[ + ] Text [ – ]

By Evan Wolfson: Rise to Fairness

Freedom to Marry
September 27, 2006

Once again, America is heading into an Election Day with another round of attacks on gay people on the ballot. This assault on a vulnerable minority, and the cruel attempt to wall us off from marriage and all other measures of protection, large or small, for our families, are both cruel and un-American.

But equally to be condemned is the very idea of cementing discrimination and permanent second-class citizenship into constitutions, intended to be the precious charters of freedom and national unity. America's federal and state constitutions embody the basic American invention of democratic rule combined with checks and balances, an independent judiciary, boundaries on government power, and "certain inalienable rights" for all regardless of popularity. While a shameful disregard for the importance, and fragility, of republican self-government is perhaps unsurprising during an administration seemingly intent not merely on circumventing the American Constitution, but repealing the Magna Charta, it remains, nevertheless dangerous and contemptible.

Frightening, too, is the silence of far too many non-gay people, allies, and even gay people in the face of this radical betrayal of America's fundamentals by fundamentalists and those who use them for crass political purposes.

We are likely to lose most, if not all, of the ballot measures aimed against us this year — and need to be ready to explain that to ourselves, our media, and the public so the right-wing cannot spin these defeats into a false claim that our cause undermines candidates or other concerns we share.

At a similar juncture in advance of Election 2004, in a speech entitled The Scary Work of Winning, I described why we lose these battles. We need to understand that civil rights movements rarely win early votes. After all, if it were as simple as a minority turning to the majority and saying please stop discriminating against us; we wouldn't need constitutions or courts. And many of these attacks are cruelly aimed at gay people in states with already beleaguered communities, under-funded infrastructure, and few if any existing legal protections.

But, as I said in 2004, the other reason we are likely to lose in some places is that we have not fully fought the fight, not fully engaged in the conversation necessary — sustained and to scale — to move hearts and minds.

When we run campaigns that flee from describing who local gays are and why marriage matters — campaigns that fail to connect the dots between fairness and how the denial of marriage harms families and helps no one — we are not giving people what they need over enough time to move to our side. In 2006, in the state battles underway, once again, even where the cause of equality has in fact been able to raise money and organize credible campaigns against Rove and his minions, we are making the mistake of not talking about marriage and gay people. And so we lose.

In The Scary Work of Winning, I laid out a several "lessons" from civil rights struggles that we need to embrace. One was what I called "losing forward," or progressing toward the long-term win. It followed the first lesson, "wins trump losses" — and I am an optimist who believes in fighting to win. But we can't always win on the enemy's timeframe, can't win without envisioning what victory means and then what it takes, and can't win if we run from a fight.

"Losing forward," or progressing toward the long-term win, means that in states and battles where we cannot win because the odds are too great in the immediate, and where we have started too late in the discussion for that election cycle, we can still engage authentically and build alliances so as to advance the cause and put ourselves better in place for the inevitable next battle—all moving forward toward a win that takes time and heavy lifting to achieve.

When I push campaign leaders, activists, and funders on the need to talk specifically about gays and marriage — and not run away from what the battle is really about — it is not merely to win down the road. I push this way of talking and making our case repeatedly because it is our best chance of winning, period. But I also believe that if we fail to at least lose forward, then we not only lose once, but twice, because we do not advance our cause.

In our next E-Update, I will write more about what I believe the message of our campaigns — political, public educational, and personal — should be as we move the middle to fairness and, with time and absorption of information, the freedom to marry itself.

But, take my word for it: if we do not speak out about why marriage matters, we can't expect others to calm down enough to hear other messages that might be easier for them to accept in the short-term, let alone rise to fairness.