You Lose

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We've reached the point where those of us on my side of the gay marriage issue, if we want to avoid a backlash of our own making, need a remedial primer on how we lose, and how we lose again. I've said most of this before, and so have others, but it obviously needs to be said again. So...

When we let a foul-mouthed caricature like Perez Hilton become the spokesman for our cause, we lose. And when we defend that foul-mouthed caricature for using rhetoric that we would call hate speech if it came from the other side, we lose again.

When we label Miss California Carrie Prejean as a bigot (and worse) for calmly answering a question about gay marriage rather than calmly saying that she's wrong, and here's why, we lose. And when we then say that President Barack Obama, by opposing gay marriage on religious grounds, is somehow actually being inclusive, we show a level of hypocrisy that those Americans we need to win over will see as far worse than any level of hypocrisy we're trying to point out on the part of Miss California. And we lose again.

When we tell the opponents of gay marriage that it won't be taught in schools and then San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom performs a lesbian wedding in front of a first-grade class on a field trip, we lose. When we don't even realize that what Gavin Newsom did was a self-defeating stunt, we lose again.

When we pretend that we're the majority view on this issue, we lose. When we start to believe that we actually are the majority view on this issue, we lose again.

When we tell the opponents of gay marriage that we're not trying to impose our views on their lives and then drive a woman from her job for donating $100 to the "Yes on 8" campaign, we lose. When we don't rebuke -- and rebuke hard -- those on our own side for this kind of harassment, we lose again.

When tell the opponents of gay marriage that they're stereotyping all gays and lesbians and then label everyone on their side, from someone who would beat a 19-year-old to death for looking effeminate to someone who supports civil unions but not marriage, as "haters," we lose. And when that stops being just a self-defeating political tactic and we actually start to believe that anyone who doesn't meet us 100% of the way on this issue really is a "hater," we lose again.

These should be simple things for our side to understand. They're just not as satisfying emotionally as what we need to do if we're actually going to win on this issue...