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News & ArtsFriday, January 15, 2010
Homo / Hetero Family With Two Mothers "Substantially Indistinguishable" From Traditional Family
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 12:02 PM
It's not an argument being made by supporters of marriage equality. Opponents of marriage equality are arguing that a family headed by two women is "substantially indistinguishable" from one headed by a man and woman... but only when you're talking about logos.
The Courage Campaign responded this morning to a cease and desist letter delivered earlier in the week by lawyers for ProtectMarriage.com and announced it will refuse to remove a logo on their Prop 8 Trial Tracker website that parodies the ProtectMarriage.com logo. In a letter to ProtectMarriage.com, Courage Campaign legal counsel Nathan Sabri of Morrison Forester explained why the cease and desist letter had no merit. "While our client does appreciate the irony of the suggestion in your letter that a logo of a family made up of a man, a woman, and two children is 'substantially indistinguishable' from a logo made up of two women and two children, your assertion is incorrect," Sabri wrote. "This difference between our client's logo and your client's logo is a graphical representation of the core difference between Courage Campaign's views and ProtectMarriage.com's views, presented in a sassy way that will not be lost on the public."
Hilarious.
2
This is such a sad aspect of American culture. You can distort the facts, you can sue to remain uniquely anonymous, you can flat out lie to the public at large—but trademark infringement, you'll have something to answer for.
3
The real intent is not to "parody", they're not SNL, the real intent is to create confusion. it's in no way believable that a gay org couldn't come up with their own logo but had to virtually copycat that of a traditional marriage group and distort it, just for parody's sake.
5
Wow! "The real intent is not to 'parody'", @3, it's "just for parody's sake"? Self-contradiction in two sentences flat! If it's just for parody's sake, then the intent is in fact to parody. There's no other way to parse what you said.
6
Both logos are lesbian couples but ProtectMarriage.com's just has a woman in pants being "the man".
7
Your online persona is a veritable parody in and of itself, LC - and the rest of us didn't have any problem figuring that out.
8
"...the real intent is to create confusion." That's rich, LC. The original "Protect Marriage" sign graphic is the one designed to create confusion. The low contrast between the silhouettes and the background, combined with the vague statement "Protect Marriage--Yes on Prop. 8" (gays in California could, of course, legally marry in the months before Prop. 8 passed) were cynically and manipulatively targeted at the many people on the edge of awareness of the specifics of the issue who were philosophically in favor of gay marriage or neutral, to trick them into casting their votes in opposition to equal marriage rights.
Your wooden-headed obstinacy disgusts me, but I don't think you're incapable of learning and growing in your capacity for love and acceptance as a human being. I hope you stick around long enough to do so.
Your wooden-headed obstinacy disgusts me, but I don't think you're incapable of learning and growing in your capacity for love and acceptance as a human being. I hope you stick around long enough to do so.
9
wtf, Dan?! You just changed the graphic on your post. I don't know what your image source is, and maybe you're not aware being in WA, but the original "Yes on 8" logo as it appeared on yard signs all over CA (and originally in your post) had light blue figures against a vivid yellow background, creating low contrast and minimizing the dimorphism of the adult silhouettes. Rabid "traditional marriage" types saw what they wanted to see, but many others in the middle were confused. This was an attempt to take advantage of lack of understanding of what the ballot language was and what a Yes vs. No vote meant--just as with R71 in WA.
10
Uh, yeaaahh, LC -- The fact that you find it "in no way believable" that the Courage Campaign is parodying the original logo is not surprising. I find most of your reasoning regarding LGBT rights completely illogical and polluted by paranoia and unrealized bias. And the fact that you just keep coming back for your regular drubbing on the Savage Blog comments does not make much sense to me, either. Masochist???
11
Also, LC, you just don't get it. You guys are the ones who think there's some momentous societal shift taking place. The rest of us are just laughing at you.
Yes, always.
Yes, always.
12
@3 To clarify, the Courage Campaign is not a "gay org." It is an online organization that educates and advocates progressive causes, one of which is marriage equality. There is a whole slew of issues that the Courage Campaign works on aside from Prop. 8.
16
i have this theory that LC is really a frustrated high school sociology teacher. they make up really absurd arguments and then sit back as we deconstruct them. kinda like the riddler from batman, who i think is actually a frustrated math teacher ( time bombs, train crashes, its all word problems brought to life)
actually...do you have any green tights, LC?
actually...do you have any green tights, LC?
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