Michael T. sent in an observation about the Yes on Proposition 8 website, which (successfully) aimed at amending the California constitution to disallow gay marriage. Along the top of the screen, the four different images below accompanied the slogan “Restoring Marriage & Protecting California Children.” These marriages, Michael surmises, must be the ones that need protecting. In addition to reproducing heteronormativity and childbearing, notice that the images are self-consciously diverse, but represent all marriages as within race.
Thanks Michael!
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Haha, you’re very welcome. There are two things, too, that struck me pretty immediately: The creepy look the woman is giving her husband in the first picture, and the way the dad in the second picture has his arms wrapped around his entire family, like he’s keeping them safe.
This whole organization disturbs me.
It looks to me like that bottom picture might be a “mixed race” marriage. Hard to tell what the Dad is…he might be white…might be hispanic. Even the kids are a bit of a mish mash…But then again, what do I know, I voted No on Prop 8.
The pose in the second picture, with Dad in the head-of-household position, really chaps my hide!
As pathetic as an anti gay marriage campaign like that is, I think it is going too far in saying that is ANTI miscegenation. It just portrays couples within the same race, which I figure outnumber couples of mixed races. But I might be wrong.
Anyways, just portraying something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re against the opposite of that something. Even though that’s the case of this ad when it comes to gay marriage.
@KG Yeah that’s the one that struck me first, too. But then I noticed that there were more of them, and they all mostly share that theme of homogeneous families.
Maybe they’re hinting at their future plans for marriage “restoration.” I can’t think of any good reason to stop at gay people. “One man, one woman, one race” has such a nice ring to it. After that, they can fight for women as property- “One man, HIS woman, one race.”
I agree about the extra creepiness in the white family one; it took me a minute to pick out which one was his wife (I actually thought it was a single dad and his 3 kids at first glance!)
What bothers me is the implied message that gays are all about destroying these things. Gays hate babies! Gays hate heteroseuxal families! Gays hate love! It’s like logic never comes into play, that homosexuals just want to share all these things with everyone else, and be treated like full citizens.
Yeah, I want to know what exactly they’re protecting children from. It’s not like homosexuals have a higher rate of pedophilia — quite the opposite, if one looks at the statistics. And certainly homosexuality isn’t contagious from the parents to the children; if that was true, then every straight couple would have straight kids. *sigh* I wish I knew the logic behind their pretty slogans.
“I wish I knew the logic behind their pretty slogans”
I know the logic: there is none. It’s all knee-jerk reaction to anything different than them (or anything that disagrees with their worldview and/or holy book), basic fundie mindset really…
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[...] These screenshots of the anti-gay marriage, Californian ”Yes on 8″ website also appeal to a multicultural (if segregated) constituency. See also this post challenging the idea that Black people and gay people are always at odds or even, of course, categorically different groups. tags: activism, marriage/family, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation| Permalink| ILLUSTRATING PERCENTAGES [...]