Same-sex By Trish Moore
marriage debate kept
gays in the closet
Multimillion-dollar media campaign
did nothing to show human
face of homosexuals
Hindsight is 20/20, as the saying goes. It's only now, after voters overwhelmingly supported a ban on gay marriage, that I am able to see clearly what had bugged me about the whole media campaign.
More than $2 million was spent on the campaign, and yet very little of the public discourse has gone into addressing the homophobia underlying the issue.
Viewed through the lens of the media, it felt like gays and lesbians were in a collective closet watching straight people battle over what we should or shouldn't be allowed to do.
The vote "Yes" camp framed the debate around gay marriage and successfully appealed to the deep-seated fear most people have about homosexuality.
The vote "No" camp deftly dodged that issue, and instead argued the more academic points of protecting the Constitution, seperation of judicial and legislative powers, and abstract concepts of civil rights.
In a technical, legal sense that's what the vote was about. But in an essential, emotional sense it was about gay marriage.
It was a battle of emotion vs. intellect. And any salesperson worth her salt will tell you that emotion will win every time.
To me the biggest defeat is not that as gays and lesbians we can't get married -- yet. Rather that those who advocated against same-sex marriage get off virtually scot-free with their mock innocence about the measure NOT being anti-gay, but simply about preserving traditional marriage. I mean, really, can someone please explain to me what is the threat to traditional marriage?
The vote "Yes" camp ran television ads showing a little boy reading a book about "Daddy's Wedding," insinuating that two men getting married is some evil, dangerous threat to the boy. Another ad depicted a man and a woman running toward each other with arms outstretched and then cut to a scene of two men completing the embrace.
Letters to the editor were published in which straight people pondered in various ways the "issue" of homosexuality. (What are we gonna do about these problematic queers? Is it a choice or isn't it? It's not the same as discriminating against other minorities, is it?)
The vote "No" camp entirely avoided all that messy stuff.
While the "No" ads were thoughtful and well-conceived, they did nothing to alleviate people's fear of same-sex marriage, or directly address why gays and lesbians should be allowed to get married, or say anything about gay people at all!
The vote "No" campaign not only didn't confront homophobia, but at times it even subtly condoned it. Ads ran showing straight people saying, "I'm not in favor of same-sex marriage, but I don't think our Constitution should be messed with."
Now, I'm not using the term homophobia here as an epithet. It's often taken that way, and rightly so. Homosexuals are a largely feared and often hated minority, and hurling accusations of homophobia and bigotry against others is one way we defend ourselves and say, hey, the problem isn't me, it's you.
But the truth is, fear of homosexuality -- homophobia -- is at the root of why we have to fight for the ordinary stuff of life that straight people take for granted. Things like not being fired from our jobs, being denied housing, denied spousal benefits -- all because our sexual orientation is different and misunderstood.
Civil rights gains for gays and lesbians have been won through gay and lesbian visibility. Increasing numbers of gays and lesbians coming out of the closet have enabled more people to see that we're not the bogeyman, we're not sick, and that despite our little in-jokes about offering toasters to each new "convert," we really don't recruit others to our way of life.
The closet is a dark and ugly place where fear and ignorance thrive. It's a whole lot easier to discriminate against people who remain an abstract, unknown and threatening concept rather than flesh-and-blood citizens going about their lives like anyone else.
And in the costly media battle over the same-sex marriage amendment, gays and lesbians remained an abstract, unknown and threatening concept.
That's a real shame.
Trish Moore is the Star-Bulletin's
Kauai correspondent. My Turn is a periodic column
written by Star-Bulletin staff members.
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