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Actor Oscar Nunez, who plays the gay character Oscar Martinez in "The Office," talked to the Bay Area Reporter and suggested something interesting: Prop. 8 opponents should try to gain support by helping other communities.
Brilliant.
The straight, Cuban-born actor suggests that gay marriage supporters "could organize events such as 5K runs in places like East Los Angeles, which has a large Latino population." Saying that protesters are "never going to change the mind of the Mormon Church," Martinez goes on to suggest that the queer community could go into different communities other than their own, "providing books for libraries or raising funds for playground equipment ... without mentioning Prop 8." Stuff like this could, most likely, encourage people to support marriage equality in return, he says.
We agree.
Read what else Nunez has to say. (An aside: Kudos, BAR, on getting this kind of helpful advice out there to the masses.)
Image: Flickr user lifeaskew (Wikicommons)
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Good on him. This is what's called taking the long view. Instead of being pissed off and screamy in the present, it's looking for a way to persuade others to share your view by getting to know people in the larger community -- it's harder to vote against another person's rights if you can put an actual face and a positive experience in context to the vote.
It takes patience, though.
I appreciate the practical advice, and agree that these steps would help the cause. However, I can't help feeling sickened that I have to purchase my fundamental human rights with books and swing sets.
it also takes money. i think it's a novel idea, but it's also very long-term (as dave pointed out). the gay community has so many problems of its own: abandoned youth, HIV, meth. the programs in place to address the issues of the gay community aren't even funded well enough, so i'm not sure how realistic it is to think that they would go fund soup kitchens and libraries.
it does make sense, though. a lot of people convert to Christianity because of all of the help that churches provide to the homeless, drug addicts, etc. then again, almost everyone already has religion at the back of their head, and that's not true of gay tolerance.
A carrot-and-stick approach is probably the best way to win over the hearts and minds. Now, where did I put my stick?
another thing: who's to say that prominent gay people don't already help the community?.....i personally know of some gay people who give millions of dollars to charitable non-gay causes, and i'm sure there's many more out there.
if some gay red cross-type organization was formed, it might be fodder for pundits to say it's part of some evil gay agenda (ie, "don't let them fool you!")
This isn't about "giving money" this is about getting out there and doing the back breaking work of volunteering and community organizing. And yes, gays do that stuff all the time, but are we doing it enough outside of our urban communities. That is the question.
Of course, you then look at the numbers, we split almost the same way among every group -- white, hispanic and asian - except for African Americans. And if you look at surveys about African Americans they believe being Gay is a choice -- and numbers that are off the charts compared with every other group. And more and more African Americans believe that being gay is a choice every year -- a trend in the opposite direction of everyone else.
No amount of playground building is going to change that.
Huhwha? Why should we be required to do community service for others in order to get equal rights?
You're fooling yourselves if you think this is even effective. Remember it was the same people who sought to deny us our rights in the 90s because, among other reasons, we were inherently promiscuous. Funny how that particular objection has gone away now that we're fighting for marriage equality, but yet their opposition is just as fervent.
Ask Oscar if he thinks he should have to deliver meals for God's Love We Deliver before he's allowed to get married.
DC1974: it most certainly takes money. the people doing the back-breaking work wont' have any materials to break their backs with if people don't buy those materials. all chariatable organizations rely on donors to fund their projects. volunteers are much easier to find that people to fund the projects themselves.
where are we going to do the community organizing? out of someone's closet? someone would have to rent space somewhere. so, yes, it does take money.
@ dronedog: no one is saying you must do X before you are allowed to get Y.
There is a real hurdle to get over: swaying people's opinions of teh gay to be for, rather than against.
And maybe if we tone down all the sexual displays at Pride, people will like us! They'll really, really like us!
I'm willing to try it (the playground-building stuff, etc. that is). Might sway a half a percentage point our way next time.
i think it's a novel idea, but it's also very long-term (as dave pointed out). the gay community has so many problems of its own: abandoned youth, HIV, meth.
It's certainly going to require some degree of assimilation, because one way of dealing with the problems you cite is to connect them with everybody's problems at the end of the day. I know the gay community has been forced into insularity, but it seems to have been proven that they're going to need more than just themselves to get over this hurdle.
oskarv: Do they donate conspicuously, like in an out way? "I've helped make a lot of lives better, but Yes On 8 don't want me to be able to visit my partner in the hospital" (or whatever, I'm not so sharp on marriage benefits right now). That's a campaign that I would have liked to have seen.
manys: no, they don't. it's not very classy to donate your time and money and then expect recognition for it. at least in my opinion it isn't.
HIV might be key. HIV affects both the gay community and the black community heavily.
acting out on this using logic, not your hurt feelings, might do wonders. it's definitely worth a shot.
what Nunez is suggesting could only benefit people. really.
if i buy you a park, computer, or book will you let me get married to another guy? hmmmm....not really the approach I want to take, just because you take away my rights and treat me like a second class citizen do I have to act like one? no thanks.....no one asked other groups (women, african americans, etc...) to pay before we give....
i don't think smugly proclaiming how right we are in this instance is going to help anyone.
Coming out is the most powerful thing .... if gays are all perceived to have money or loads of extra time on their hands to volunteer in other peoples' neighborhoods, won't we just get hooked into the "Fuck the Rich" mentality?
Just come out ... and be a part of your community, wherever you live.
On what this actor says - sounds very transactional. I think its a sad reflection of a transactional rather than an ernest society.
But the Mormons did change their racial policies when confronted with the real threat of losing their tax-exempt status in the past.
If you think that people in the communities that voted against us did so because they just didn't know an LGBT person, you're wrong. They voted against us because their churches told them to and because the ads lied to them and said that schools would have to teach about homosexuality and that churches would lose their tax-exempt status if they didn't perform same-sex weddings. This has been the story in interview after interview.
Don't forget that initial polling, before the lying ads, showed Prop. 8 was going to go down in flames.
That is why so many of them don't understand why the LGBT community is upset about their vote or a donation supporting Prop. 8. They don't view a vote for Prop. 8 as a vote against the the LGBT community at all. They view it as something their church told them to do and something they think they had to do to protect their children.
You can donate and volunteer all you want, but don't do it thinking you're going to change their minds.
Giving back to one's community is something we should do regardless. On the other hand, this notion of service-for-rights is an outrage. Not just saddening, not merely misguided--it's sick.
We should not positively reinforce the yes-on-8 votes of certain demographics or communities. No, we shouldn't shun them because it is, of course, important that we do outreach and try to gain broader acceptance. But achieving this by becoming the Uncle Toms of the LGBT rights movement, seems a very sinister notion and not the path to a solution.
Or perhaps Nunez really does think that interracial couples just needed to plant a few victory gardens for white folks in order to get their rights recognized before 1948.
Good points, SFMan.
I've been thinking about this, and about some of the people who were outed as Yes on 8 donors the last couple of days. Specifically, Dave Leatherby, who owns a couple of well-known ice cream shops in Sacramento, and Scott Eckern, the now-former director of the California Musical Theater. I don't think either of them considered themselves gay-hating, especially Leatherby, who financially supported the local pride events there. They probably supported more gay events and causes than most gays, but they still donated serious money to Yes on 8 and voted accordingly. I have to think that they're not a small representative of voters.
How do we sway people like that? Is it even possible?
We sway people like that by taking control of the issue and framing the debate for next time.
Rather than a reactionary campaign that never goes on the offensive, run a proactive campaign that address the lies before they can tell them.
It wasn't so much "NO!" on 8 as it was "But, but, but--" Instead of starting with slogans like "Equality for all", next time we use words like "unfair", "wrong", and "discrimination" right off the bat. Hell, why don't we just go for broke and call the ban un-American?
"If you think that people in the communities that voted against us did so because they just didn't know an LGBT person, you're wrong. They voted against us because their churches told them to and because the ads lied to them and said that schools would have to teach about homosexuality and that churches would lose their tax-exempt status if they didn't perform same-sex weddings. This has been the story in interview after interview."
The point of getting out to other communities where people were affected by these arguments is so that these people get a chance to hear the opposite side. And the point of volunteering is not to "buy" equal rights, it's to reinforce that we're all neighbors and we're all in this (caring for our kids, cleaning up our parks, and defending each others' civil rights) *together*.
And as much as I would like to get in the face of someone who staunchly supported Prop 8, I also know that calm discussion and pointing out just how wrong these claims were will have way more impact. Persuasion goes a lot further if you assume your interlocutor is a rational human being who has simply not been adequately educated on the issue.
This is the kind of thinking we are up against.
Marjorie Christoffersen of El Coyote Restaurant in Los Angeles had her "press conference" on Wednesday:
http://tinyurl.com/6yzttx
Now, even though she knows it is hurting her business, and after all of the attention and ridicule she has attracted, she STILL is going to do what her church tells her to do.
We can't keep thinking and acting like everyone else is as logical, compassionate and patient as we are. They aren't. The vast majority will keep doing what their churches keep telling them to do, until we can get the churches to stop spewing hatred.
So I'm a dork, but...
Why are people who are unfairly discriminated against by the church now advocating a policy that would more closely knit together the church and the state?
It doesn't make any sense.
Let's be like France: civil unions from the state, regardless of gender preference. Marriages from the churches/synagogues/temples/mosques (mosques? well, you know.)
I think we all know that there are plenty of churches/synagogues/temples/etc that are happy to marry gay couples. And if you're gay and you belong to a religious institution that won't recognize your religious rites (not rights) then get the heck out of that religious institution! Don't put money in THEIR collection plate, for obvious reasons.
Thusly, problem is solved, or would be, if people on both sides didn't automatically incline toward calling themselves "affronted victims" of the other side.
Yes, compromise is possible, but apparently not palatable to either side of this issue.
And I'm the dork?