You *can* put gay couples on TV after all!

Anyone from WA United For Marriage paying attention? I'm so disappointed with their television campaign keeping actual gay couples in the proverbial closet. If I was contributing any more money to the cause, it would go to this Maine group.

There will be no gay men in any pro marriage equality ads. The campaign is being run by professional campaigners, not "the gays" They do lots of research and one thing they find is that people don't respond well to ads featuring actual homosexuals. This pisses off a lot of "The Gays" who are paying the bills but this professional approach gives us a huge advantage over how things were done in California. It is also a good example of how we generally do things differently in Washington State and why we have such great success and innovation.

Wonderful! I know WA state is going to pass it, 2012 is our turning point.

I do phone banking for "MUM" - Mainers United for Marriage, and it's both heartening, and depressing as fuck. You learn how very fucking lazy, and lame people are, even over an issue they supposedly support. Thing is, it was SO CLOSE here in 09, and this time, the local Catholic diocese has for some reason decided not to actively battle this, so we really do have a decent shot, but of course the motherfuckers at NOM are drowning us right now with $500k worth of bullshit lying ads, all crammed into the month of October.

On a happier note, I emailed John Corvino's agent last week, since for some reason no one at MUM had thought to try this - (no one seemed to have seen his videos, or been aware of his book, or the fact that he's out there right now doing live debating with Maggie Gallagher) - (there appear to be too many straight people at MUM) ... and it turns out the man is agreeable to coming to Maine for a fundraiser. They just have to work out the 'details'. Fingers frigging crossed.

Gorgeous video. Particularly the couple together for 37 yrs (who happen to live in my town). Who in the world could argue that those two don't deserve such a basic, critical human right??

Here's another nice video from Maine featuring Portland firefighters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6E6v0XmS…

I'm not gay and it pisses me off. From what I saw of the prop 8 campaign in CA, that strategy didn't work very well there.

People who will vote against ref 74 cause they don't like seeing gay couples are going to vote against Ref 74 regardless. You think opponents are going to be tricked as to what te referendum is about?

The advertising should be trying to put a human face on the couples affected, so they're not just abstracts. That's what changes hearts and minds on this issue.

WA United's ads have been better than the CA ones in that regard, which mainly seemed to try to respond to the outrageous claims of the opposition. Nevertheless, only having parents on to tell their children's stories is bullshit. What, gay couples aren't good enough to tell their own stories? They didn't leave the black people out of the Civil Rights movement did they?

If I wanted to contribute to a gay-rights campaign that feels it needs to keep gays out of sight, I'd have contributed to the HRC.

@4 Given the time it takes to process the mail-in ballots, unless those other states actually reject it, we'll probably be the last of the states this year.

@Velvetbabe Cheer up!

To the rest of you: Please help out! https://secure.mainersunited.org/page/co…

@10 - I'm normally plenty cheery, but I can't stand that we lost by a razor margin in '09 and that the same may happen again, just because people are lazy fucks (our "supporters") or ridiculously gullible, fear-based sheep (what feels like the majority of parents, here). I'm just fucking sick of it. I wanna win this motherfucker, *finally*, however, the campaign feels a bit like Kerry in '04. I volunteered for him then, and it was embarrassing and disheartening, how truly lame the dems and their campaigns can be. The gay marriage side is always at a disadvantage financially vs NOM, which is why we need to be smarter and canny-er, and that's not what I'm seeing.

PS - we need volunteers! Sign up! Just an hour or two a week!