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11/25/2013
MassResistance advises its un-advisable movement
Realizing that their side is losing and losing hard, extreme-tongued organization MassResistance is advising its movement on ways it might "win" on marriage. Here's a snip:
We need to craft a solid top-to-bottom strategy that will effectively counter the homosexual movement's blitzkrieg lobbying and propaganda machine -- that uses our strengths properly and minimizes our weaknesses.
Much of this requires that we throw away our fears and understand what will work, rather than what we're "comfortable" with. This does not have to be sleazy or unethical. It takes being honest and unafraid. After all, we do have the truth on our side!
The homosexuals also figured out that this must be done by serious political people, not casual activists. That could be a difficult change for us.
Too often, we leave the important strategy to faith-based organizations, both local and national. It's a bad fit. Churches and faith organizations are wonderful for bringing people closer to God, strengthening families, studying the Bible, etc. And they're outstanding for energizing and mobilizing people on these issues. They certainly have their place in this fight. But they are usually terrible at hardball political strategy, and have been for decades. (We apologize if this offends people, but it's true.)
Among other things, that approach brings in a disastrous over-emphasis on being nice, respectable, tolerant-sounding, etc. That is good in daily life. But this isn't daily life, it's a large-scale battle -- and in our opinion any honest reading of Scripture recognizes that distinction.
In the case of Hawaii and some other states (such as Rhode Island), it was mostly the churches and religious groups that stepped up to the plate and organized things. They did outstanding work. But since they had to figure it out themselves, it was not always strategically done. We need to have the tools in place to win.
FULL: Lessons learned from the Hawaii "gay marriage" fight [MR]
MassResistance's first idea, here and throughout their advice sheet, is for their movement to "hit hard." They think that they if they go really negative about LGBT people and start attacking us as people, then that will help their cause. That, my friends, is sheer lunacy.
If the other side starts going after us in the way that we know many of their supporters would like (e.g. telling people we are "changeable," portraying us as hellbound, equating us with sex abusers; etc), then we win even faster than we would've otherwise. The people in the middle, who are somewhat okay with gay people yet still uncomfortable with marriage equality, are only there because the other side has been successful in convincing them that they can hold this position without being discriminatory. If the "pro-family" messengers start admitting that yes, in fact, this is a movement that simply does not want people being gay, then that ruse falls away in full. We win, as we will regardless—but we do so much faster.
But beyond just change in tone, I think it's adorable how MassResistance advises that some entities other than churches and faith organizations need to step up and fight for their side. Who, exactly, do they think fits this bill? It's not as if there are all kinds of secular organizations dotting the land that could step up to this job, if only they were asked or somehow motivated. The reason why their opposition movement is led by religious bodies is because their movement is, at heart and at root, a faith-guided fight against civil marriage equality. Period, full stop.
The other side loves to act like we are playing on some sort of inorganic playing field that has only gone the way it has because of inauthentic forces. This is simply not true. We on the side of equality and freedom have gained support, be it in the form of money or political alliance, because we have done the work to show that our cause is the winning one. On that same token, their movement has bled support because we have done the work showing how fallacious and skewed their "protect marriage" push really is. This has all played out in public, with every American free to form an opinion and engage however they see fit.
So yes, we are now at a place were the pro-equality movement has a diverse, robust, well-rounded body of support while the pro-discrimination movement is increasingly fringe and almost exclusively guided by certain forms of conservative faith. But that's not something that can just be wished away or strategized into reform. This all happened because it was always meant to be. Our arguments are sound and winning while their arguments are unconstitutional, unsustainable, and failing.
They have no path to victory.
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