I know we're all fixated on the Prop 8 defeat right now, but as protests gear up in front of Mormon temples across the country, we should note that it's not only extreme right-wingers who propagated anti-gay sentiments in this election.
This is an ad against Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican: (via)
UPDATE: I originally wrote that this was produced by AFSCME, but apparently that's not the case.
And this is an ad against California Representative David Dreier, produced by Blue America PAC (via):
Both of these ads are truly disgusting. Alex at Bilerico is spot-on in his response to the Dreier ad -- but I think it applies to the McConnell ad, too:
It's worth noting that Howie Klein does great work with Blue America PAC to get more money to good Democrats and to run ads for them. He blogs over at Down with Tyranny and is himself a gay man.
But I don't think that excuses something like this. I know I'm a minority on this one, but I don't think that homophobia has a particular target. Using a homophobic ad against one person who, however we justify this one, deserves it stirs up homophobia against the rest of us. That might not have been the best idea about a week before Prop 8.
I know that some in the community would justify this based on "hypocrisy," but there is no discourse on the importance of honesty in this ad, why voters should not elect someone based on his hypocrisy, or even a mention of that argument. It's clearly meant to trigger the knee-jerk, lizard brain reaction of the people of California's 26th and make them go out and vote against the queer.
(Emphasis mine.) I'm completely with Alex on this. It's important for us to keep in mind, as we rally against groups like the LDS Church and Focus on the Family for their support of bigoted ballot initiatives, that the underlying sentiments are not the exclusive purview of those on the right. And that's something we should be working just as hard to change.
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The Advocate had a great article about how Democrats relied on the homophobic reaction toward Mark Foley in reclaiming Congress in 2006. It reminded me hauntingly of Willie Horton.
Using homophobia to win votes/sway public opinion is not okay, no matter how shitty the opinions of your opponent might be!!! What the hell is so difficult to understand about that???
I don't think it's even possible to argue that it's not homophobic. An add about a straight politician cavorting around with his female partner certainly wouldn't say "Why are we paying for John Doe's Heterosexual lifestyle?" I'm disappointed that a liberal group would even think up the possibility of running an add like that.
The comments on the original post at TNR are interesting, and quite a bit disturbing. Pretty much a "shoot the messenger" crowd with an "oh, by the way, the ads are bad, but..." approach.
And, for accuracy's sake, it should be noted that McConnell was only the cowboy in the Village People, not the rest of them.
But seriously, either the national AFSCME should disown it or have a serious cut in their donations/dues; same with Blue America and whatever their parent PAC/controller is.
It seems so elementary to me that a homophobic slur against one gay person is a damaging blow to all gay people---but, then again, I (like most Feministing readers) also thought it was obvious that a sexist slur against Sarah Palin was a damaging blow to all women, and there were plenty of Fauxgressives ready to disagree with that, too.
The shift in voter support on Prop 8 demonstrated to us that there are still lots of people whose initial inclination to "live and let live" is readily trumped by the fear that Icky Gayness might infect their own family. Revolting ads like this do more han their share to feed the bigotry that underlie that particular strand of NIMBYism.
More THAN their share, not more HAN their share. Aargh.
i can't believe they used homophobia so blatantly!! that's disgusting...
What's especially obnoxious about these (as Alex's commentary implies) is that there would be ways to attack them on the relevant issues (hypocrisy, unethical use of taxpayer money) without the homophobia. How disappointing.
The problem is that people would still focus on the homosexual nature of the act. The point of the Advocate article I posted above was that Democrats were officially against the fact that the targets were underage, yet the fact the that Foley contacted boys was incredibly prominent in the news. It played on the conflation of homosexuality and pedophelia in the public eye.
So my question is how can Democrats attack someone's sexual misconduct with a minor without implying an attack on the person's sexuality?
I think it's also important to remember that by rallying against a church or a church organization, we're unintentionally creating a really difficult decision for a lot of people: religious morality versus social morality. Many Mormon church members actively opposed Prop 8, just as many so-called liberal and progressive (I like the term FAUXgressive) people fell back on empty and empty-of-religion rhetoric to ban gay marriage (such as the folks who claim that, "biologically," men and women must "mate" in order to produce offspring, and offspring is the point of marriage, ergo no gay marriage, and the level of cognitive dissonance in that logic alone is so ridiculous that I won't even begin to go into it, and that was a major digression anyway). Instead of protesting outside churches and temples, and signaling to people that religion and gay rights can't come together, we could be making alliances between leaders of all faiths who support equal rights for all people, straight or queer, and demonstrating to everyone that gay civil rights and the right to freedom of religion are intrinsically linked in our country, not opposed.
Then we can move on to those biology-citing, logical fallacy peeps and explain the difference between "mating" and "marriage."
as a homosexual and former union employee, I find the afscme-sponsored ad hilarious. It's also pretty emblematic of why I left the labor movement. Are folks seriously shocked about this stuff?
For the record, AFSCME has said that they didn't have anything to do with that flyer.
Noted in the post. Thanks for the heads up.
Yeah, I effin' hate Mitch McConnell, but that's not the way to go about it.
It is kind of hypocritical for him to be so anti-gay rights though.
I'm totally with you. I do not understand how it could be constructive to protest outside a Mormon temple or Catholic church other than for shock value.
Many of my family members are pro-choice, pro-equality Catholics, and while I find their adherence to religion ridiculous, I'm glad that they can separate THEIR beliefs from others' rights. Isn't that what we've been asking for all along?
Right? Isn't that, like, basically America in a nutshell?
This is a long standing debate. Do folks like Mitch get the benefit of the closet when they are pushing anti-gay legislation? Many gays, like Howie, answer that question "no" and think they can't expect other gays to cover for them.
This is the "outing" argument. After all, running the exact same ad against Barney Frank would do no harm at all, would it?
I think Howie, a guy who's old enough to have lived through periods that were far more homophobic than this one, feels entirely justified. You can disagree, but I don't think it's as clear cut as many folks here make it out to be.