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So, well, fuck. Time for a post mortem. (My apologies for the length, but this has been stewing in me all day and I just can't stand to hide it behind a cut tag.)
Ladies, gentlemen, others: We got our ass handed to us yesterday. This 'faith gap' talk is going to stick around. The lesson last night was pretty clear. If you go to church, you vote Republican. If you don't go to church, you vote Democrat. The churchgoers outnumber us. There is still a vast middle, but right now, they have been sold on this divide and it isn't going to change by itself.
The unfortunate implication is that the Democratic party is about to shift right and find religion. Expect to see a wave of new faces in time for the 2006 elections, all of them anti-abortion, anti-gay and loudly god-fearing. This sucks, but it is the natural response of a party that just got its ass handed to it.
The good news is that it doesn't have to be this way. Sure, lots of us lefties are not the most religious people around. But lots of us are. We might hold some views that contradict fundie and even mainstream Christian views, but we hold a lot that are right in line as well. The other side has positions that aren't exactly gospel as well. So why did the religious go red yesterday? Because the Republicans sell themselves better than we do. We need to learn.
First, and most fundamentally we need to understand and consider the other side's POV. We are obviously way, way out of touch with middle America. You don't have to agree, or even consider it valid. Just imagine what the world looks like to them. Look at the amazingly negative response to gay marriage. I expected resistance, but nothing like this. So I've been trying to think what it looks like to the other side. Imagine something truly repulsive and freaky to you. Puppy-raping, or something. Now, you've always known that somewhere far away there were puppy-rapers, but you've tried hard not to think about it too much. Suddenly, over night, a court forces a state to legalize puppy-raping. And local officials all over the country start declaring it legal. And now there are puppy-rapers in your own state, suing because they say they have a right to rape puppies. They say it's perfectly normal, and they should be allowed to teach in your schools and adopt children. Pretty goddammed freaky, all said and done. That's what gay marriage looks like, feels like to the other side. Until we really understand that -- not agree, not sympathize, but simply understand -- and can deal with their objections in something approaching their own language, we're going to fail.
We need to phrase things in terms of morality, not rights. When we say 'rights', people hear 'forcing our views down your throats'. They imagine paperwork, annoying regulations, lawyers and unpopular court rulings. 'Rights' is the language of a dead era.
We need to come out and say when things are wrong. Looking for legal loopholes to allow torture? That's wrong. It isn't bad for our international standing, it isn't sloppy intelligence gathering, it isn't setting a bad example as the leader of the free world. It isn't questionable legally. It's wrong and shameful. We need to be willing to make moral judgments, which isn't always easy for us. Taking strong stances makes you look strong.
Stop talking about the rest of the world. Sure, it horrifies me how the US is seen these days. Keep being horrified, just shut up about it. Don't mention the UN, and for god's sake don't talk about any 'global test'. Talking about it does nothing except push people with any isolationist leanings to the other side.
We need to stop trying to appease everyone. The other side certainly doesn't! It was way overblown, but the flip-flop charge held some weight. We don't need to dumb down the message, we just need to come out and say it. When we try to make everyone happy, we just look weak and poorly focused. Worse yet, we look like a shallow copy of the other side. We have good ideas to sell here, and we should be proud of them.
Once you have said what you mean, keep saying it. Don't assert it, don't argue it, just speak of it as the truth you honestly believe it is. People are convinced by certainty. We aren't very good at certainty, probably because most of us have a pretty good idea how weird and uncertain the world can be. Well, tough. If we're actually that unsure an issue, we have no business trying to sell it.
Similarly, we need to be more memorable. We need to be better at inventing self-defining labels. The Republicans are awesome at this. 'Compassionate conservative', 'activist judges', 'partial birth abortion', 'death tax', 'marriage penalty'. They're able to invent highly partisan labels that people actually use. We desperately need this skill. We need to stop trying to come up with catchy slogans. (All our slogans suck anyway. 'Help is on the way' and 'Stronger at home, respected in the world'? Lame, lame, LAME.) Who repeats a slogan? You get a label to catch on, it gets used (and the message it contains reinforced) regularly. Once we get a good label, we all need to start using it, and keep using it. It might not be possible to combat existing labels, so we need to be very proactive about not letting new ones get started unopposed. Imagine if abortion rights groups had accepted the label 'pro-death'!
It isn't too late. 2006 should be a great time to take back the House and/or Senate. But we need to start working on this now, before the party keels over and blindly moves right. We need ways to describe ourselves to the faithful, in their language. We need to show them how we share values and morals with them, and we need to keep repeating that until people accept it. We need labels that highjack the discourse in our favor. We need to get smart about the media for once.
Ladies, gentlemen, others: We got our ass handed to us yesterday. This 'faith gap' talk is going to stick around. The lesson last night was pretty clear. If you go to church, you vote Republican. If you don't go to church, you vote Democrat. The churchgoers outnumber us. There is still a vast middle, but right now, they have been sold on this divide and it isn't going to change by itself.
The unfortunate implication is that the Democratic party is about to shift right and find religion. Expect to see a wave of new faces in time for the 2006 elections, all of them anti-abortion, anti-gay and loudly god-fearing. This sucks, but it is the natural response of a party that just got its ass handed to it.
The good news is that it doesn't have to be this way. Sure, lots of us lefties are not the most religious people around. But lots of us are. We might hold some views that contradict fundie and even mainstream Christian views, but we hold a lot that are right in line as well. The other side has positions that aren't exactly gospel as well. So why did the religious go red yesterday? Because the Republicans sell themselves better than we do. We need to learn.
First, and most fundamentally we need to understand and consider the other side's POV. We are obviously way, way out of touch with middle America. You don't have to agree, or even consider it valid. Just imagine what the world looks like to them. Look at the amazingly negative response to gay marriage. I expected resistance, but nothing like this. So I've been trying to think what it looks like to the other side. Imagine something truly repulsive and freaky to you. Puppy-raping, or something. Now, you've always known that somewhere far away there were puppy-rapers, but you've tried hard not to think about it too much. Suddenly, over night, a court forces a state to legalize puppy-raping. And local officials all over the country start declaring it legal. And now there are puppy-rapers in your own state, suing because they say they have a right to rape puppies. They say it's perfectly normal, and they should be allowed to teach in your schools and adopt children. Pretty goddammed freaky, all said and done. That's what gay marriage looks like, feels like to the other side. Until we really understand that -- not agree, not sympathize, but simply understand -- and can deal with their objections in something approaching their own language, we're going to fail.
We need to phrase things in terms of morality, not rights. When we say 'rights', people hear 'forcing our views down your throats'. They imagine paperwork, annoying regulations, lawyers and unpopular court rulings. 'Rights' is the language of a dead era.
We need to come out and say when things are wrong. Looking for legal loopholes to allow torture? That's wrong. It isn't bad for our international standing, it isn't sloppy intelligence gathering, it isn't setting a bad example as the leader of the free world. It isn't questionable legally. It's wrong and shameful. We need to be willing to make moral judgments, which isn't always easy for us. Taking strong stances makes you look strong.
Stop talking about the rest of the world. Sure, it horrifies me how the US is seen these days. Keep being horrified, just shut up about it. Don't mention the UN, and for god's sake don't talk about any 'global test'. Talking about it does nothing except push people with any isolationist leanings to the other side.
We need to stop trying to appease everyone. The other side certainly doesn't! It was way overblown, but the flip-flop charge held some weight. We don't need to dumb down the message, we just need to come out and say it. When we try to make everyone happy, we just look weak and poorly focused. Worse yet, we look like a shallow copy of the other side. We have good ideas to sell here, and we should be proud of them.
Once you have said what you mean, keep saying it. Don't assert it, don't argue it, just speak of it as the truth you honestly believe it is. People are convinced by certainty. We aren't very good at certainty, probably because most of us have a pretty good idea how weird and uncertain the world can be. Well, tough. If we're actually that unsure an issue, we have no business trying to sell it.
Similarly, we need to be more memorable. We need to be better at inventing self-defining labels. The Republicans are awesome at this. 'Compassionate conservative', 'activist judges', 'partial birth abortion', 'death tax', 'marriage penalty'. They're able to invent highly partisan labels that people actually use. We desperately need this skill. We need to stop trying to come up with catchy slogans. (All our slogans suck anyway. 'Help is on the way' and 'Stronger at home, respected in the world'? Lame, lame, LAME.) Who repeats a slogan? You get a label to catch on, it gets used (and the message it contains reinforced) regularly. Once we get a good label, we all need to start using it, and keep using it. It might not be possible to combat existing labels, so we need to be very proactive about not letting new ones get started unopposed. Imagine if abortion rights groups had accepted the label 'pro-death'!
It isn't too late. 2006 should be a great time to take back the House and/or Senate. But we need to start working on this now, before the party keels over and blindly moves right. We need ways to describe ourselves to the faithful, in their language. We need to show them how we share values and morals with them, and we need to keep repeating that until people accept it. We need labels that highjack the discourse in our favor. We need to get smart about the media for once.
no subject
Here is Moby's essay (http://www.moby.com/Essays/html/culturalconservatism.html) on aesthetics. Read it, then read it again. The confusion of aesthetics and morals is at the heart of the conflict between culturally conservative and liberal Americans.
Your comparison to puppy-raping is a good one. It invites the retort "But puppy-raping is not consensual!," but that's okay because it illustrates exactly the right point - that the conflict is not about morals, but aesthetics.
This is important because as long as it's considered a moral conflict they can't back down - to do so they would have to abandon their morals. Nor can the liberals accept compromise - I've known a couple of small-town folks who said they would tolerate gayness, not try to make it illegal, but they wouldn't accept or condone it. They got attacked by the liberals just as much as the other homophobes, because if it's a moral issue mere tolerance isn't enough. Racism is a moral issue, and if I were to say "I'm willing to tolerate blacks but don't expect me to accept them," I would deservedly be called a fucking racist.
Aesthetics are never threatening and never worth fighting over; there's no 'right' way to decorate your house, although issues of safety and practicality may arise. Nobody is going to lobby the government to pass a law saying you can't use damask wallpaper because it's un-american.*
Cultural conservatives are trying much, much harder to kill gay marriage than they are to preserve sodomy laws - and with much greater success. Why is that? I suspect because, as you suggest, small-town conservatives aren't that bothered by gays having gay sex and being gay in San Fransisco, but legalising gay marriage here, in a_small_town, somehow implies that they'll be suddenly inundated by hordes of newlywed, cosmopolitan, urban queers.
This would not be a problem if they had their own wholesome small-town queers, but with the degree of polarisation in the argument the only good conservative is one who gives in and accepts cottaging and BDSM clubs and the only good homosexual is one who abstains and actively tries to cure his deviant urges. We must make it clear to the small-town folks that they don't have to fear pride parades on Main Street as long as they're willing to accept the nice clean-shaven gay couple next door.
I'm not suggesting that it's a good thing for people to have to conceal and sanitise aspects of their lives for the consumption of others, (heaven knows, I have no sense of propriety) but the few gays who choose to live in the deep red are going to have to do so anyway in order to get on with their neighbours. If they happen to be wholesome, monogamous, and hang Rockwell paintings on their walls, social acceptability is potentially a much better defense than the closet. As Sir Ian McKellen once said, "You don't have to talk about it; just don't lie about it."
Fear of leatherboys moving in next door isn't the only reason people voted for anti-gay resolutions. In a large poll there is never an 'only reason'. Others did it because they're fanatical christians and actively believe gayness is a sin. Some did it because the ballot said 'amendment to define marriage only as union between a man and a woman' and they considered that an obviously true statement, like the sky being blue or birds flying.
Where gayness is a radical new idea, it's important to put people at ease with it, not threaten their small-town utopia and gradually give them the opportunity to build a model for incorporating homosexuals into it. They may never accept flamboyant urban queers, but they don't like the city, period; that's why they opted to live in small-town America. We don't need to lambast them for their aesthetic choices; after all, we do exactly the same thing, nor are we immune to making moral judgements based on aesthetics.
wholesome queers
Re: wholesome queers
"There's two sounds the brothers don't like..."
I've noticed a lot of black homophobia. I suppose it must have to do with religion, although it's possible they just figure it's their turn to oppress someone and divest them of their liberties.