Behind The Scenes In The Gay Marriage Battle- A Must Read

24 August 2009 | By LowellB in Gay Marriage, Law, Lowell, Media, Politics, Proposition 8, TN Blog

Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage has written a masterful and thorough article laying out the high-level strategic battle over traditional versus same-sex marriage in California and across the country. The piece first appeared in National Review’s August 10 issue. The Coalition for Marriage and Family has re-published Gallagher’s article here. Those who have been following the issue will recognize just how spot-on Gallagher’s analysis is, and everyone who cares about the issue should read the entire article. Here are some “teaser” paragraphs:

The headline on the story about a new CBS News/New York Times survey was interesting: “Poll: Support for Gay Marriage Dips.” How fast and how far had support for gay marriage had to drop before a mainstream-media headline acknowledged it, even as a “dip”?

Here’s the answer: 9 percentage points.

That’s right: In just a few short months, support for gay marriage in this poll plunged 9 percentage points, from its all-time high of 42 percent to 33 percent. . . .

Culture consists of ideas. Ideas, like civilizations, can die out. They die when no one is willing to defend them out loud. Gay-marriage advocates are like the Borg: Resistance is futile, they repeatedly say. This is an ambitious and psychologically sophisticated strategy: If they say it often enough, maybe Americans will believe it. If Americans start to believe it, then it will be true. Despair is gay-marriage advocates’ most powerful weapon, especially when it is fed by social conservatives’ failure to create solid strategies of hope.

In the marketplace of ideas, not all Americans are equal. Culture is created by elites. And gay-marriage advocates have decided that victory requires winning over not only liberal and Democratic elites, as powerful as they are, but conservative and Republican elites as well.

When does a war end? When one side’s will to fight is broken. This is true in culture wars, too. A culture shift is complete only when an idea becomes uncontested (and uncontestable) by good, decent, law-abiding, “normal” citizens.

Gay-marriage advocates tried very hard to engineer such a moment in the past few months. I’ve had a front-row seat, fighting marriage battles deep in blue states — battles I didn’t ask for and don’t want, battles that gay-marriage advocates decided to fight right now in the middle of a looming recession, with budget craters opening up and service cuts or tax increases looming. Does this make sense? Why now?

Please read the article, bookmark it, and ask everyone you know to do the same.

Share This With Others: