HOW WE BEAT THE FMA: Cheryl Jacques

...Given just a few months to defeat an amendment that would lock in discrimination against our families for generations, HRC needed to find the best strategies to convince U.S. senators to oppose a constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage when only a small handful of them actually support gay marriage.

HRC began with focus groups among moderate voters in Orlando, Fla., Philadelphia, and Las Vegas. The results were unambiguous: While voters opposed gay marriage, the majority also opposed writing discrimination into the Constitution.

We tested all kinds of messages, including those that promote marriage equality, and found that three were the silver bullet to defeating the Federal Marriage Amendment:

1. The FMA is discriminatory. It would deny same-sex couples crucial benefits such as hospital visitation rights and survivor benefits. Even with "compromise" language, there is no compromise: The FMA is about denying benefits.

2. The FMA is unnecessary. There are more important issues: a war in Iraq and a struggling economy. Besides, there's already a federal law that bans gay marriage.

3. The FMA undermines the Constitution. The Constitution has always been a vessel for freedom and the expansion of rights and liberties. The FMA would undermine the purpose of the Constitution by adding an amendment designed to enforce discrimination and the denial of equal benefits.

These three main messages were used over and over by our spokespeople, in our advertising, by senators on the floor of Congress, and in messages sent by GLBT Americans and our allies to wavering senators.

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posted by Eve at 5:45 PM | Link |

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