So, last Sunday I wrote about the efforts of progressives to defeat amendment one, the Republican passed discriminatory amendment to the North Carolina state constitution that will be on the ballot during the forthcoming primary day on May 8.
My post apparently grabbed the attention of the amendment's proponents who sent out a panicked, hair-on-fire missive on Wednesday:
"Here’s what they’re saying about us in the Daily Kos, a notorious leftist group:"
Vote For Marriage NC's email blast
There were
432 words in the body of their letter.
154 of them were blockquoted from my work.
Another 98 word paragraph is merely a paraphrasing of news, data and statistics I compiled.
Do I have a fair-use violation complaint here?
Meh, let's face it, if it wasn't me, it'd be someone or something else.
The Vote For Marriage's contribution to their own email was mostly the phrases...
Radical activists are targeting North Carolina!
mocking our efforts to defend God’s institution of marriage
...trying to...
ram their agenda down the throats of North Carolinians!
All of this was already destined for an email blast regardless. It's the template they always pull up. (They never miss an opportunity to use the "ramming down throats" metaphor do they? What's up with that? I think these people may have deep-seated issues.)
RACE to the Ballot Event in Greensboro
in February. (
Facebook)
It's all fire and brimstone and
"resisting Satan" with the "protect marriage" crowd. What are these "radical efforts" Protect ALL NC Families is involved in that has Vote For Marriage so upset?
- Phonebanking and canvassing
- Education and outreach
- Events and rallies
- Fundraising
- Voter registration
Lions and tigers and bears! We can't have any of that kind of radical action going on in a
participatory Democracy Theocracy! Baby Jesus will cry.
I did learn something from their blast. Apparently
MoveOn has been using the Amendment fight for their list-building efforts, and collected nearly 12,000 contacts. The effort was coordinated with Protect ALL Families NC from the onset. Hopefully, MoveOn will engage the campaign in fundraising, get out the vote efforts or other matters.
Joe Sudbay over at AmericaBlog calls their "hysterical ranting" email "freak out" an indication we can win, if we play to win. He also notes, ironically, the mailer linked no fewer than three times to my post. Who knows? Maybe some of their target might read it in it's entirety and see how it harms all NC families.
Now, I saw those smiling happy, families at the top of the email blast and wondered, "Who are those people?" They don't really look like the people who show up for the anti-gay rallies that these "traditional marriage" supporters organize.
Header for Vote FOR Marriage NC email blast
The family on the left looks almost painfully wholesome, they grace the front page of Vote For Marriage website and their
Facebook page. They look like they just breezed in from a
Land's End catalog, but actually...
A happy family cheerfully stumps your cause for just 5
iStock.com credits.
Yep. Models from iStock.com stock photography site. And it looks like if Amendment One fails,
they're gonna take their moving boxes and leave the state.
The family on the right, with their beautiful Pepsodent smiles, don't appear on the group's website, they were apparently recruited just for the email. Vote For Marriage flopped the picture (which no self-respecting, professional graphic designer ever does) maybe it was because they are really supportive of LGBT families?
A happy family cheerfully stumps your cause for just 5
iStock.com credits.
When this familiy is not cheerfully helping Vote For Marriage demonize "radical activists"
this family also likes to run on the beach. Maybe they're running from radical homosexual bullies?
Using actors, not real people is par for course. Jeremy Hooper at GoodAsYou blog discovered National Organization for Marriage using stock photos on their tour bus and later caught then presenting pics from an Obama presidential campaign rally as their own.
So, these days, the first vetting stop for any new anti-gay group is iStock.com. Just last month in Washington state it was revealed anti-gay activists are using stock images for their website as well, oh and turns out the photographer was not happy his work was being used this way.
I don't know why they don't just use pictures from their own rallies, like the equality side always does? Here's one below from the National Organization for Marriage rally held in Indianapolis in July 2010 to "protect marriage." This fellow looks cheerful. What's wrong with this picture?
I suppose it's consistent with the conservative worldview that their idealized version of "family" can really only be found on iStock and
Ozzie and Harriet reruns.
For real-life, authentic North Carolinian families we can look to footage from the Thousands on Jones Street march in Raleigh, NC that includes Rev. William Barber, head of NC state NAACP, Reverend Nancy Petty of the Pullen Memorial Baptist Church and Rick Glazier, NC state representative. Look for Ben Jealous, President and CEO of the national NAACP as well. These are people with real names and real faces that say they support all NC families, and oppose Amendment One.
You can support the Protect ALL NC Families campaign by buying a tee-shirt or other merchandise from their
online store, or make a
direct donation here.
Note: This won't be queued to the front page so if you want folks to see it, recs are appreciated.
The breaking update from Protect ALL NC Families might explain why the anti-gay crowd is getting nervous:
NEW POLL SHOWS INCREASING OPPOSITION TO AMENDMENT ONE
The nonpartisan poll revealed that 54.2% of North Carolinians surveyed either oppose or strongly oppose “an amendment to the constitution that would ban same-sex marriage.” Only 37.8% polled were in any way supportive of Amendment One. The poll also illustrates a dramatic increase in the category of “strong opposition” to this type of amendment from only one year ago, with 34% now voicing strong opposition versus 21.8% in February 2011.
Overall opposition to Amendment One increased even further when North Carolinians polled were asked whether they opposed an amendment to the North Carolina constitution “that would prevent civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex couples.” Nearly 57% of North Carolinians (56.9%) polled opposed or strongly opposed an amendment on that basis.
“The Elon University poll is a clear sign that North Carolina is AGAINST Amendment One,” said Jeremy Kennedy, campaign manager for Protect All NC Families, the coalition effort to defeat Amendment One. “The more people learn about this poorly-written amendment and its unintended consequences, the more they realize it will harm our children, their families, unmarried women, and seniors.”
Update: You can't imagine how thrilling it is to be linked in a
tweet by Rachel Maddow:
I wouldn't mind if you
retweeted her tweet, so to help this story spread in NC. Especially as this first family is
their Facebook avatar.