Recent protests in Albany and Providence spotlighted a stark difference in strategies among supporters of marriage equality.
Having lost civil public debates over the supposed merit of its immoral bigotry, the antigay National Organization for Marriage resorted this summer to a low-budget bus tour to state capitals: a tour whose sole intent appears to be to muster self-pity and victimhood among bigots who believe that discrimination, heterosexual adultery, and conservative Catholic pedophilia qualify as “Christian values.”
At one of the tour’s stops in Albany, New York, state and local equality advocates coordinated a creative counterdemonstration featuring rainbow umbrellas and white shirts with heart symbols that expressed the love that is at the core of the quest for marriage equality.
Days later, a larger and more energetic counterdemonstration featured one of the state’s smaller, more aggressive activist groups working with out-of-state allies. (The state’s largest equality group, Marriage Equality Rhode Island, did not participate.) Demonstrators confronted the antigay bigots with shouting matches and with noisemaker bottles that were filled with pebbles.
After the Albany protest, NOM humiliated itself with the feeble complaint that a rainbow umbrella had blocked one bigoted woman’s view. After the Providence protest, however, it seemed that NOM had exactly what it wanted: Video footage of uncivil homosexuals intimidating supposed victims of marriage equality.
Michael Crawford of Freedom to Marry on July 23 voiced concerns about the result of the Providence protest.
With their anti-gay summer tour, NOM is hoping to add to their false narrative of victimization. By holding events in communities across the country, NOM is hoping to evoke outrage and confrontation with supporters of the freedom to marry. Their latest propaganda video as a perfect example:
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We can’t let anger get the best of us and feed into NOM’s false narrative that they will then use against us in court rooms and legislatures across the country. We must funnel our anger against anti-gay forces like NOM into constructive actions that will educate the public and move marriage forward.
Given the uncivil and untruthful tactics that NOM and its allies have used against equality advocates, anger and intimidation by equality advocates may seem justified.
However, in the struggle for the right to love equally, does it make sense to fight NOM’s deceit with anger rather than love? Is it wise to fight for our freedom by shouting down others the same way we have been shouted down by Exodus International and its allies in the past?
Is there a way to combine the energy of the Providence protest with the optimism and hope of the Albany protest?
Excellent post!! Many times when I read gay blogs, comments, protesters I see anger and hatred. Though our civil rights are being denied and we are being oppressed, I feel as though we have played into the anti-gay hand. We have responded to their anger and hatred with more hatred and anger. The Providence protest was just a symptom of a larger problem, the Albany protest the solution to it. We must stop our anger and show the true face of our movement…love.
Michael,
I’m not to sure where you stand regarding public activism – we’ve never had a personal conversation to that end (although I would enjoy one – I love talking to new people).
Still, I would like to correct you a little bit. While your reporting is correct, your analysis is a tad off base.
This is, at its core, a civil rights movement – one that has been going on for a very, very long time. Given stages of progression of previous civil rights movements, civil disobedience like that in Providence and Vegas serve one purpose above all else:
It brings the crazies out of the woodwork. In monitoring those NOM supporters inflamed by this, it draws out the darker side of their fan-base enough so that we can capture what is truly driving their message: animus, coldness, elitism, and a sense of entitlement.
Will NOM play the victim? For sure, but with a newly inspired focus on their events, we have both unedited video testimony and a slew of hate-driven comments/blogs online that sheds light on how dark some of their supporters really are.
Civil disobedience is inevitable. To claim it has no role is to dismiss its purpose: to make indifferent men and women who are for LGBT equality want this entire ordeal to be over.
Finally, while your words are pretty, you’ll have a hard time convincing any LGBT man, woman, or heterosexual ally to approach NOM with anything more than anger and frustration. To suggest that we approach them with kindness and love would be to put on a mask presenting the same face that they do: an unrealistic and false understanding of what love really is.
Civil disobedience is one mechanism that, when performed properly, allows rational men and women to see the harm and devastation NOM really causes.
In shouting matches – and it was a two-sided shouting match – we open the door for one thing: to have NOM elitists like Brian Brown lose so much control that he is arrested. He was threatened with arrest in Providence. If he loses control again and does get arrested, NOM will be crippled in such a way as to make them no more valid than Repent America.
Believe me. I was in Salem last Halloween. I was in Michael Marcavage’s face.
While we shout at them using anger, frustration and devastation, they respond with simple animus and unrelenting hate. Drawing that out of NOM is a most admirable mission since NOM’s only current playing card for its followers is that they appear so very rational and are able to remove LGBT men and women from their argument. When they’re unable to do that, America will see them for who they truly are.
Best wishes,
RJ
Kyle,
“We must stop our anger and show the true face of our movement…love.”
Anger cannot and should not be stopped. Anger is what is pushing us forward. No civil rights movement has ever won without anger.
NOM and their supporters are not angry. Some hate and the rest feel a sense of entitlement based on their religious beliefs.
Without showing anger, without showing devastation, we cannot possibly drive our message home:
“NOM, everyone who despise us, hates us, or wants us to go away: Please just leave us the f**k alone.”
RJ, I think civil disobedience and unruly behavior are very appropriate sometimes.
I’m just not convinced that they are appropriate with NOM.
And when that behavior is appropriate, I think it should be done with some thought and deliberation. Ad-libbed intimidation can quickly degenerate into threats and violence.
As predatory as it sounds, maybe we need to approach this like a game of chess. NOM is obviously thinking strategically. It would do us well to do the same. Not necessarily act emotionless but put it in our heads that every move we make must be done to push ourselves forward.
RJ,
I am all for civil disobedience. I love the stuff that GetEqual is doing. Having said that I think actions against NOM are wrong. NOM’s bus tour of hate has shown to be a huge failing. We don’t need to be in their face to show the failings of it. One just needs to look at the crowds they are attracting. There is a smart use of civil disobedience and less than productive use of it. Let’s use it where it does the most good.
read a great many comments here and elsewhere about the massive failure of this NOM hateapalooza. If we measure that by what we think their goals are, then of course it is a failure.
But I have a much different take on it. We also know that most of their arugments are about protecting heterosexual and or religious privilege, not actually about protecting marriage, family, children, faith, or any of it.
Why should thisd tour be any different in m.o.? We already know that NOM is capable of a great deal of dishonesty, and that its most basic arguments have pretty much devolved to “we’re not bigots, we’re victims.” The same old hatred and fear the queers, gays-are-gonna-get-your-children fear-mongering and homophobia dressed up in its shiny best.
I think that THAT is the place to start to understand what they are doing, and that it is hardly a fail. It isn’t about us or marriage, any more than their arguments are ever about the reality of marriage. This whole bus tour exists for two purposes: to tell their moneybags supporters that see, we’re doing something, thus protecting their cash cow, and to generate (they hope), loud and negative responses so that they have some actual proof for their we’re-the-victims schtick.
If this is the case– and i believe it must be for them to be consistent– then the very best thing that we can do is ignore them entirely. And added bonus would be to show their moneyed supporters that this whole thing is a fail, hopefully while catching one of the pricipals in flagrante dleicto.
It does not do any good to show it to us.
While I fully understand the anger and it’s role in promoting an agenda of equality I am always disappointed when I hear stories like this one.
First of all, often it best to simply ignore an accuser, it deflates them and makes them seem like they are fighting and angry war against no one. These aren’t the type to engage in meaningful conversation so why waste your breath and get worked up? Plus, they enjoy seeing how worked up we become.
Secondly, regardless of our accusers behavior until we recognize the humanity of each person and treat them with dignity we can’t expect to be offered dignity ourselves. The ends cannot justify the means. It’s the good old golden rule, time tested.
Lisa, I have to disagree that it’s ever a good idea to ignore an accuser. When you ignore them their misinformation spreads with nothing to counteract it. While I will say it’s best not to counter their claims with profanity or violence we should never let people bear false testimony against us and just let it slide off our backs.
Lisa, if the ends cannot justify the means was it wrong for the Germans hiding Jews in Nazi times to lie to the soldier at the door and say “There are no Jews here.”?
I’m not sure what happened in Las Vegas, but can the actions here really be called “civil disobedience”? As far as I know there was no risk of arrest, no sit-down strike, no blocking streets or doors. It seems to me not so much as “civil disobedience” as a counter-protest. Even if they’re making noise is that actually illegal?
db, I agree this wasn’t civil disobedience. I wasn’t saying it was.
Anger is more than justified from the GLBT side. These people are voting away/blocking our just civil rights. No civil rights movement has got much of anyplace holding hands and singing “Kumbaya”. Civil disobedience is necessary in this country to get people’s attention. Compared to the jerk with the sign with the nooses on it advocating our MURDER, people shouting, using noisemaking bottles, or standing in front of these NOM jerks under umbrellas that form the colours of the rainbow is tame indeed.
And actually, I tend to believe that these were counter-protests. Hey, you have a right to spew hate and bigotry, NOM; we have the right to protest it. No one said the protest had to be silent or passive.
“As far as I know there was no risk of arrest”
DB, the Providence action, albeit unplanned, did have arrest risk. In fact, both sides (including Brian Brown) were threatened with arrest.