To begin with, I am no one in particular - just a happy gay man who hopes my marriage will survive the election. I am politically aware, knowledgeable on gay issues, as out as I can be, and possess a decent understanding of humanity. I have no political ax to grind.
After the recent No on 8 kickoff event, I spoke briefly to a man who is very high up in gay politics. I asked if they were going to repeat the campaign against Proposition 22: talking about being nice, tolerance, freedom, etc. Or, would they deal with the substantive issues of anti-gay prejudice, and the social, financial, and legal impact on gay people, especially those with children, of not having marriage available? He responded that the focus groups had shown that undecided voters respond best to the former approach, and that would be the emphasis in order to move those voters.
"Do you mean to say that you are going to fight an anti-gay marriage initiative without showing any gay people or even talking about marriage?" I asked. While conceding that personal stories and real people are relevant, he repeated what the focus groups show, and that political processes like phone banks will trump personal stories. Liberal tolerance will be the message.
I pointed out some things to him. A smart friend of mine saw the anti-8 ad where a straight bride is continually prevented from getting to her wedding. Until she got to the very end and saw the No on 8 message, she had no idea what it was about. She reasonably wondered why a heterosexual wedding was featured when the discussion is about gay people. I told him of my experience against the Briggs initiative 30 years ago, when we were fighting the invisibility of the closet as well as that hateful legislation. The public could see real gay people, not the phantasms of the rabid right. And that reality moved them.
I also pointed out that this strategy has been tried repeatedly, and possibly except for Arizona in 2006, it has yet to work. It failed miserably against Prop 22 eight years ago. Now, I am not immersed in political culture. And I know that there is far more to politics than merely presenting issues and people voting. The politico may well be right, and I, quite wrong. Though his approach has merit, it is very troubling to me. It smells uncomfortably of the closet, which I have long maintained is the real enemy, not the radical right. It tells us to be invisible, not to talk about our lives and the real issues we face, lest we offend some undecided voter who needs to be manipulated into doing the right thing.
It avoids the larger issue of anti-gay prejudice, an apparently invisible 800-pound lavender gorilla. Research and experience show that people who know gay people tend not to vote against them. If we do not show gay people, we remain a faceless, menacing other, instead of friend, neighbor, or family. It is easy to vote against someone who is invisible. This was the lesson of Briggs and Prop 22.
I can see producing commercials featuring pretty straight girls. But why are we not also showing the couple who have been together for 40 years, and who, because they cannot marry, are not eligible for each other's pensions, guaranteeing one of them an old age of poverty? Why not show the two women who are raising their children, children who deserve the same protections that marriage would bring their family as it does their hetero counterparts? Why are we not showing the minister marrying two men in their church, surrounded by their happy, cheering families? "Why are we not showing indignant rabbis, Episcopal, United Church of Christ, and other ministers who don't want a few denominations telling them what to do? Why are we not showing the man who nursed his partner through a heart attack? Why are we showing anything but us?
I cannot insist that I am right, but my life's experience tells me I am. And telling the truth, especially in the face of so much hate and lies, is never a mistake. What if we lost this election because undecided voters say, "I voted yes because I don't know any gay people, or anything about them. And I didn't get that commercial."
Which brings me to my final point. If you want to do the minimum against Prop 8, unless your physical safety is an issue, COME OUT NOW - especially to your family and friends. Not eventually, not next month, but now. Ask those people to vote no on 8 for your sake, or, if they cannot vote no, at least not to vote on it.
Be the change that you would see in the world. This will be your gift to the future - and to my wonderful husband and me.
Ben Janken is a photographer who lives in the East Bay.