Anti-Gay Donors Want to Hide
Here is a case where some people don't understand how the Internets work, or how public debate works. They demand that somebody put Humpty Dumpy back together again, and they want to be able to destroy people's lives without anyone knowing who they are.
Here's the AP, writing in the SF Press:
In journalism there is something called inverted pyramid style. This means you put all the most important information in the first sentence - the who, what, when, where, and how, with importance decreasing as you go farther down into the story. Back when I was a pup, newscopy was printed out in strips and an editor would cut it off with a razor blade to fit it into whatever space in the layout was left on the page after they had sold advertising. A reporter could be sure that their story would be truncated, but wouldn't know where, so you had to write in such a way that any sentence could be the end, and the reader would know the important facts of the story, no matter where they stopped.
You note that the anti-gay groups got their statement in first. Two paragraphs into this and we are already worrying about poor anti-gay donors being harassed and threatened. Lots of readers will only get that far, that's how the inverted pyramid works. In another discussion, this would be called "framing," it's about who sets the tone of the discussion, who decides what "the story" is. The AP decided the story should be that donors are being threatened and harassed, and are afraid they will be victimized further if their names are made public.
Look, this story could have been written another way: Donors Afraid To Deal With Consequences Of The Public Knowing What They Have Done. Pro-Marriage Backlash Intimidates Anti-Gay Donors. Religious Right Demands Secrecy. There are lots of ways this could have been presented.
In that second paragraph, they are implying that people are being harassed, getting death threats, "because of the way he or she votes." Unh-uh, these have nothing to do with voting. Voting is private, as it should be, there is no social pressure on a voter, you can click whatever checkbox you want with the curtain closed behind you. These are people who contributed money to ensure that gay people can't be married. They have stepped into the public debate -- these are not voters, they are activists.
(Also, I also don't believe anyone has said they received a "death threat." At least it isn't mentioned in this article.)
More boo hoo:
Wow, those gay people are really scary.
This is something that has amazed me over the past four years, dealing with rightwing activists. They want to make a statement about a controversial issue, but they don't want to face the consequences. We're supposed to feel sorry for them because they want to destroy thousands of marriages in California, not just "want to" but actually laid down their own cash to make it happen, and then some people are angry at them.
They love being the victim.
I don't condone threatening people or sending suspicious packages to them, that's really a dumb and ineffective way to get your point across, but if you're going to support a controversial position, now and then things are just going to happen. People are going to point you out, they're going to talk about you and say things about you that might not be accurate, you may be on the receiving end of an emotional expression or two. Like, you ought to see TTF's inbox. You should have seen the stuff the county council was getting last year, and the school board was getting the year before. You take a stand, you're going to get some heat, no matter which side you're on. Nobody forced these people to contribute their money to the cause of breaking up and preventing marriages between loving couples.
And of course -- once these people's names and contributions have slipped into the labyrinthine tubes of the Internets, the truth is out there. Forever. You can't stuff every instance of the data back into the database.
Really, that's a nontrivial aspect of all this. Once something has been put on the Internet you can never take it back. Somebody somewhere has made a copy of the information. They may share it publicly, or they may share it privately, but once that database has been left outside the firewall you have to figure somebody's got a copy of it. So no matter what they say, you can't make the information secret any more. If you take it off the web server, it'll still go around as an email attachment. So the request to make this information secret is really impossible to fulfill, after the fact.
Listen, if you can't stand up for what you believe in, you should keep your mouth shut. The public has a right to know who's behind these things. There's a good reason for government to be transparent, there's a good reason for the public to know where the money is coming from. The code-word is "accountability." It means if something happens, we can look back and see why it happened and who was behind it.
Here's the AP, writing in the SF Press:
Supporters of the ballot measure that banned gay marriage in California have filed a lawsuit seeking to block their campaign finance records from public view, saying the reports have led to the harassment of donors.
"No one should have to worry about getting a death threat because of the way he or she votes," said James Bopp Jr., an attorney representing two groups that supported Proposition 8, Protect Marriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage California. "This lawsuit will protect the right of all people to help support causes they agree with, without having to worry about harassment or threats." Calif. gay marriage foes want donors anonymous
In journalism there is something called inverted pyramid style. This means you put all the most important information in the first sentence - the who, what, when, where, and how, with importance decreasing as you go farther down into the story. Back when I was a pup, newscopy was printed out in strips and an editor would cut it off with a razor blade to fit it into whatever space in the layout was left on the page after they had sold advertising. A reporter could be sure that their story would be truncated, but wouldn't know where, so you had to write in such a way that any sentence could be the end, and the reader would know the important facts of the story, no matter where they stopped.
You note that the anti-gay groups got their statement in first. Two paragraphs into this and we are already worrying about poor anti-gay donors being harassed and threatened. Lots of readers will only get that far, that's how the inverted pyramid works. In another discussion, this would be called "framing," it's about who sets the tone of the discussion, who decides what "the story" is. The AP decided the story should be that donors are being threatened and harassed, and are afraid they will be victimized further if their names are made public.
Look, this story could have been written another way: Donors Afraid To Deal With Consequences Of The Public Knowing What They Have Done. Pro-Marriage Backlash Intimidates Anti-Gay Donors. Religious Right Demands Secrecy. There are lots of ways this could have been presented.
In that second paragraph, they are implying that people are being harassed, getting death threats, "because of the way he or she votes." Unh-uh, these have nothing to do with voting. Voting is private, as it should be, there is no social pressure on a voter, you can click whatever checkbox you want with the curtain closed behind you. These are people who contributed money to ensure that gay people can't be married. They have stepped into the public debate -- these are not voters, they are activists.
(Also, I also don't believe anyone has said they received a "death threat." At least it isn't mentioned in this article.)
More boo hoo:
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Sacramento, asks the court to order the secretary of state's office to remove all donations for the proposition from its Web site.
It also asks the court to relieve the two groups and "all similarly situated persons" from having to meet the state's campaign disclosure requirements. That would include having to file a final report on Proposition 8 contributions at the end of January, as well as reports for any future campaigns the groups undertake.
Proposition 8, approved by 52.3 percent of California voters on Nov. 4, reversed a state Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage. The measure's opponents have asked the Supreme Court to overturn it.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday cites a series of incidents in which those who gave money to support Proposition 8 received threatening phone calls, e-mails and postcards. One woman claims she was told: "If I had a gun, I would have gunned you down along with each and every other supporter."
Another donor reported a broken window, one said a flier calling him a bigot was distributed around his hometown and others received envelopes containing suspicious white power, according to the lawsuit.
Businesses employing people who contributed to the Proposition 8 campaign have been threatened with boycotts, the suit said.
Wow, those gay people are really scary.
This is something that has amazed me over the past four years, dealing with rightwing activists. They want to make a statement about a controversial issue, but they don't want to face the consequences. We're supposed to feel sorry for them because they want to destroy thousands of marriages in California, not just "want to" but actually laid down their own cash to make it happen, and then some people are angry at them.
They love being the victim.
I don't condone threatening people or sending suspicious packages to them, that's really a dumb and ineffective way to get your point across, but if you're going to support a controversial position, now and then things are just going to happen. People are going to point you out, they're going to talk about you and say things about you that might not be accurate, you may be on the receiving end of an emotional expression or two. Like, you ought to see TTF's inbox. You should have seen the stuff the county council was getting last year, and the school board was getting the year before. You take a stand, you're going to get some heat, no matter which side you're on. Nobody forced these people to contribute their money to the cause of breaking up and preventing marriages between loving couples.
And of course -- once these people's names and contributions have slipped into the labyrinthine tubes of the Internets, the truth is out there. Forever. You can't stuff every instance of the data back into the database.
Really, that's a nontrivial aspect of all this. Once something has been put on the Internet you can never take it back. Somebody somewhere has made a copy of the information. They may share it publicly, or they may share it privately, but once that database has been left outside the firewall you have to figure somebody's got a copy of it. So no matter what they say, you can't make the information secret any more. If you take it off the web server, it'll still go around as an email attachment. So the request to make this information secret is really impossible to fulfill, after the fact.
Supporters of the gay marriage ban fear the donor backlash will hurt their efforts to raise money in the future, perhaps to fight an initiative seeking to overturn the ban.
"Several donors have indicated that they will not contribute to committee plaintiffs or similar organizations in the future because of the threats and harassment directed at them as a result of their contributions ... and the public disclosure of that fact," the lawsuit said.
The suit said courts have held that laws requiring disclosure of campaign contributions can be overturned or restricted if a group can make "an uncontroverted showing" that identifying its members can result in economic reprisals or threats of physical coercion.
California's Political Reform Act, which voters approved in 1974, established disclosure requirements for candidates and campaign committees.
Listen, if you can't stand up for what you believe in, you should keep your mouth shut. The public has a right to know who's behind these things. There's a good reason for government to be transparent, there's a good reason for the public to know where the money is coming from. The code-word is "accountability." It means if something happens, we can look back and see why it happened and who was behind it.
posted by JimK at 9:05 AM
15 Comments:
Jim writes,
Anti-Gay Donors Want to Hide
Given the campaign of harassment/intimidation, both personal and professional, as well as numerous acts of vandalism directed at church buildings identified as supporting natural marriage, I hope (though in these morally strange times we live that may be too much to hope) most reasonable people will recognize your comment for what it is: a lie.
I have sat on the sidelines until now, but I suspect now I will need to place my name on that list now. So soon it would seem liberals forget about blacklists, so-called enemies lists, "have you ever been, or are you now...". Conservatives have been accused (and with good reason at times) of attempting to stifle freedom of speech...and liberals have proclaimed a devotion to the First Amendment. It would appear such a devotion may be many things, but principled is not among those motivations.
The Mormon leaders are also actively seeking press interviews so that their mobilization of Mormon members to fund the removal of the right to marry from LGBT Americans can be spun to their liking.
ABC News reported last night:
Ever since the first Mormon temple was built more than 150 years ago, they have been the subject of speculation and suspicion. The temples are imposing structures where private and sacred rituals are performed, and where outsiders are almost never welcomed.
But this week, two of the church's 12 apostles invited ABC News to tour a new temple in Utah. Elder Russell Ballard and Elder Quentin Cook, who are at the very highest level of the church, also sat down for an unprecedented interview.
"We want to be understood, not misunderstood," said Ballard, "and people are defining us in the wrong way. They're defining us without having the facts."
Ballard says Mormons are still maligned as polygamists, and known for discriminating against African Americans.
...Upon arrival at Mormon church headquarters in Utah, a small group of TV, print and radio reporters were treated to a teriyaki chicken dinner in an ornate dining room. Dinner was followed by a freewheeling discussion with former businessman Ballard and former attorney Cook, who, as apostles, are believed to be "prophets, seers and revelators."
"We know the voice of the Lord, we know when he wants us to do something," said Ballard.
The next morning, journalists were packed into a church van and driven south to the town of Draper, where this new temple was recently completed. It's the 129th in the world.
...ABC cameras were not allowed inside.
...what Mormons believe is the one true Christian church, a church that began in the early 1800s in upstate New York when a teenaged Joseph Smith said he was visited by God and Jesus.
In their early years, the Mormons were violently persecuted.
And it is precisely because of that painful past that critics charge the Mormons with hypocrisy for urging its members, in a letter read from the pulpit in every church in California, to give their money and time to defeat gay marriage in California.
...The Mormons were a large part of a coalition of religions that supported Proposition 8, but they say they are now being unfairly singled out, but that, in some way they are a victim of their own success.
"Well, that's part of it," said Ballard, "but the other part of it is that when something needs to be done, we know how to do it."
Here's another person who would deny full civil rights to LGBT citizens claiming "victimhood," but this Mormon is brazen about it, because he says he knows the voice of the Lord, we know when he wants us to do something...[and]...we know how to do it So he hears voices does he? Interesting. If he knows how to do it, then he knows full disclosure of donors to political campaigns is required by law. I wonder how many of the suers are Mormons.
"We want to be understood, not misunderstood," said Ballard, "and people are defining us in the wrong way. They're defining us without having the facts."
So Ballard says he wants to provide the "people who are defining us in the wrong way" ("THEM") with "the facts" so they might understand rather than misunderstand his church ("US"). How will he do that? Will he recommend that Mormon leaders read a letter "from the pulpit in every church" across the land, encouraging members to fight against the legal attempt to "block...campaign finance report records from public view?"
If Mormons NOT do read such a letter from every one of their churches, we will know how insincere this Mormon PR push is.
Not to mention the threats I received back in 2007 from family blah blah groups, etc. asking for me to be fired as a teacher simply because I am gay. In their heads they equate gay with pedaphile. Thank goodness I work in a pro-equality county and my school board knows a lame duck when they see one (in this case, pro-hate groups like PFOX and CRC, etc).
I also simply loved one email I received stating that this ¨Anon¨ type knew where I worked and that I should watch my back. Fun times, in deed!
I am proud of who I am and no troll or pro-hate group will change that.
It's the swinging of the pendulum. For years, phony pro-family groups have used this very legal tactic to go after pro-lgbt donors. So why should they get special rules when their nonsense turns on them.
Bear in mind, I am not talking about the isolated of alleged violence because both have been taking place on both sides of the issue.
But this whining by pro-Proposition 8 folks is just annoying.
Gainesville, Florida (home of the University of Florida, known to FSU fans as the "hated Gators"), like MoCo, has added Trans protection to its civil rights law. A group there, with the support of the infamous Thomas More Law Center (I think I feel the tremors of Thomas More rolling over in his grave), has brought a petition to remove Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation from the Gainesville law. They are following the CRG tack of associating queer civil rights with child molesting; their website has links to child assaults and rapes (Citizens for Good Pubic Policy .
They've come of with a television ad (who is funding this? one has to ask) that qualifies only as hate speech. BoxTurtleBulletin link to anti-trans TV ad.
There seems to be some sort of central committee organizing these anti-trans, anti-queer attacks, with the same legal team, political tactics, themes and 'message.'
Ads like this, I would venture, will increase hate crimes against queer people, much as hate crimes in our area have gone up.
No anonymous need respond.
"Pubic" in that link, was an unintended typo for "Public" on my part. The anti-lgbt group is called "Citizens for Good Public Policy."
They call their initiative the "Civil Rights amendment." Good god.
I found the link to the TV ad:
Hate ad
Echoes of Anita Bryant.
Thanks for the links to the Gainesville Citizen whackos' website, Robert.
I just followed every link in their NEWS section to incidents this law would supposedly enable. The first and last link end in error messages and the rest may as well have. In all of the incidents linked to, none of the male perpetrators was wearing women's clothing or claimed to be transgender. And of the suspects found, all of them were arrested under criminal statutes for their conduct. Passage of Gainesville's anti-discriminatnion law would not have changed the outcome of any of these cases.
“an attorney representing two groups that supported Proposition 8, Protect Marriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage California...asks the court to relieve the two groups...from having to meet the state's campaign disclosure requirements.”
And after winning this, these groups can then secretly donate 100% of the funds necessary to pass a state measure that guarantees them a court victory in every future lawsuit they file.
---
Re Aunt Bea (ABC): “...The Mormons were a large part of a coalition of religions that supported Proposition 8, but they say they are now being unfairly singled out, but that, in some way they are a victim of their own success.
Unfairly singled out for their own success, that’s rich.
“Here's another person who would deny full civil rights to LGBT citizens claiming "victimhood," but this Mormon is brazen about it, because he says he knows the voice of the Lord”
One wonders why “the voice of the Lord” doesn’t tell him how to end poverty and war.
"You should have seen the stuff the county council was getting last year, and the school board was getting the year before. You take a stand, you're going to get some heat, no matter which side you're on."
The county council and school board are public officials. They're paid to take a stand. They comprise a finite number and special security can be provided for them.
There are spokesmen, not often government officials in MC, for pro-family causes too. But if individuals choose to contribute, they should be able to do so anonymously. If you disagree, will you be posting lists of all your contributors and amounts?
"Nobody forced these people to contribute their money to the cause of breaking up and preventing marriages between loving couples."
There is no such thing as homosexual marriage.
It's an oxymoron pushed by morons.
“There is no such thing as homosexual marriage.
It's an oxymoron pushed by morons.”
As opposed to “pro-family logic,” which defines itself by its ability to wage war on an oxymoron.
Tsunami's right. The haters have long used public records to identify and harass their enemies. For example, some so-called pro-life websites show maps to the homes of doctors who perform abortion. Haters are now crying foul because the shoe is on the other foot. They can dish it out but can't take the heat so they cry victimhood instead. They don't think they have to play fair and follow the same rules as everybody else because they think they've got God on their side.
There is no such thing as homosexual marriage.
It's an oxymoron pushed by morons.
Same-sex marriage is legal in several places Anon, more and more places every day. The trend to recognize same-sex marriages will continue to grow, especially once Obama and Pelosi get to work to repeal DOMA.
They know that same-sex marriage does not cause the break-up of heterosexual marriages and that marriage itself helps make families strong, especially strong foundations for raising kids. Do you know what the major causes of the break up of heterosexual marriages are? Divorce over money and infidelity. The number of hetero marriages that break up so one or the other can wed a same-sex person is negligible.
"The haters have long used public records to identify and harass their enemies. For example, some so-called pro-life websites show maps to the homes of doctors who perform abortion. Haters are now crying foul because the shoe is on the other foot."
Abortion providers are publicly accessible because they advertise to obtain customers. They're abetting murder to make money. If they want to keep their names secret, they are legally free to.
The Gainesville nutjobs follow the same tactics as CRG/G/C/etc. and, increasingly, most of the rest of the anti-lgbt industry, in just making stuff up frighten citizens about queer people. I mean really, the notion that a civil rights law will encourage rape and child molesting; ridiculous on the face of it.
But, I think, there is not Truth in Advertising for free speech.
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