SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ In one ad after another, voters in California
and Maine were besieged with images of what would supposedly happen
if same-sex marriage were legal: Students on a field trip to a
lesbian wedding, elementary kids gobbling up books featuring gay
couples, kindergartners learning about homosexuality from their
teachers.
The strategy worked. Overruling the courts and lawmakers, voters
defeated gay marriage ballot measures in California last year and in
Maine this week after conservatives convinced residents that same-sex
unions would become common classroom fodder without any say from
parents.
The punch-to-the gut claim has emerged as the latest tool in the
ever-evolving playbook of same-sex marriage opponents, and the
Achilles' heel of the gay-marriage movement. Voters seem to be swayed
by the notion that gay marriage will be a corrupting force among
children, even though critics blasted the message as a blatantly
misleading case of fear-mongering.
"It was very effective. It's drawing on the fears of the unknown,''
said Sandy Maisel, director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs
and Civic Engagement at Maine's Colby College. "There's no evidence
that it's going to happen, but there's very clear evidence that it's
an effective campaign tactic.''
Gay marriage opponents discovered the effectiveness of the schools
message in last year's successful effort to pass Proposition 8 to
outlaw gay marriage in California.
After signing up to lead the campaign, political consultants Frank
Schubert and Jeff Flint knew they had a problem: Polls were showing
that residents tended to not have much of a problem with gay
relationships.
With the help of focus groups, surveys and ammunition unwittingly
supplied by their opponents, Schubert and Flint soon found a new way
to frame the issue, by focusing on education.
It was a departure from past elections when the issue was defined in
simpler terms _ that marriage is a sacred institution between a man
and a woman. The various strategies have helped conservatives win 31
consecutive ballot initiatives on gay marriage.
"We bet the campaign on consequences, especially on education,''
Schubert recalled in March when he and Flint were named the "public
affairs team of the year'' by the American Association of Political
Consultants for their work in California. "Education from the
beginning, while it was one of three consequences, it was the one
that was the most emotionally charged and the most powerful.''
In California and Maine, gay marriage supporters countered the
claims with spots featuring prominent elected officials _
California's chief of public instruction, Maine's attorney general _
who insisted that same-sex marriage had nothing to do with schools.
They also angrily denounced as deceptive the visuals the Sacramento
team employed, including a Massachusetts couple who lost a lawsuit
seeking parental consent before same-sex families are discussed in
elementary classrooms.
But the response did not defuse the hot-button issue, advocates on
both sides of the issue observe, in part because they failed to
address what many parents knew to be true: Many public schools
already have lessons that include references to gay families in the
younger grades and confronting anti-gay discrimination for older
students. Although the topics usually are broached in the context of
appreciating diversity and tolerance, for some parents any discussion
of gay people is too close to talking about gay sex.
"The trend that we are seeing is homosexuality is being promoted
more and more in schools, and the increase in this is creating a
hostile environment for kids with Christian or socially conservative
viewpoints,'' said Candi Cushman, education analyst for the Christian
group Focus on the Family.
Cathy Renna, a public relations consultant in Washington who is
married to a woman and has a 4-year-old daughter, said that equating
references to gay parents with sex is "like saying that introducing
someone's mother and father to a class means you are talking about
heterosexual sex.'' But Renna agrees that same-sex marriage
supporters need a different comeback to the kids-and-schools
argument.
"This idea that gay people are coming to eat your children is a
long-standing tactic of the right wing,'' she said. "The response to
those ads that not only has more truth, but more integrity, is that
we live in a diverse world and our kids know that and it's
irresponsible for us not to talk about the world we live in in
age-appropriate ways. Dismissing them as lies actually does a
disservice not only to the people in our community, but to the public
that knows better.''
In California, some gay rights groups want to try to repeal
Proposition 8 at the ballot box next year. There has been talk about
including language in the new measure that would state that nothing
in it is meant to mandate the teaching of same-sex marriage in
schools. Some gay rights advocates fear, though, that the wording
could be used to undermine the way gay subjects are treated in
schools now, said Chaz Lowe, founder of Yes! on Equality.
Melissa Murray, an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall
School of Law who researched the messages used in the Proposition 8
campaign, said gay marriage advocates underestimated how deeply
Schubert and Flint's carefully crafted schools message resonated with
the public.
One reason it resonated so deeply is it changed the debate from one
of equal rights to the equally cherished notion of individual rights,
something gay activists should keep in mind as the marriage moves to
other states, Murray said.
"Parents are always thinking about how do I keep unwanted influences
out of my children's lives, and it's a lot harder to do that as a
parent if that influence is the state,'' Murray said. "That's the
fear they are tapping into. ... and they are just going to keep
repackaging it, because it works.''
