magazines, and on billboards and TV, of gays--explicitly labeled as such, who not only don't look like his picture of a homosexual, but are carefully selected to look either like the bigot and his friends, or like any one of his other stereotypes of all-right guys--the kind of people he already likes and admires."
