Turning the tables.
Friday, November 30th, 2007Some time ago, I said that I didn’t quite understand the outrage in Tuscany over an anti-discrimination ad featuring a photo of a newborn baby. I thought the ad was clever, to the point, and extremely effective. I didn’t once stop to think that using the knee-jerk human reaction to anything involving children in such a way constituted some rather underhanded and manipulative tactics, right from our side of the gay vs. anti-gay war. I thought it was all right, because it got the point that I wanted to make across. I didn’t realize that I was setting a double standard.
I realized when I read an article about New Jersey anti-gay campaigners who’ve launched a series of radio ads using the voices of children to denounce gay marriage.
The ads begin with an announcer saying “If we change the definition of marriage..” but is interrupted by a child.
“Grandma, my teacher said if grandpa was a girl that’s ok, you can still be married,’” the voice says.
The announcer then returns to say: “Our kids will be taught a new way of thinking: ‘God creating Adam and Eve is so old-fashioned.’”
“Thinking the unthinkable: ‘If my dad married a man, who would be my mom?’”
I started frothing. “This is wrong,” I snarled to myself. “It’s dirty, it’s underhanded, it would take a bunch of sleazy rats to use children to prey on people’s reactions just to spread their propaganda–”
And that’s when it hit me.
I was being a damned hypocrite.
I was being just like every other narrow-minded, hot-headed political mudslinger who flings words like “liberal” and “conservative” around as insults, points fingers, and accuses the other side of every atrocity known to man. I was condemning them for tactics that people on my side of the argument used, and following the very same mindset: it’s reprehensibly wrong if they do it, but it’s permissible if we do it because we’re right, damn it. It doesn’t matter which side you define as “us” or “them”. In the end they aren’t so different.
In the end, I became what I loathe most. I lost my rationality, my objectivity, my sense of fairness. I succumbed to bias.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been that disgusted with myself.
No, it isn’t all right to use manipulative tactics like that to spread your propaganda - and no matter what side you stand on, to someone your beliefs will be considered propaganda. It’s not right for us, it’s not right for them, it’s not right for you, and it’s not right for me. If I’m going to condemn conservatives for using such methods, then I have to condemn anyone else who does as well, even if I agree with their message.
You can’t call it “fighting the good fight” when you fight dirty. Some may say that you do what you must to win; I can’t say that I agree. Just because one side fights dirty doesn’t mean that you must sink to those levels to win. Don’t set a bad example, and don’t follow one, either; rise above, and set the standard for your opposition to adhere to. Both sides would benefit if we fought fair, fought cleanly, and met each other face to hard, ugly face. That includes facing our own hypocrisies, and recognizing our own double standards. It means understanding that we often loathe things in others that reflect what we hate most about ourselves. It means respecting the opposition…and making ourselves worthy of their respect, in return.
Only then will these battles of human rights come to the table of negotiation, and be settled fairly with no further blood shed.
new jersey, gay marriage, radio ads, national organization for marriage


