Protect Maine Equality Hits Back at Fearmongering Anti-Gay Ad
Protect Maine Equality reacted to quickly to the anti-equality ad released yesterday by Stand for Marriage Maine, responding to the lies, and insisting that outsiders won't hurt "the Maine way".
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...
And visit Protect Maine Equality here.
Posted Sep. 16,2009 at 4:00 PM EST by Andy Towle in Gay Marriage, Maine, News | Permalink
Now THIS is the kind of advertising we needed in California last year. Strike back fast and strike back hard. Glad to see we are learning our lesson. Good luck in Maine!!!
Posted by: Tom | Sep 16, 2009 4:12:39 PM
Great ad...especially since they didn't go on the defensive and say that, no, they won't teach about gay marriage in school (as if that's such a bad thing...grrrrr...).
However, I couldn't help but notice something missing in the commercial: Families with opposite-gender parents: Check. Families with lesbian parents: Check. Families with gay male parents: ??? Were they afraid that people would look at two men raising a family and automatically think, "CHILD MOLESTERS!!!"?
Posted by: BubbaInTX | Sep 16, 2009 4:13:20 PM
They are just $8K from making their ad buy! $100 shows it in primetime, $35 on cable...put your name on the truth telling...Californians let's defeat the same Prop 8 lies in Maine!.....let's give them a few bucks gentlemen!
Posted by: Chris | Sep 16, 2009 4:14:43 PM
Types of Narcissists
Types of narcissists include:*
Classic The classic narcissist is overly self-confident and sees themselves as superior than other people. Think of a child who has always been told by mom and dad that they would be great, and then that child takes and internally distorts that message into superiority.
Compensatory The compensatory narcissist covers up with their grandiose behavior, a deep-seated deficit in self-esteem. Think of a child who felt devalued but instead of giving up on life, resorts to fantasies of grandeur and greatness. This person will either live in that fantasy world or decide to create that fantasy world in real life.
Inverted The inverted narcissist is a co-dependent who caters to the emotional needs of a classic narcissist. Often a relative or mate of a narcissist-- this person feeds the narcissistic supply of adulation, admiration, coddling etc. that the classic type requires.
Narcissists are also either:*
1. cerebral -- people who feed their narcissistic needs from their intelligence, academic, or professional achievements. Examples would be evangelists, CEOs, professors, physicians etc.
2. somatic -- people who feed their narcissistic needs from their physicality, exercise, physical and sexual prowess including their "conquests". Examples would be models, professional athletes, actors etc. To break it down even further, we can take a look at the 9-point model presented by Bruce Stevens in his article: 'Narcissism: A Nine Headed Hydra? Exploring Types of Narcissism'. In it he describes:
1. The Craver has a lot of love to give but always with strings attached. This type has a great fear of abandonment and clings to people they can connect with, but they are never satisfied.
2. The Power Broker desires...well, power of course! They will do almost anything to gain power, and rarely consider any consequences of their actions. They can be bullies, arrogant, and cold. By any means necessary is their motto.
3. The Rager is someone on the edge, and when their narcissism is bruised, they will lash out. These types are often verbally and/or physically abusive. Very controlling.
4. The Fantasy Maker is the type that has retreated into their own reality, because they are living in defense of the painful reality of their lives. They do not live in truth and therefore have difficulty forming "real" relationships with others.
5. The Special Lover is the type that believe love is the answer to all things. They believe that they have a special capacity to love and tend to idealize love and the people whom they love. Of course, they face deep disappointment when they realize that their love and/or the ones they love are not perfect.
6. The Body Shaper is highly focused on their physical image. Fashion. glamour, Youth. Beauty. They live very shallow and empty lives, and they tend to deny ageing.
7. The Trickster is an extremely charming and social type. These types can trick people into trusting them, but is very malicious and ruthless in these relationships. They feel a sense of entitlement and are without remorse.
8. The Martyr revels in their suffering. They are victims and love telling people about it. THey totally identify with the pain they are dealing with in the present. They want care and support and will exploit others to get it. They tend to form relationships with others who have a need to be needed and then they are exploited. This is their way of controlling other people.
9. The Rescuer is virtuous. They always take the high road in relationships. They appear kind, considerate, and they try too hard. They find it easier to give than to receive. This could be because they were a parentified child in a dysfunctional family.
Posted by: Layla Miller | Sep 16, 2009 4:33:54 PM
Hysteria, Obsession, and Narcissism in the Homophobic Right By Austin Cline
Thursday November 16, 2006
Isn't interesting how often religious conservatives treat homosexuality and gay marriage like they are the most pressing and dangerous issues facing Western culture? Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that there are legitimate reasons to oppose them and be concerned about them, how can anyone justify acting like they threaten the very foundations of civilization? William Eskridge, a Yale law professor, has written that anti-gay prejudice has been marked historically by three characteristics. These are: (1) “hysterical demonization of gay people as dirty sexualized subhumans”; (2) “obsessional fears of gay people as conspiratorial and sexually predatory”; and (3) “narcissistic desires to reinforce stable heterosexual identity . . . by bashing gay people.” The primary historical traits of homophobia are thus hysteria, obsession, and narcissism.
Source: IndeGayForum
It's worth stopping for a moment to consider how these same characteristics are also true when it comes to other demonized minorities. The exact same things could have been said about the hysterical anti-Semitic beliefs in Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Dale Carpenter describes how these three characteristics have been popping up in the context of the Foley scandal...
Hysterical Demonization:
We can see the first of these characteristics, hysteria, in some of the reactions to the Foley scandal. “While pro-homosexual activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two,” declared Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.
What Tony Perkins says isn't true, but it's also not the worst of the accusations which Christain extremists have been hurling at gays. It's frankly no different from when vicious anti-Semites were accusing Jews of killing Christian children in religious rituals, a myth that goes back to the middle ages but which was also used by the Nazis to pave the way for their own anti-Semitic policies.
Conspiracy of Gays:
The second characteristic of anti-gay prejudice, obsession, has been on full display. Some Republicans in Congress and religious conservatives told reporters that they suspect a “gay subculture” has infiltrated the party. This “Velvet Mafia”—as some have called it—allegedly consists of a number of gay Republican congressional staffers and other personnel. A conservative website asserted that the gay conspiracy includes nine chiefs of staff, two press secretaries, and two directors of communications for prominent congressional Republicans.
Once again, there is no evidence for the truth these accusations — but it's easier to accuse gays of these sorts of misdeeds when they have already been the targets of so much demonization over the years than to admit to mistakes on one's own part. Jews, too, were accused of all sorts of anti-German conspiracies; indeed, the idea that Jews threatened to undermine German culture was a primary motivating factor behind a significant amount of the hatred of Jews.
Sexual Purification:
Finally, the Foley mess has demonstrated the third characteristic of anti-gay prejudice, narcissism. If the GOP loses one or both houses of Congress in November, one supposed lesson will be that the party was too lenient on homosexuals—turning off the party’s base of religious conservatives. Some thus see the scandal as a chance to cleanse the GOP of the impurity of homosexuality, to reassert the party’s stable, pro-family heterosexual identity.
The obsession with purity is a common characteristic with fundamentalist and extremist movements. Usually the purity involved is sexual in nature, though some other types appear from time to time. Many are surprised to learn just how much of a role ideas about sexual purity played with the earliest Nazi storm troopers. Their writings contain many images of fear of being overcome with sexual desire, female sexuality, the presence of women, and so forth.
Extreme homophobia and extreme anti-Semitism have a lot in common because they stem from similar, deep-seated drives in a person's personality. They both involve a need to exclude some minority as violently and absolutely as possible in order to solidify one's own sense of self. A person's identity becomes so bound up with what they are not that everything they do becomes part of denying that Other, even to the point of extermination.
Posted by: Layla Miller | Sep 16, 2009 4:34:34 PM
Snap out of it! It's a wimpy ass ad. They aren't improving on CA's mistakes - - they're recreating them.
They're running "defense" when they should have anticipated, just like CA should have, that the other side would go for the always successful "they're after our children" fear baiting.
You can show all the cute, non-threatening gay parents with straight kids you want. Throw in some duckies and horseys and those frightened by the other side will still not give a flying fuck about what's happening to YOU or YOUR children unless you convince them that THEIR'S aren't in danger.
Those unanswered lies worked in Miami, they worked in CA, ad infinitum. And they'll work in Maine, too.
Pathetic.
Posted by: Been There | Sep 16, 2009 4:46:31 PM
Can someone tell me what school out there has marriage on their curriculum to begin with? I went to catholic school and even they never mentioned it. How can being taught gay marriage be such a threat if they aren't even taught about straight marriage? Is that something I missed hot having a public school health class and not putting condoms on bananas?
Posted by: MT | Sep 16, 2009 4:52:18 PM
All these ads won't matter if YOU don't talk to Maine voters to get them to vote NO on Question 1. Use EqualityMaine or the Courage Campaign's phonebank to contact Maine voters (people outside of Maine can use them too). Donate money to NO on 1 campaign. Go to EqualityMaine's website for other ways to help.
http://tinyurl.com/l4hru8
Posted by: Bill | Sep 16, 2009 5:11:50 PM
amen
Posted by: cali | Sep 16, 2009 5:12:42 PM
I am sorry to be a downer here. However, my experience and my age have taught me that each and every time ANTHING having to do with Civil Rights for Gay & Lesbian Americans is up for public vote, the very Heterosexuals who CREATED us will vote for hatred and bigotry and discrimination.
What a GREAT idea! Let's allow those who oppress us and hate us to vote on our freedoms! (This is highly unconstitutional, not to mention HIGHLY immoral. But what else would one expect from a group of people so very capable of creating Gay & Lesbian children, but spend their lives trying to DESTROY them and their families as well???)
Heterosexuals uttering a single word about morality has to be just about the biggest crock of s h i t that has ever been my displeasure to witness, and I'm old. (Well, I'm 40, so I'm old in Gay years.)
They will take Marriage Equality away from us in Maine, just as they did in California. It is sickening. It is disgraceful. And only the Supreme Court of The United States will end this debate once and for all.
These past 2 years have been SO eye-opening. To watch the very Heterosexuals that created Gay & Lesbian children fighting for their rights to treat those Gay & Lesbian creations as less than human beings, and further demanding that our Government do so as well is an appalling display of just how far people will take their religious nonsense.
So again, sorry to be a downer, but we've already lost in Maine. Of that I am certain. For haven't Heterosexuals proven to us time and time again that they have no intention of ever acknowledging us as human beings?
I look forward to the day when Gay & Lesbian citizens will start to seek reparations from the United States Government for the decades of abuse, torture, murder that we have suffered with THEIR endorsement of such behavior.
Morality indeed, Heterosexuals.
Morality indeed.
Posted by: BILL | Sep 16, 2009 5:23:36 PM
Maine is different. If they turn down same-sex marriage in Maine they are overturning a vote of the legislative branch and not the decision of a court. That's a different pillar of government.
So let me see. The US is a Republic where rights are granted by a Constitution. But, you can't go to the courts to have the rights protected and you can't go to the legislature to protect those rights. Then, where do you go? To the majority that is taking away your rights? That's ridiculous and everyone in America know it! Let'em fall deepen into their shame.
Posted by: Observer1000 | Sep 16, 2009 6:32:01 PM
I like the idea of gay reparations.
I also think gays should be exempt from all taxes other than sales taxes in addition.
Posted by: Attmay | Sep 16, 2009 6:44:18 PM
I'm so sick of this comments saying that Maine has already been lost and that these ads are "wimpy."
The dynamic here is extremely different than California and anywhere else for that matter. No one in Maine would/will respond well to an intense or aggressive ad from either side. The Yes On 1 ad is so laughable on its own. It features an fancy lawyer from Boston lecturing the viewers. Most Mainers resent those who flaunt their wealth and status and they also resent being told what to do.
Posted by: Washington | Sep 16, 2009 7:24:36 PM
While it took several tries to get basic nondiscrimination in ME (also voted in by the legislature then overturned by the "people" a few times), I think this may be different. They are now surrounded by places where marriage equality exists (MA, Quebec, VT) or will very soon (NH). The tide has turned, and I think the Mainers may pull it off the first time.
PS: who is this Layla and how can we stop her from posting the same thing again? Is she a new Jason?
Posted by: KevinVT | Sep 16, 2009 7:26:25 PM
"So again, sorry to be a downer, but we've already lost in Maine. Of that I am certain. For haven't Heterosexuals proven to us time and time again that they have no intention of ever acknowledging us as human beings?"
I understand and share your frustration, Bill, that our civil rights are up for a popular vote, but we haven't lost Maine yet. I don't have much confidence in the majority to uphold our rights--the record isn't good--but, at the same time, a marriage bill passed in Maine because of the heterosexuals on our side, just as it did in VT. Some of the most tireless, selfless advocates for marriage equality are straight friends who worked harder than most gay people I know to bring about change, and they--like our straight legislators--only did it because they know it was right. Damning all heterosexuals is counterproductive and wrong.
And Maine, thus far, has done a much better job with the ads than CA did.
Posted by: Ernie | Sep 16, 2009 7:48:21 PM
ERNIE: "Damning all heterosexuals is counterproductive and wrong."
Yes, I also agree with him. And I also believe in that Damning a certain group of heterosexuals, who deserve it, is definitely right.
We threw away years of our lives away. How many years of distress and melancholoy did we have endure to figure it out? How many friends did we lose to prejudice to figure it out?
Posted by: Layla Miller | Sep 16, 2009 10:42:07 PM
We will always be Second Class Citizens. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We always hear promises, but no one ever delivers. Wasted money and votes. People HAVE to fear and hate someone - the gay community is an easy target.
Posted by: 2nd Class Citizen | Sep 17, 2009 12:41:24 AM
2nd Class Citizen: "People HAVE to fear and hate someone - the gay community is an easy target."
NO. Those are pathological people. They're like bulls; all they do is see red towards us LGBT people. If those Narcissist were out, human people would get along well and learn to understand each other.
Posted by: Layla Miller | Sep 17, 2009 1:35:38 AM
I know a lot of people are feeling depressed and discouraged after prop 8, but I am staying positive and optimistic about Maine. I love that this ad features gay and straight families, and that it really hits on the message that marriage equality is the morally right position without getting aggressive. Attacks won't help us - it's the living example of LGBT families that convinces straight people that they have nothing to fear.
I've seen this myself - my husband comes from a rural Austrian village. He was "they only gay in the village," but since we've been together an gotten married, it has really brought this issue home and changed a lot of hearts and minds.
Posted by: Andy | Sep 17, 2009 2:58:20 AM
The problem is, Layla, that Bill doesn't damn a "certain group" of heterosexuals, he consistently damns all heterosexuals, which is nonsense. The fact is that marriage equality exists in VT because of heterosexual allies. And marriage equality will not stand in Maine without our heterosexual friends. Damning heterosexuals as a group--or declaring them all narcissists--is not only stupid but an insult to the heterosexuals who are working tirelessly and selflessly (the opposite of narcissism) for our equality. My heterosexual friends in VT and Maine have done as much or more for our cause than any gay people I know.
Posted by: Ernie | Sep 18, 2009 11:07:31 AM