{"id":15002,"date":"2013-03-27T05:45:37","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T09:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=15002"},"modified":"2013-03-26T22:27:59","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T02:27:59","slug":"learning-from-gay-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/03\/learning-from-gay-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning from gay activists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Homosexuals have pulled what may be the greatest public relations revolution in history, going from reviled to celebrated in the twinkling of an eye.\u00a0 Illegal immigrants have also scored a public relations coup, as their cause is now ascendant.\u00a0 Immigration activist Frank Sharry says that the success of his movement has been consciously modeled after the tactics of gay rights activists.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll quote him after the jump, but Christians would do well to study these turnarounds.\u00a0 Societies tend to project some of its members as \u201cothers,\u201d scapegoating, marginalizing, and looking down on them as a way to achieve social solidarity, an \u201cingroup\u201d\u00a0 played off against an \u201coutgroup.\u201d\u00a0 Christians should never play that game, but we have.\u00a0\u00a0 I wonder if\u00a0 Christians will someday be put into that role.\u00a0 Already, significant parts of the population regard conservative Christians with revulsion and fear, seeing Christians\u2019 sexual ethics as unnatural and scaring themselves at the prospect of Christians taking over the country.\u00a0 I can see a time when people will mirror the Calvinist\/Arminian debates in discussing whether a person chooses to be a Christian (in which case there is no excuse) or is born that way (in which case there is a pathology that needs to be eradicated).\u00a0 But maybe enough Christians will be bold enough to \u201cout themselves\u201d to their families and friends so as to present a human face to the movement.<\/p>\n

\n

From Frank Sharry:<\/p>\n

To get to this point, we learned three crucial lessons from LGBT activists: We had to build a movement. We couldn\u2019t be afraid to challenge our friends in power. And we had to give our cause a human face.<\/p>\n

LGBT advocates showed us that the way to build power is by leveraging your competitive advantage. If money and votes are the currency of politics, their strength was in the former. Snarkily referred to by donors and beneficiaries alike as the \u201cGay ATM,\u201d LGBT contributors gave generously to political candidates and won themselves a seat at the table.<\/p>\n

Our strength lies in the other form of political currency: voters. After the devastating defeat of the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill in 2007, we made it our top priority to mobilize new Latino voters, who see immigration reform as a defining issue. .\u00a0 . .<\/p>\n

We learned something else from the LGBT community. Early in Obama\u2019s first term, when most progressives were swooning about the new president and the new era his election had ushered in, LGBT activists had a different take. Dismissing the Washington-insider notion that access means influence, they made it clear that they were not going to go along to get along. Led by bloggers such as John Aravosis<\/a>, Joe Sudbay<\/a> and Pam Spaulding<\/a>, the LGBT community developed an outside strategy that openly challenged the White House.<\/p>\n

Their first battle was over the president\u2019s defense of DOMA. They were confrontational and fearless. LGBT advocates then upped the pressure on the White House and Congress to move on the repeal of \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell.\u201d Unwilling to accept the line that \u201cwe\u2019d like to help you, but those Republicans just won\u2019t let us,\u201d gay activists mobilized donors, got arrested at the White House<\/a>, demanded action and ultimately succeeded in repealing the military policy.<\/p>\n

On immigration, most of Obama\u2019s first term offered encouraging reform rhetoric, but not a lot of progress on policy. While the speeches were inspiring and the early meetings friendly, advocates like me had to face facts: We weren\u2019t getting anywhere. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security was ramping up deportations to record levels<\/a>. We strongly suspected that then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who had famously called immigration a third-rail issue for Democrats in 2007, was saying much the same to the president.<\/p>\n

And so, again, we applied a lesson from the LGBT activists. We even came up with a new rallying cry: \u201cIt\u2019s time to go all LGBT on their a\u2013.\u201d I used it around the office and in meetings with colleagues. I meant, quite simply, that it was time to be confrontational. . . .<\/p>\n

The final lesson our movement learned from the LGBT community may have been the most important. Gays and lesbians have created a monumental shift in American culture. They did it, first and foremost, by coming out to family and friends. They did it by infusing popular culture with popular characters, from Ellen to Will to Mitch and Cam. They did it by being brave and loud, out and proud.<\/p>\n

We had nothing of the sort. To most Americans, undocumented immigrants were unknown and invisible. To some, they represented a menace. But then, just a few years ago, Dreamers \u2014 who take their name from the Dream Act, which would create a path to citizenship for young people who go to college or serve in the military \u2014 started to come out as \u201cundocumented and unafraid.\u201d They risked arrest, detention and deportation to fight for their freedom, their futures and their families. They became the heart of the movement, and their courage opened millions of minds. In 2010, four brave Dreamers walked 1,500 miles<\/a> from Miami to Washington. In 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargascame out as an undocumented immigrant<\/a> in the New York Times Magazine.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the human faces and personal stories so sorely missing in our debate broke through as never before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

via How did we build an immigrant movement? We learned from gay rights advocates. \u2013 The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Christians have mustered votes, but they (we) haven\u2019t pressured the politicians they elected to follow through for them, as the gay and immigration activists have done.\u00a0 And Christians have not managed to project a human face.\u00a0 That, perhaps, takes suffering, which can lead to compassion.\u00a0 They may happen later.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homosexuals have pulled what may be the greatest public relations revolution in history, going from reviled to celebrated in the twinkling of an eye.\u00a0 Illegal immigrants have also scored a public relations coup, as their cause is now ascendant.\u00a0 Immigration activist Frank Sharry says that the success of his movement has been consciously modeled after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,36,42],"tags":[447,887,1068],"class_list":["post-15002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-politics","category-social-science","tag-christian-persecution","tag-gay-activists","tag-illegal-immigration"],"yoast_head":"\nLearning from gay activists<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Homosexuals have pulled what may be the greatest public relations revolution in 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