In May 2011, the Minnesota House of Representatives passed a proposal for a constitutional amendment that would define marriage in the state’s constitution as being only between a man and a woman. Earlier that month the Senate passed the same proposal leaving it up to the voters of Minnesota to decide the fate of more than 10,000 same-sex couples living in Minnesota as of the last census. (Peterson)
In a state that already extends hospital visitation rights to same-sex partners, prohibits housing discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, allows same-sex partners to adopt, prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, has hate-crime law classifications that include sexual orientation, and laws that address discrimination or harassment in the educational system tied to sexual orientation, many pro-marriage equality groups were left scratching their heads. (Human Rights Campaign) How could a state, so widely seen as progressive, take such an aggressive measure to potentially limit the rights of LGBT partners?
The reality is, that while legislation that implicitly supports LGBT rights exists in the land of 10,000 lakes, there exists a larger concentration of legal considerations that do not imply protection for LGBT couples and only extends protection to couples classified as married.
Project515, a Minnesota non profit aimed at battling inequalities in Minnesota state law, have outlined a multitude of grievances from issues of life and death to implicit discrimination to same-sex partners. For example, MN Statute 3.7392 aims to define a survivor of the I-35W bridge collapse and who thereby is entitled to the Survivors Compensation Bill. The Statute reads as the surviving spouse or next of kin of a deceased survivor who would be entitled to bring an action under section 573.02. A same-sex partner would not be able to make a claim (Project515).
Countless times throughout the legal structure of the state of Minnesota, same-sex couples are not seen as equal in the eyes of the law. As a result, the ability of same-sex couples to achieve legal recognition of marriage in this state becomes a matter of substantial importance to a sizeable segment of the state’s population.
Leading the fight for marriage equality are a number of non-profit organizations including OutFront Minnesota, Project515 and Minnesotans United for All Families. All three organizations worked hard leading up to both the Senate and House votes to inform legislators and compel constituents to do the same, to not pass the ballot measure. However, since the failure to stop the ballot measure, all three have immediately taken to organizing and developing communication strategy to support marriage equality in the November 2012 election.
What concerns marriage equality proponents, is the number of times, when left to a public vote, marriage amendments have been passed either defining marriage as between a man and a woman or explicitly banning same-sex marriage. Arizona (2008), Tennessee and Colorado(2006), among others have all passed marriage amendments. (CNN Election Results)
As the fight for marriage equality heats up, it’s worthwhile examining the historic debate as it played out in two other, often-viewed progressive states, California (Proposition “8”) and New York (A. 8354).
This essay aims to explore the failures of marriage equality supporters in California and the successes of marriage equality supporters in New York as a means of establishing a framework for successful message design and communication tactics to inform potential efforts for the Minnesota marriage equality movement.
Gay Marriage Marketing: The failures of anti-prop 8 communications
In May 2008 the California Supreme Court ruled “the state constitution required that gay couples be permitted access to civil marriage” (Feldblum34). But by November of that same year, marriage equality supporters woke up to a starkly different landscape. The opposition had successfully navigated a campaign to pass Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage in the same state that just months before the Supreme Court voted in favor of supporting. How did marriage equality supporters fail to defeat a ballot proposal while the highest court in the state had stood in their favor just months prior? It came down to a lack of strategy and sophisticated message design.
The silence was deafening
In a February 2009 essay, Christopher Burnett, an associate professor of journalism at California State at Long Beach blamed the anti-“8” side for a lack of ambition in sharing their perspective. Burnett, who also hosted a cable television show that is broadcast throughout Los Angeles county, the state’s most populated by 3:1 with the 2nd largest county, writes about the failures of the anti-“8” side. His show producers put out a call to both sides to come on the show and share their views, only the pro”8” side responded. Burnett concluded that “ineptitude when it comes to managing public opinion underscores that gay activists are relying too much on the courts to achieve change” (Burnett 7). Burnett’s assumption of a lack in strategy on the side of gay activists isn’t misplaced. In Chai Feldblum’s 2009 essay, Feldblum takes the lack of strategy and understanding of media relations and message design to the next level in the failures of the ant-“8” movement.
Lack of message design and strategy
While a lack of strategy combined with failure in both proactive and reactive media relations were lacking as outlined by Burnett, among the most glaring failures of the anti-“8” side was an inability to combat the laser-beam focused pro-“8” message. Supporters of proposition 8 were aware that society had changed its perspective of LGBT issues. They knew that putting all efforts into taking a moral attack on the significance of legitimizing gay couples wouldn’t garner the support necessary to advance their cause. Instead, as Feldblum outlines, they focused on family. Specifically, “the primary argument advanced by Prop 8 supporters was that providing access to marriage for gay couples would reduce the rights available to others” (34). Prop 8 supporters used a 2008 Massachusetts ruling (Parker v. Hurley) as their poster child. The premise of the court case was the Parker family objecting to their public school sending their child home with a book titled “Who’s in a Family.”
The book depicts different family compositions including families with two moms and families with two dads. (34) The Parker family contested that the public education system had no authority to expose a child to a family composition that they found to be offensive or contrary to their religious views. In Park v. Hurley, another family joined he prosecution, the Wirthlin’s.
The Wirthlin’s son was sent home with a book titled “King and King”, a story about a young prince who was ordered to marry but rejects all the princesses until he finds his true love, another prince. Neither family took issue with the curriculum but instead pressed for
a special accommodation, namely that no teacher or adult be permitted to expose their children to materials or discussion about sexual orientation or same-sex unions without first notifying them and giving them the opportunity to pull their children out of such discussion. (35)
The parents sued the state and lost but in the mean time became public figures in the pro 8 campaign to banned same-sex marriage in California. Feldblum’s essay poses this question
What does the right of gay couples in California to access civil marriage have to do with [a parent’s] ability to teach [their child] that gay marriage is wrong? Nothing. What does a change in society’s views generally say about how gay people should be treated in society, including with regard to marriage, have to do with [a child] learning something about gay people in public school [that their parent] might not agree with? Everything. (35)
What Feldblum is getting at, is the failure of the anti-8 side to strategically combat a message from the pro-8 side that plays into the tensions that rise when society begins to change norms. A far better approach, Feldblum contends, would be to understand the message and address the tensions directly. In other words, practice reactive public relations and message design to combat misinformation that exploits the friction that gets created as society changes its views on a social issue.
Misinformation on steroids
The spin to voters that allowing same-sex marriages would lead to teaching homosexuality in schools was just one prong of many in a campaign of misinformation waged by the pro-8 side. Surina Khan explores the misinformation lobbed by the pro-8 side in an essay that also discusses the unlikely alliances between the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church to defeat gay marriage.
Additionally, prop-8 supporters circulated a message that if same-sex marriage were allowed in California, churches would be forced to perform them or risk losing tax exemptions. The reality is that religious marriage and civil marriage are very different, but that could fill another essay on the history, politics and economics of the very notion of marriage. Perhaps the central part of the misinformation campaign however was positioning same-sex marriage as being detrimental to children and the rearing of them.
What the pro-8 side won was a strategy and organizational battle rooted in alliances and misinformation with an opponent who didn’t see the need to change the rhetoric from the years of fighting previously.
Money didn’t talk
At the end of the day, unlike most political and social battles, money was not the issue. Both sides were well funded. What ultimately tipped the scales in the “yes on 8” side was a lack of strategy, planning and ability to combat messages and misinformation. The anti-8 side was so focused on the legal component and heavily reliant on the justice system and the plea for equal rights to sway in their favor. However, another example from a state also seen as progressive outlines how money, in another context, could sway the vote in favor of marriage equality supporters who took advantage of alliances as well and a change in rhetoric.
Success in the Empire State
With the failure to defeat prop8 on the West Coast behind them, marriage equality supporters took to the streets of New York three years later in an effort to move New York State to legalize same-sex marriages.
One of the key messages to support marriage equality in New York was it’s economic impact on several fronts. In the context of revenue from the actual marriage ceremonies, states like Iowa who had already passed same sex marriage had seen nearly $12 Million attributed to same-sex marriages in a 2011 report issued by the Williams Institute.
Further economic concern revolved around the impact of driving a highly motivated segment of the population out of the workforce in New York State to a state where an LGBT individual was free to marry their loved ones. Worse yet, would be the loss of LGBT individuals who, because of their lifestyle and late in life family commitments tend to have high levels of discretionary income. (Tatum)
What’s interesting to learn from the New York battle is how quickly times can change and how different a political perspective can be. One of the deciding votes to approve gay marriage in the Empire State came from Senator Mark Grisanti, a staunch Catholic who himself believed marriage to be only between a man and woman. Grisanti’s own wife also took issue with the possibility that their state would legalize same-sex unions. Grisanti broke party lines and voted in favor of the issue. What’s intriguing is his public statement to colleagues prior to casting an aye vote; in what would become the thought heard ‘round the country, Grisanti’s perspective signaled yet another shift in the debate on gay marriage from either side.
I cannot legally come up with an argument against same-sex marriage. Who am I to say that someone does not have the same rights that I have with my wife, who I love, or have the 1,300-plus rights I share with her?” Grisanti said.
So how were marriage equality supporters able to change the hearts and minds of even devout Catholics, casting a vote in favor of something they fundamentally disagreed with? One reason they were successful, was they learned from the mistakes of prop-8. In a U.S. News Article, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said that
On such an emotional issue, gay rights advocates have learned to acknowledge religious concerns and worries about the threat to traditional marriage. Our reaction to that group of people can’t be, ‘That’s a bigoted, wrong-headed view.’ Our reaction has to be, ‘Let’s do the work of bringing down that barrier’ “to accepting gay unions, Solmonese said. (qtd in Milligan)
Those barriers were brought down through a series of efforts that focused on aligning love and commitment as the issue, not a cry for equal rights. Framing the issue in language that was emotional supported through images and sounds an testimonials proved successful coupled with a new rhetoric approach by looking at the economic impact of same-sex marriages.
Towards a framework and strategy for MN
So what can be learned from the history of the marriage equality battle? The failures of the anti-8 side reinforce the importance for a strategic orientation in any communication campaign. Media relations ineffectiveness is not tolerable when an issue needs to be supported through sharing of stories. Further, the anti-8 failures to combat misinformation, albeit intelligent message design, was predominantly rooted in a failure to reactively adjust and assess societal conditions that were changing. Reliance on an old message and tactic is not a strategy in a dynamic society that changes faster than legislation and strategy sometimes can. The final failure was to accurately isolate the tensions and frictions being addressed and created by the opposition with a strategic response.
The failures of the anti-8 side, were corrected in New York. The two combined provide a qualitative case study to inform a framework around strategic message design to combat the 2012 marriage amendment facing Minnesota voters. By all means, it’s worth noting as a caveat to this essay that Prop 8 was a public vote while New York was a legislative vote. The publics to some extent are different. However, in many ways the challenges facing marriage equality supporters remains the same regardless if a ballot is cast by an average citizen or cast by a state senator. Both are informed by a set of norms that are developed over the course of a lifetime. Those norms are hard to shift without addressing the dissonance created by introducing a new concept or idea that is out of balance with a set of beliefs.
Concluding thoughts
At the core of debate over marriage equality, there exists a dynamically shifting set of social norms and acceptance surrounding the concept of same-sex marriage. The failures of the anti-8 side, and the success seen in New York in many ways can be linked to this shift in society through theory. Heider’s balance theory suggests “individuals organize attitudes towards people and objects in relation to one another within her or his own cognitive structure.” (Severin & Tankard 134) If that cognitive structure is being informed by a society that’s essentially changing the rules, a rigid, structured and pragmatic approach to message design will fail, as we saw in the case of Prop 8. The victor in that situation was able to see the change and develop a message that was decoded by the masses in a way to keep attitudes in balance and avoid any cognitive dissonance.
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