Debunking NOM's Craziest Ads

Debunking NOM's Craziest Ads
Matt Baume

If you've been listening so far, every week you've heard me read one chapter of my book, Defining Marriage: Voices from a Forty-Year Labor of Love. Well as of this week, We reached the end of the book -- which means that if you'd like to hear it, you can jump back and listen to the first 18 episodes in order. Or you can pop over to Amazon and get the book as a digital download, or now in paperback!

So what happens with the podcast? Well, starting with this episode, I'll be revisiting the marriage work that I did as an reporter and activist over the last decade. I've gathered some historical news clips, as well as interviews I conducted, and analysis from the dark days of marriage inequality. I'll play them for you, and then afterwards, I'll pop back in to talk about what was happening back then, which predictions came true and which were a little off the mark, and what's changed in the intervening years.

Let's start with three debunking videos. There was a period when the National Organization for Marriage was putting out a ton of commercials on TV and on the radio. They were, of course, full of lies. But unfortunately, NOM was really good at lying.

So as a nerdy gay with a YouTube channel, I took NOM's campaign as a personal challenge: how can I take something that sounds reasonable and show people that they're being lied to? And more importantly -- can I make NOM stop doing that?

The first clip you'll hear is from 2010. Federal Judge Vaughn Walker had just ruled the Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, and NOM was pissed. So they put out a radio ad to justify Prop 8 and attack Judge Walker. Here it is.

Hey, it's Matt in 2015 again. Reflecting back on that 5-year old video, a couple things strike me. The first is that, although you can't see this on the podcast, I had a lot more hair, and tragically, completely failed to style it before it left me. Oh well.

But perhaps more importantly -- did you hear how absolutely crazy NOM's lies were? Even back then, in order to justify Prop 8, they had to completely make up facts and misrepresent the contents of the ruling. You'll hear the same thing in this next NOM ad from 2011. Back then, the Justice Department announced that they would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, and once again nom was PISSED. So they did what they always do: lie. Here's my debunking from 2011:

Okay, it's me in 2015 again. Well times sure have changed. Two years later, the Supreme Court agreed with the Obama administration -- and many of the politicians who were responsible for DOMA in the first place -- and overturned the Defense of Marriage Act. What strikes me about this ad is how NOM repeatedly conflates DOMA with marriage. It's as if, in their minds, DOMA and heterosexual marriage are the same thing. Like you can't have marriage if you don't have DOMA. Well we've been without it for a couple years now, and it sure does seem like straight people are still getting married. So THAT'S a relief.

Also at the end of NOM's ad, they ask you to go to DefendDOMA.com. I was curious about what DefendDOMA is, so I checked it out. Sure enough, it doesn't appear to have been updated since 2011. Their Twitter link is broken. NOM's link to sign a petition no longer works. And when you click on "Donate," you get an error message that says "unavailable." That's a real shame.

Finally let's take a look at a NOM video from October of 2012. It features a narrator explaining in meticulous detail why it's OK to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples, and it's one of NOM's most polished an also most desperate videos. Although we didn't know it at the time, NOM had good reason to be desperate when they put this video out.

And we're back to 2015. I remember that being a particularly exhausting video to make, in part because of the density of misleading information. Remember, this was October of 2012, and NOM was getting desperate. Four states were about to vote on marriage equality -- Washington, Maryland, Maine, and Minnesota -- and although voters had rejected the freedom to marry in dozens of states in years past, for the first time ever, it was looking like the queers might actually win in 2012.

So this ad was part of a NOM strategy to reassure voters, no, don't worry, it's ok to discriminate. But of course they were fighting a losing battle at this point, and must have known it. Multiple polls showed a majority of Americans supported the freedom to marry. And sure enough, a month later, voters in all four states rejected NOM's ballot measures.

Strangely enough, they haven't made any videos since then. I'd like to take full responsibility for that. You're welcome, America.

Next week I'm going to take a look at some more debunking videos -- the clips we heard today were all national fights, but next week's will dissect the lies that NOM was spreading state by state. That includes the organization's brief and inexplicable obsession with a moose.

Until then, listeners, please do get in touch and let me know your thoughts and questions on Twitter -- I'm @mattbaume. And leave a review on iTunes, those reviews make a huge difference. 

Don't forget to hop over to Amazon to get Defining Marriage in print or via download. And if you do pick up a copy, it would mean a lot if you could leave an Amazon review with your honest opinion.

And check out my other podcast, The Sewers of Paris, for revealing personal stories about the entertainment that changed the lives of gay men.

Until next time, friends… by the power vested in me by the internet, I now pronounce this podcast over.

Music:Music:
In Your Arms Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Afterword

Afterword
Matt Baume

The dramatic conclusion! Will James and I ever get married? The answer may surprise you. (But probably not.) 

Plus: what's next? Well, now you can finally buy the print edition of the book! If you're enjoyed the podcast or the ebook, a dead-tree edition of Defining Marriage might make a wonderful gift, should a gift-giving opportunity arise in the near future. You can pick it up right now on Amazon.

Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Chapter 17: Set Course for the Alpha Quadrant

Chapter 17: Set Course for the Alpha Quadrant
Matt Baume

For years, national leaders told Josh Boschee that North Dakota had no place in the marriage equality movement. “It’s not where the battlefield is,” they told him. It was just conventional wisdom that his state would never be a player, and he wouldn’t have a role.

And so he was resigned to sitting the fight out. “We’re just going to hope and pray that the other states take care of it for us,” he said.

But as one state after another won the freedom to marry, the conventional wisdom made less and less sense. And he saw the harm of waiting on the sidelines — for example, his neighbors, Celeste and Amber, were expecting a third child in a few weeks but couldn’t appear together on their own kids’ birth certificates.

Sure, the national groups said North Dakota needed to wait. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized: “You know what? We don't need the national groups. We'll just do it on our own.”

Over the course of just a few decades, marriage had gone from an impossible joke to an attainable goal, even in the most unlikely of states.

It was a messy process, unpredictable and littered with setbacks. But it was also a process of growth, of improvement, of coming together for the betterment of all involved.

Just like marriage itself. 

Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Chapter 16: Love and Commitment

Chapter 16: Love and Commitment
Matt Baume

At first glance, it might not seem like Thalia Zepatos had a personal stake in the marriage equality movement. After all, she was straight, with no kids of her own.

But she had also experienced the pain of second-class treatment. It was during a particularly violent campaign for nondiscrimination protections, during which staffers’ offices were broken into, Thalia’s car was followed, and innocent queer bystanders were attacked and killed by skinheads.

After that experience, Thalia was determined to end such abusive treatment. She saw that progress had been slow and that public opinion wasn’t moving fast enough, and so she dedicated the next few years of her life to searching for a better way to show voters why the freedom to marry mattered.

And then, at last, she discovered a solution: a message that was so obvious it was right in front of everyone all along. Her research showed that it worked — but it had yet to be tested in an actual election.

By 2012, there was no time for further testing. Four states had marriage bans on the ballot, and Thalia had convinced campaign managers in all four states to adopt her new strategy. They were about to find out whether it would work.

Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Chapter 15: Welcome to the Other Side of the Rainbow

Chapter 15: Welcome to the Other Side of the Rainbow
Matt Baume

Senator Ed Murray had a roadmap to win equality in Washington. It would take years, and for much of that time, nobody believed he could do it.

That’s because a key ingredient of his plan was time and patience. Rather than pushing for full marriage, Ed wanted to take a slow-motion approach, gradually educating legislators about marriage over the course of years before putting a marriage bill in front of them.

Impatient allies didn’t see the point. But Ed’s strategy was vindicated one day in 2012 when he was sitting in his office with his partner Michael, both of them collecting themselves after an emotional testimony about why their long relationship deserved equal treatment under the law. In walked Mary Margaret Haugen, a longtime legislator with a conservative district. She had voted against marriage equality in the past, but today, she told them, she had changed her mind. It was simply the right thing to do, she realized, even though it meant she would probably lose her seat.

That’s when it was clear that the tide had turned. People who would never have supported the freedom to marry before now found themselves switching sides, even if it came at a great cost.

“We have been on a long journey,” Governor Christine Gregoire said. After years of work, she said, the marriage bill was “the final step. It is the right step. We have finally said yes to marriage equality.”

But it wasn’t the final step after all. Instantly, anti-gay groups began gathering signatures to put their definition of marriage on the ballot that November. Winning over the conscience of the legislature was a multi-decade effort; now, Ed had eleven months to win over the conscience of the whole state.

Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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