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02/25/2011
Enough with these empty 'defense of marriage' calories!
Above all else, the anti-LGBT community's intellectual dereliction regarding DOMA can be summed up by this highlighted bullet point from Focus on the Family's supposed "Defense of Marriage Act Fact Sheet":
[SOURCE: Focus on the Family]
See it? The concept they place in the defense role: Marriage. Not marriage myopia. Certainly not marriage discrimination. Not even "traditional marriage." They simply say that marriage is what the DOJ should be but is not defending.
Now, it's of course no great surprise that FoTF would position marriage as the item under attack, as that has been the crux of the "protect marriage" fight for eons. Hell, it's the first three words of the Act in question. But what is surprising is how poorly we on the side of true marriage defense have handled this concept. Because here we are, talking about a situation in which more Americans will more fully be able to solidify their loving bonds through the government channels that the United States of America has set up in the area of matrimony. This point is not open for debate: The marriage equality fight is, empirically, geared towards protecting more marriage bonds. It doesn't matter how much one might hate those newly recognized bonds: More marriages are being practically, demonstrably, civilly defended every time a court of legislator grants marriage equality same-sex couples. Period.
And yet so many of us, both elected and layman, let this "marriage is worth defending" canard go by unchecked. The above document is not from some independent voice or only tangibly interested party. We're talking about the most well-connected, most well-financed (more than all national LGBT groups put together), most motivated of all the "culture warrior" groups. And here they are expending both the fortitude and the nerve -- THE NERVE! -- to issue something they are calling a "FACT SHEET," even though it's guiding claim is as rhetorically silly as anything Dr. Seuss ever wrote. And that's not a snarky overstatement, either: The idea that the sound minds at the Justice Department and within the Obama Administration are working on the basis of unreasonable arguments that fail to defend the blanket notion of marriage is truly the thing of sky-pies and daydreams, not constitutional law.
We on the side of freedom and fairness don't nip this crap in the bud because, frankly, it feels childish to even wrap our informed minds around the rhetoric. But guess what? The opposition wins. Every time. Because of hyper-motivated voters. Who read. Focus on the Family. And while certain minds are never going to be changeable, there are mega swaths of the population sitting on the proverbial fence, trying to make sense what is so often so murky. So don't think of responding to nonsense from groups like Focus on the Family as being a response to their own base -- think of it as holding up their skewed portrait and say, "LOOK -- AMERICA -- THEY ARE TRAFFICKING IN ABJECT LIES!" Do you think when this site posts a response to Maggie Gallagher, the one we intend to win over is Mags herself? Puh-leeze! Maggie is just the springboard -- the target is the independent voter in St. Louis.
So everyone, please: START CALLING OUT THIS CRAP WHENEVER YOU SEE IT! Bloggers. Traditional journalists. Activists. National Groups. Senators. Grandmas at the bridge club. Mothers at church. Everyone has a voice -- voices that are still getting outmatched by the constant stream of "pro-family" PR.
We in the LGBT population have long worked under the truism that when people know LGBT humans, they tend not to vote against us. But I truly believe in an equally important platitude, saying that if more people know more about the outright, anti-intellectual fantasies that are being used to ground the grounded, then this too will change polls.
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