Election season isn’t just a convenient time to realize which of your friends have fundamental beliefs completely different than your own. It’s also a wonderful time to remember that a good portion of American citizens still think that homosexuals should not have the ability to marry. We can send a man to the moon, but we still cannot agree on whether or not we should treat our fellow human beings fairly.
While this may seem like a completely ass-backwards way of thinking to most of you, let me break it down. There are two kinds of people who oppose gay marriage. The first, likely larger, group of people are homophobic bigots whose opposition makes a lot of sense when you consider that they hate gay people. The second group is comprised of those who belong to a religion whose doctrine was either penned by homophobic bigots or interpreted in a way that only selectively adheres to certain parts of scripture while ignoring everything else. The second group has been a strong and vocal part of American culture since this country was founded, being convinced by bigots throughout our history that there was religious justification for slavery, racism, sexism, and now homophobia.
Tomorrow, Minnesota will vote on a constitutional amendment that would legally restrict marriage to heterosexual couples, and Minneapolis-based agency Fallon wants to convince the aforementioned second group to make sure this doesn’t happen. Their first spot, “The Golden Rule” uses Jesus’ words and a stained-glass window to help make their case. For those familiar with Minnesota’s voting record, you may be wondering why a state that historically leans blue would even be voting on this. Well, in my home state of Wisconsin, which too has voted liberal in the general election for over two decades, a very similar amendment actually passed in 2008. So, yeah, that’s why.
A second spot, also financed entirely by Fallon and posted to YouTube, uses an African American woman to say something along the lines of, “Hey, Minnesota. Racism. Remember when that was actually legal? Yeah, that’s basically what we’re doing here. No, seriously, it is.” Both spots were initially “gifted” to organization Minnesotans United for All Families, but rejected for reasons unknown. Anyone from Fallon care to tell us what the story is here?