First it was raining gays, now they're coming to get your kids.
It's a new ad being run in New Hampshire by the same folks who gave us the ridiculously homophobic "Gathering Storm" ad that was not surprisingly mocked to the nth degree, the National Organization for Marriage. CornerStone Policy Research, a group so extreme that even Focus on the Family has put distance between them, partnered with NOM for this gem.
Via the Bilerico Project.
Transcript after the jump.
Grandma, my teacher says if grandpa was a girl, it's okay, you can still be married.
If we change the definiton of marriage...
God created Adam and Eve? That's so old-fashioned.
...our kids will be taught a new way of thinking.
He should have created Ann and Eve.
If my dad married a man, who would be my mom?
I'm confused.
Marriage is between a man and woman. Call Governor Lynch today and ask him to
protect marriage, by not supporting House bill 436.
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I must not be the target audience, because I thought the kids were cute and I had absolutely no problem with anything they said.
That's what I thought! I mean, I know I'm not very susceptible to panicked fear-mongering, but other than wondering who exactly came up with this, and where they found the kids, and whether my grandma might have been a lesbian, I mostly just thought, "...and?"
My favorite line, delivered with perfect nine-year-old scorn: "God created Adam and Eve? That was so old fashioned." Yeah! Get with it, God!
oh no! our kids will actually have to learn about people different from them! the horror!
Or worse, people the same as them -- and they might notice that those people are generally relatively happy and well-adjusted and wear pants and have driver's licenses and everything. Then how will we get them to believe that if they don't renounce their abominable gayness they'll contract HIV the second they turn eighteen and end up being ritually murdered by a Satanic cult while in prison for their heroin habit and chronic pattern of public masturbation?
FOR GOD'S SAKE, PLEASE STOP MAINSTREAMING THE GAYS WHILE I AM TRYING TO FUCK UP MY CHILDREN. I MEAN, DO YOU MIND?
haha! I thought this was a spoof when they said "...our kids will be taught a new way of thinking." But they are serious and that is even more hilarious (and sad at the same time).
I'm with you. It sounded so much like a spoof to their ads.
"our kids will be taught a new way of thinking"
The horror!!!!! We wouldn't want people to learn how to think in new ways. That might lead to tolerance.
Especially since homosexuality has been around since...
ANCIENT TIMES!!!!!!
dun dun dun.
Imagine what will happen to these kids when they have to take World History, and find out that EVERY MAN WAS BISEXUAL* IN ANCIENT GREECE.
Bricks will be shat.
*I understand the socio-economic-cultural reasons for the homosexuality/homosociality of ancient Greece and Rome. I'm simplifying it.
First it will be learning gay is okay, and then the metric system! And then what? Socialized medicine!
I don't see how you could think that some one would want a new way of thinking. Historically, ideological shifts have been associated with VERY negative outcomes. Like electricity, the existence of germs and how to combat them, radiation therapy, vaccines, and the discovery of a round earth. :)
LOL.
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!
Telling your grandmother that whatever (or whoever) she decides/decided to do in her life is ok and that you still love her for being an awesome grandmother! Geeze kid, that's just wrong.
What are the crazy liberals teaching these kids!?!?
(/sarcasm)
I feel really badly for anyone who is scared of children asking these kinds of questions. The beautiful part of the women's right, civil rights, really any human rights movement is the next generation moves millions of light years forward. (Not to trivialize any current struggles in these arenas.)
Won't it be glorious to talk about the past when gay couples couldn't get married?
i wanna get the saline solution out for the blonde curly head kid! sweet jebus, blow your nose!
I thought one of the most striking things in this video was when one of the kids say "If my dad married a man, who would be my mom?" and held up this scenario as some sort of nightmare state tantamount to child abuse.
Even assuming that we banned gay marriage and we banned gays from having kids, there would still be many, many children who grow up without having either a mom or a dad in their life while they're growing up. It's called single parents, National Organization for Being Stupid! It's like they live in this alternate universe where the only two options that exist for growing up are either in a white middle-class god-fearing republican household with parents of both sexes or godless homosexual orgies. They can't even concieve of the fact that even if we discount the gays, not all kids have both a mom and a dad.
These people live in a world of privilege and static family relationships and even the slightest deviation from that model either doesn't exist or should be chased out of town with pitchforks, no matter who they hurt in the process.
I'm a pretty mellow guy, and rarely make these kinds of statemets, but it really has to be said: I fucking hate these assholes.
I meant that the ad held out that scenario as a nightmare, not the kid.
Good, good point.
It's easy to just make fun of this (because it's absurd), but the central assumption isn't just that gays are bad, it's that the holy grail of familyhood is the heterosexual nuclear family. It isn't about making kids' lives better at all - it's about making those scary 'atypical' family situations disappear. God forbid anyone live lives that look different from their self-proclaimed norm!
It just underscores that organizations like this aren't actually concerned about promoting and protecting families - if they were, they wouldn't be messing around with gay marriage. They'd be trying to get single parents the support they need, encouraging mentoring programs, making sure that all kids have health care. And one crazy step further, they might even WANT gay people to get married - because come on, guys. It's good for the kids.
Alternately: "What's this creationism thing my teacher was talking about, mommy? I'm confused."
All the more reason for making in vitro fertilization SOP. Test-tube babies are born knowing all about these things. You won't have to worry about making awkward explanations. ;-)
Apparently, they think children are stupid and incapable of logic. I've heard an 8-year-old have gay marriage explained to him. He responded and moved on without confusion or trauma.
People need to realize that kids are relatively accepting. When I was little, I called my brother gay without knowing what it meant. I had heard other kids using as an insult so I did the same. When my parents heard what I said they pulled us aside and explained to us that sometimes women fall in love with women, and men fall in love with men. They also said that there was nothing wrong with that and that using the word "gay" as an insult was wrong.
And you know how we responded?
We just said ok and were done with it. If you raise your kids with acceptance, questions like the ones these kids were asking are not difficult to answer.
Later on I found out that my grandfather was in fact gay. And you know what? My dad, his siblings, and all of us grandchildren turned out just fine.
This whole think of the children thing and all the other scare tactics are ridiculous. It's not concern for children or concern for heterosexual couples that motivates people like those in NOM, it's bigotry, plain and simple.
Homophobia is so awful when confronted directly. However, when I run into stuff like this, I can't help but die laughing.
I saw this a couple of days ago, thinking, "feministing should take a look at this." And you did! You're a very reliable news source, actually. A good resource, whether you want good news or just want to keep tabs on all the crap happening around you.
I agree with Pantheon... I watched it, and was like, "Well that's adorable." Isn't it funny when for the FIRST TIME they've actually got the facts straight on... but end up being on the stupid side of the argument anyway?
If making kids confused is enough of a reason to ban gay marriage, then it should be enough of a reason to ban math courses.
Well said! I still don't understand what's so inherently bad about kids being confused. Kids spend a lot of their time being confused. Hell, so do adults. If their kids are confused about a Bible story, do NOM parents act like it's the same amount of horrible as this? I mean, I know I've said it felt like my head was going to explode sometimes when I really don't get why people don't want other people to have rights or fair pay or whatnot, but I was using hyperbole.
I really wish I had the movie-editing chops to rework this into a true parody. Seriously, if you remove just the end bits of voice-over and the shot of the one man plus one woman screen, it could easily be spun into a pro-gay marriage vid.
"Our children will be taught a new way of thinking: tolerance and respect for the diversity of human relations. For more help in explaining gay marriage to your children, see [insert local gay marriage group here]"
Hear, hear! Anyone who has said "movie-editing chops", please stand up.
Do you mind if I use your idea and text to make this parody? It's something I'd love to do, though I'm not an expert by any means. It would be an attempt, but I'm sure there are professional video designers in the community that could do it better.
Ann and Eve is so much hotter than Adam and Steve. Thank you, NOM for pointing this out.
Also, did anyone else see this and think OM NOM NOM NOM ?
hahaha! I did. Which makes me sad cause I really like OM NOM NOM NOM and they are ruining it :(
Oh no! Kids are confused! What should we do???
"Oh no, our brainwashing is failing. Quick, bring out the kool-aid!"
Damn I hope Stephen Colbert picks this up.
If this is so scary imagine how they'll react when they learn about seahorse reproduction! (Random, I know)
Seahorses don't reproduce! The spring into the ocean fully-formed from God's boogers.
Of course! Everything in the world must be simple enough for simple children to understand. Does that mean we should only use addition and subtraction to work things out, only use words that have 2 syllables at most? Really? Are children that incapable of learning new things? I mean God, what would happen if the children had to learn a new concept?! The world would absolutely FALL APART.
FUCK THIS AD! It always blows my mind that the main platform used by the conservative homophobics is 'my child will be confused'. REally! You are taking away HUMAN BEINGS rights because your to lazy to have a conversation with your kids. And what would these people say during the 1960s civil rights movement, 'oh its to hard to change and create a new way of thinking'. The cant even mask their intolerance for growth and change. I am mad and sad
Brilliant peice. I can see how the anti-gay-marriage arguments are portrayed as childish. The piteous naivete and pathos of it is what gives this satire teeth.
Oh wait. What?
This is just ignorant parenting - keeping their kid in the dark so they don't have to answer difficult questions. They DO realize that their kid is going to find out what homosexuality is some day, right? They are going to have to have an answer to these questions at some point.
It reminds me of the parents who ban books from puberty. Because of course, if you don't tell your little girl about periods, she'll never get one. If you don't tell your son about semen, then he'll never know he has it...
This ad is not new...I live in Wisconsin and it was used to support the state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2004.
I'm confused too...
What happened to their "rainbow coalition"? I guess NOM is giving up on the "look, we're inclusive! we're not bigots!" thing.
Why are these kids teachers teaching them about Adam and Eve? Also, I'm pretty sure I never had a class when I was that age where my teacher taught us about relationships AT ALL... am I missing something?
I'm all for that video editing AspieSociologist suggested!
When your child says "I'm confused", that's not a tragedy. That's time to sit down and help them learn.
The thing that really pisses me off, though, is they took OUR symbol of inclusion and turned it into their symbol for denying human rights. I know rainbows have been around for a while, but they're well known as the symbol of gay pride. I mean, in Philadelphia we have a "gayborhood" where there's a rainbow stripe on all the street signs! :P