This ad is currently running in California. The ad shows an attractive young woman trying to get to the alter, where her handsome, chivalrous husband-to-be waits to marry her. Various obstacles have been placed in her way, and after squeezing between cars in the parking lot, losing a heel and her veil, and being tripped up by a clumsy, elderly guest, she gives up and sits in the aisle just a few feet short of her destination. The minister then restrains her fiance from coming to her aid. The following words then apear on the screen: "What if you couldn't marry the person you love."
The ad is disingenuous on so many levels. To name just a few:
(1) The couple trying to get married consists of one man and one woman. No same-sex couples, polygamous couples, or any other groups of people trying to marry the people they love appear anywhere in the ad. The imagery is intentional, of course, and extremely dishonest. A single image of a same-sex couple approaching the alter would belie the myth underlying the ad.
(2) The message is predicated upon a lie. Nothing prevents any person -- heterosexual or homosexual -- from getting married. Everyone has equal access to marriage under traditional laws. But homosexuality lobbyists don't want equal access. They want the law's special and particlar endorsement of homosexual intimacy.
(3) An unmistakable, if veiled, implication of the ad is that various people have thrown up (legal) obstacles to prevent homosexuals from reaching the alter. Of course this also is untrue. But the implication betrays a more subtle presupposition: anti-gay traditionalists are obsessed with keeping harmless homosexuals from attaining marital bliss.
The traditionalists-are-obsessed-with-same-sex-marriage slander, commonly recited by sexual liberationists, is particularly galling because it is a classic example of psychological projection. Before the homosexuality lobby shoved this issue into the national consciousness by litigating it before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and every other judicial forum they thought might be receptive, I and most people like me though about same-same marriage as often as we thought of platinum ice cream (that is to say, not at all) and for exactly the same reasons.
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1 comment:
Great post. The ad is infuriating. When I first saw it on TV in CA, before realizing the angle and purpose, I myself felt frustrated for the couple and compassionate. Upon realizing the sponsor and manipulative (though effective) methods, I was angered and felt wronged.
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