Second suggestion — If we are appealing to the whole electorate, this is not a project of the GLBT community. Straight people who support marriage should be in the leadership, middle management and base of the effort. Gays talking to ourselves won’t win it.

Basquephobia: It does a body good.

As to statement one…it’s not really about changing the minds of Mormons…it’s letting them know that there are consequences to their actions and that they can’t get away with claiming they’re not discriminating. Attacking? I wouldn’t support that either.

Great article.

Where? When? Who are these people? Is the conference completely open?

1. Repeat after me: the actual POWER of the “YouTube, Facebook and MySpace blah blah blah” universe is so overestimated that it licks the lips of myth. Yes, they added to the sizzle of Obama’s campaign, but the steak was still meat ‘n potatoes face-to-face campaigning both literal.

While Pew Research found “the percent who say they get most of their campaign news from the Internet has tripled since October 2004,” it still tops out at only 33%. In other words, two out of three voters do NOT get their campaign information from the Net. And those who do are primarily getting it from the online versions of traditional media: TV networks, newspapers, and magazines. NOT the various circle jerk sites, er, excuse me, social networking sites.

“Social networking sites are very popular with young people, but they have not become a major source of news. Just 10% of those with social networking profiles say they regularly get news from these sites.” – Pew

2. Even if they were as influential as many dream—rather than merely a cyber variation on preaching to the choir—the chief problem remains not the medium but the message. That is, as you quoted AIDS Healthcare founder Michael Weinstein:

“Young people … have the energy, and the future is about them. But it doesn’t mean they intrinsically know what to do.”

Singular Exhibit A: On the Friday night after the election, after several hours, the San Francisco Prop H8TE protesting crowd of thousands eventually dwindled to maybe 300 sitting down in the intersection of 18th & Castro. What were they cheering, shooting cellphone pix of? First a middle-aged grotesque in Wonder Woman Goes Disco drag. “She” was rattling on and on with all the bumper sticker/easy crowd-pleasing phrases like, “Not gay rights but HUMAN rights.” Before anyone fires back, “But it was people like her that started Stonewall,” first, it, in fact, wasnt’, and, second, is THAT the kind of “real gay” you would have wanted in anti 8 commercials.

But the capper, still raising whoops of approval from the college-age crowd, was when, much to Wonder Woman’s frozen-face horror, four middle-aged Sisters of Perpetual Exhibitionism pushed their way through the crowd and stole the show from her. They proceeded to mock marry two lesbians as cameras, including from TV stations, captured it all.

JUST what we needed. Political parasites parading their pathological need for attention at all cost to all of us.

Univeral Exhibit B: As I’ve posted before, many continue to treat Amy “Impact” as a new voice for Stonewall 2.0; a sage even at 26. This, despite the fact that she’s told interviewers that we should leave the Mormons alone and that she believes churches SHOULD decide what to “call” OUR relationships. Bitch doesn’t even understand that she is de facto SUPPORTING Prop H8TE!

And what’s her idea for a followup to the first “Impact” demos, impressive ONLY for their size and widespread occurence—NOT, because of where they were held, accomplishing anything by letting off steam: “A Day Without A Gay” whose ludicrousness begins with its name and ends with the fact that its “impact” is entirely impossible to document. If a demonstrator falls in the forest and there’s no one around is there a noise?
Or is Ms. Amy ALL noise?

3. Demos focusing on homophobic Mormons [which should be expanded to at least include homophobic Catholics like SF's Archbishop who conspired with them to pass 8] is not with the fantasy of changing THEIR minds but with the purpose of identifying to others that their insistence on imposing their RELIGIOUS belief on CIVIL life is A. bigotry, and B. not to be countenanced.

If it has the added benefit of shaming or frightening some of them into not repeating their actions, all the better.

1. Repeat after me: the actual POWER of the “YouTube, Facebook and MySpace blah blah blah” universe is so overestimated that it licks the lips of myth. Yes, they added to the sizzle of Obama’s campaign, but the steak was still meat ‘n potatoes face-to-face campaigning both literal.

While Pew Research found “the percent who say they get most of their campaign news from the Internet has tripled since October 2004,” it still tops out at only 33%. In other words, two out of three voters do NOT get their campaign information from the Net. And those who do are primarily getting it from the online versions of traditional media: TV networks, newspapers, and magazines. NOT the various circle jerk sites, er, excuse me, social networking sites.

“Social networking sites are very popular with young people, but they have not become a major source of news. Just 10% of those with social networking profiles say they regularly get news from these sites.” – Pew

2. Even if they were as influential as many dream—rather than merely a cyber variation on preaching to the choir—the chief problem remains not the medium but the message. That is, as you quoted AIDS Healthcare founder Michael Weinstein:

“Young people … have the energy, and the future is about them. But it doesn’t mean they intrinsically know what to do.”

Singular Exhibit A: On the Friday night after the election, after several hours, the San Francisco Prop H8TE protesting crowd of thousands eventually dwindled to maybe 300 sitting down in the intersection of 18th & Castro. What were they cheering, shooting cellphone pix of? First a middle-aged grotesque in Wonder Woman Goes Disco drag. “She” was rattling on and on with all the bumper sticker/easy crowd-pleasing phrases like, “Not gay rights but HUMAN rights.” Before anyone fires back, “But it was people like her that started Stonewall,” first, it, in fact, wasnt’, and, second, is THAT the kind of “real gay” you would have wanted in anti 8 commercials.

But the capper, still raising whoops of approval from the college-age crowd, was when, much to Wonder Woman’s frozen-face horror, four middle-aged Sisters of Perpetual Exhibitionism pushed their way through the crowd and stole the show from her. They proceeded to mock marry two lesbians as cameras, including from TV stations, captured it all.

JUST what we needed. Political parasites parading their pathological need for attention at all cost to all of us.

Civil Rights Front.

The one thing, though, that always trumps “spin” is when it is countered with the truth. And, that is what we didn’t do very effectively. The case in point is the “think of the school children” cry from those lying liars. Within a week, we had ads up showing the truth behind the other side’s lies, and mistakenly thought that the question was decided.

Then within days the lying liars threw up ads showing school children attending a wedding at SF City Hall, and with the tag line that the administrators of the school considered this field trip to be a “teachable moment”.

So, what did our side do? We threw up our hands and said, “FUCK, WE’RE SCREWED,” never connecting the dots, that the truth always trumps SPIN! Of course, our side had already made the ill-fated decision that highlighting lesbians and gays would not benefit the cause of same-sex marriage (which arguably is STUPID).

But, that decision effectively barred them from countering with the FACT that the parents of each of those children GAVE THEIR PERMISSION to allow their children to attend the WEDDING OF THEIR TEACHER. And Why? Because it was a HISTORIC EVENT that their children could witness first hand.

We could have highlighted the fact that the “Yes on 8″ group is totally unconcerned with the parent’s rights to govern the lives of their own children. But, we didn’t! We failed to realize that EVERYTHING CAN BE SPUN, and that WE CAN TRUMP THEIR SPIN WITH THE TRUTH! And, even if we had, we would have tripped over our big clumsy committee trying to do it.

Focus on the other 98.5% of the American population. Don’t try to push the Mormons off the rug; pull the rug out from under them.

Change the dynamic of how marriage and gay rights are discussed in this country. Go mainstream, not cultish. Create an argument where straight people and parents should be frightened for gays and lesbians NOT to have marriage rights. Throw out the ineffectual protest and education vehicles of the past and take lessons from how the Obama campaign was run.

Except they’ll waste tremendous energy trying to fill it with the ‘perfect’ lesbian of color rather than someone who can actually do the job.

Arthur Finkelstein! or at least some conservative Rovian pollster/media consultant –

You know there are Riovian types who would have taken control of course, a consulting fee is a consulting fee

And Japhy -

Great analysis. So glad to read that from you! Now lets get to work!!

1) Stop attacking Mormons. They’ll never change their minds. Next time around, if they come back holding a big gun, make sure you have a bigger gun by….

2) Educating people. Explain in clear terms what this means, not only to gay, but to voters. Through every means possible.

3) Get over divisive internal bullshit and stand behind each other. I sware, the biggest enemy of the gay community is the gay community. I’ve seen so many gay committees and organizations lapse into inaction by the lamest bullshit. Keep your eyes UNITED on the prize, and when we win these rights, re-form and find new goals.

4) Understand the big picture and place the rights of gays square in the middle of it. It’s our world too. Let’s stop acting like a minority and as part of the living, breathing community.

5) Re-invent for the 21st Century. As was mentioned above, include and absorb the ideas of the next generation. There are new, fresh, convincing ways to protest. FIND THEM. You can’t expect the community to progress if you don’t do it yourself.