Slog
News & ArtsThursday, October 9, 2008
Homo / Hetero "Our children need a mother and a father to thrive."
Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Check out this campaign mailer from Ohio. A Republican state representative—John Schlichter—is attacking his Democratic opponent for supporting adoption rights for same-sex couples.
Where to begin? Well, let's start with the use of scare grooms in this ad. One grooms is kneeling in front of the other—and you know what that means. Gay men are so obsessed with sex that we can't even refrain from getting it on when we're two inches tall, made of plastic, and destined to stand on top of a wedding cake that will be displayed in a banquet hall in front of our friends, our families, and—the horror!—our children. If this is how tiny gay men made of plastic behave on their cakes (and in our attack ads), imagine who gay parents behave in front of their children!
But this is what's truly priceless about this ad—and what will keep those "Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father" Slog posts coming...
Ray Pryor doesn't want to raise Ohio's children in the best environment.Instead he supports same sex couples adopting our children.
Buy our children need a mother and a father to thrive.
That's right, Ohio—scary gay men are coming to adopt "your" children! You remember your children, right? The children you abused, neglected, and abandoned; the children you were unfit or unready to parent; the children that were taken from your homes by the state and are now languishing in foster care. Those are the children same-sex couples are adopting—children who have been failed by their heterosexual parents, failed by the mothers and fathers they "need in order to thrive," children who in many cases would not have homes—no parents at all—if they weren't adopted by loving, fit, vetted, qualified same-sex couples.
7
I like the teardrop bullet-points coming from the wee moppets' eyes as she contemplates the homos that are going to abduc- adopt her...
8
Dan, you're like a guardian angel. I'm writing your name in for the unchallenged Supreme Court Justice position currently occupied bu Charles Johnson - who stood with Barbara Madsen against same sex marriage saying, among other things, that the state has an interest in maintaining heterosexual marriage because of procreation...as if that's the only reason people get married.
I would love to have your voice on the Supreme Court.
9
why is that child wearing all that makeup? is this what gays do to their kids?!?! you treat them as little barbie dolls and take them to child beauty pagaents?!??! i'm outraged!
oh wait, only heterosexual republican parents do that.
10
Are gay male parents supposed to be scarier than lesbian parents? I ask because lesbian parent couples are common where I am and I never figured out I'm supposed to be alarmed for their children -- I'm usually envious that their child has a stable two-parent household I missed out on. Maybe if they had black backgrounds with white blurry courier fonts wherever we saw each other I would know to be alarmed...
12
Christ, does anyone know where this dick is in Ohio? I'll move there for election day and vote against him.
Actually, except for the psychotic bigots, I don't know anyone here who thinks same-sex couples are unfit for adopting. Especially when we have so few foster parents, we can't fiscally afford to be bigots about it.
I wonder if they think that heterosexuals will come out of the sky and adopt all the children in foster care. Especially the children of teenagers who were raised on an Ohio diet of abstinence. I knew a lot of kids in foster care and I know they just wanted a place to call home, they would have been thrilled for a family, gay or straight.
Then again, I was raised by "them lib-urals" and most of my family leans that way.
13
McCain is running anti-Obama ads here in Ohio that use the tagline "Obama and congressional liberals..."
I don't know who came up with the idea that the word "liberal" is a bad word to anybody that isn't a Republitard already, but evidently it's in common use here now.
14
I think the idea is to motivate a tiny sliver of single-issue evangelical voters who are dead-set against this to show up on election day in an election where things are looking bad for Republicans. Especially since I doubt if the voters of conservative, rural Pickaway County are the ones having their registrations dropped due to "irregularities."
This strategy worked in the 2004 elections in Ohio -- the anti-gay ballot measure turned out a lot more of the evangelical vote, especially in the more rural Southern counties.
Apparently Schlichter is worried that the bill he introduced to make the tomato Ohio's state fruit isn't going to be enough to allow him to keep his seat on the state legislature. So he's running on an anti-scare-grooms/pro-tomato platform.
16
So, is Rep. Schlichter asserting that, if teh gays adopt YOUR children, they'll turn them into MIMES with grease-painted lips and little tears on their cheeks?
Well, if that's the case, he's got MY vote.
Fucking mimes.
17
@13 The "Congressional liberals" language has to do with the McCain campaign and the RNC splitting the cost of the ad. For this to be legal, the ad can't only be about Obama it has to also be about Congress. I've heard a bunch of "Obama and his liberal friends in Congress" radio ads in Virginia. Of course, they aren't required to include the "liberal", but they seem to think it's the scariest word in the English language.
18
All things, Stranger ....(than fiction).
Dear Dan,
Once again I'd like to thank the team of Stranger lovers and haters the world over for providing the perfect opportunity with which to lam-baste' all the
" critical little judiciaries "
who find their own 'finagglelings' between the pages of print and electronica too disconcerting to be viewed as anything other than
"side-show attractions"....
who, in lean defenseive posturings for a bloated oil rich deposit of minerals regurgitated up through the mantle of filtering layers of the earth with which to extract "the same old boring forensic sickness from our precious "off-topic leash-masters...", dismiss the voices of the ageless youths call to arms for revolution and equal distribution of party games and financial proceeds.
Viva le'enviornmentalistas"!!!
So with out further tran-sin-dental accreditations here goes my feeble attempt at once again unmasking....
A.Birch Steen.... Public Editor At Large.
Dear Public Editor.....
How is it up there in the lofty heights of "yon castle fiefdom"?
Perhaps the criticisms of drunken news gatherers, and defenders of
" how should I say it...
'wishy washy old money-purse tight-fisted pompus wind bag boss-bosses clamouring in rage at the greedy employees cries for freedom from oppression and poverty' ? ",
is just a bit much for your carnelian features to deal with...eh?...eh, eh, eh-eh-eh.
Do you secretly wish for the old styled fable of a fair haired brother with which to hold hands with, and again....
"steal mis-fortune from the face of your mother?
Or perhaps we should call upon witnessed readerships who have written the "editors" in confusion... hoping to possibly find of course... political peace.
Perhaps it is because you lay around all day at the pool, listening to your stock ticker tapes wizzzing away at light speed, peddling money and coinage and futures and signs and wonders and symbols out upon flashy screens and are far too busy to pay attention to your readership... until of course they call upon your terrestrial form to be liquidated....
" on Earth , as it is in Heaven ".
One look at the repulican gaurd of similarly printed leads and responces from your opening to FUCKING BRILLANT page 6, would again call to attention of the meek of the earth just what is again a prophetic resolution of fakery and pompastic crumudgeries in confluent jangely jingle juices of sweetly disguised ques-terse-calls...
and so again I submit to the wheels of the dragons lair and enter into battle..
where upon the boldly enlightended wings of....
the "staff of The Stranger"...
I am protected as if on the wings of the angel of light herself....
God help you dear old A.Birch Steen, if all you have to offer next week as answer to this call of disgrace, is the disconnect of your morticians bounced check and a sad reparte' in a cheap reisling.
Good day to you sir,
Daniel
More...
19
Thank you very much for posting this. I live in Columbus and, as a gay prospective parent, was pretty ticked off when I got a copy of the flyer yesterday. So I called Schlichter's campaign office, which turned out to be his home, and spoke with him. I told him the flyer was incorrect and insulting, asked if he would apologize, and asked if he stood by the flyer. His response? "I appreciate your views and thank you for your call."
As bigoted as he is, the flyer would have gone nowhere without the Ohio Republican Party, which paid for it. The culprits here are ORP chairman Robert T. Bennett, the speaker of the Ohio House John Husted, and the campaign manager of the Ohio House Republican Caucus Scott Borgemenke.
22
Someone should mail him the countless number of scholarly research articles that state exactly the opposite.
24
I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio and sing in the gay men's chorus. Last night at our rehersal, a spokeswoman from the county came and talked about becoming a foster and/or adoptive parent. They said they are desperate for homes for these kids. They sought us, the homos, out, begging us to take in these children. Schlichter might want to get acquainted with the facts.
25
OMG! I didn't even notice that the bullet points are shaped like tears streaming down that poor kid's face! That Schlichter is one SICK bastid!
California - Vote "NO" on Prop. 8!
Arizona - Vote "NO" on Prop. 102! AGAIN!
Florida - Vote "NO" on Amendment 2!
26
You have a typo, Dan.
"Buy our children need a mother and a father to thrive."
Should read
"But our children need a mother and a father to thrive."
:) from CityBeat
27
Dan, why don't you make a YOUTUBE video asking voters to VOTE NO on PROP 8 in California? This vote will have effects on gay people everywhere and for years to come.
28
Children who are up for adoption don't have a mother OR a father, so the prospect of a pair of moms or a pair of dads, and a home probably look pretty good to them. Let's ask the kids what they want. Would you like to live in a huge state run orphanage, or go live with the two nice men/women who want to give you your own room and take you to soccer practice?
29
All you need to know to support gay marriage is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gDze9YBVxU
co-winners of the 2008 Boston Comedy Festival.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
Hating People Doesn't Make Them Thinner by Jen Graves
-
Los Angeles Gay Bar Bans Bachelorette Parties Until Marriage Equality Is Attained by David Schmader
-
Fill in the Blank by Grant Brissey
-
This Reminds Me of the Great Calculator Scare of the Late '70s/Early '80s by David Schmader
-
Idiot Tries to Defend Bigoted Anti-Gay-Marriage Preacher on Anderson Cooper by Paul Constant
-
SL Letter of the Day: Putting It In by Dan Savage
-
Six Moms with Too Much Time on Their Hands and a Shitty Website Decide to Fight Gay Superheroes by Paul Constant
-
Why Mayor McGinn's Wife Canceled Her Family's Seattle Times Subscription by Eli Sanders
-
What the Hell Is Wrong With Seattle's Pride Parade? by Dominic Holden
-
Meet the UW "Swagga Suit" by David Schmader
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (29) RSS