Gays hope to win marriage rights with help from straight friends

By: LISA LEFF - Associated Press | Saturday, October 13, 2007 7:43 PM PDT ∞

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The setting was intimate, the hors d'oeuvres simple and the hostess barefoot, but the house party police Sgt. Gabby Seagrave and graduate student LaDonna Silva held for a dozen friends and co-workers last week was hardly a spontaneous affair.

Over wine and cheese, guests signed a form signaling their support for same-sex marriage. In the couple's family room, they took a quiz on marriage laws (Q: Same-sex couples have legal marriage rights in which of the following countries?) and watched a television commercial that could have been for diamond rings, but asked, "What if you couldn't marry the person you loved?"

Ad campaigns and house parties are just two of the ways in which gay rights activists are courting sympathetic heterosexuals. The aim is to recuit these "straight allies" to help persuade a majority of Americans to back causes ranging from marriage to anti-discrimination laws.

Though the messages are often aimed at heterosexuals who have a personal connection with someone who is gay, the initiatives have a purely practical side.

"It's just a matter of numbers," says Jody Huckaby, executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. "There are a lot more straight people than LGBT people."

Bridget Goin, who was one of the non-gay invitees to Silva and Seagrave's party, was moved enough by night's end to pledge $20 a month to the gay rights group that helped the domestic partners plan the gathering. She also offered to host a similar reception at her house.

"If I have the privilege, maybe I'm the one who has the power to do something about it," said Goin, who is in her second legally sanctioned marriage.

Among other efforts to recruit straight allies:

-- PFLAG recently launched a new Web site, endorsed by the advice columnist who writes "Dear Abby," to enlist straight supporters in speaking out against anti-gay jokes and slurs.

-- Two Texas groups arranged for straight allies to lead overnight vigils in 30 U.S. cities to draw attention to the discrimination faced by gay men, lesbians and transgender people.

-- Next week, hundreds of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at high schools across the country have scheduled "Ally Weeks" to encourage teachers and students to help make their campuses more welcoming for gay classmates and colleagues.

-- The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a media watchdog group, recently unveiled a series of "Be an Ally & a Friend" public service announcements airing on "Access Hollywood" and featuring straight television actors such as Eric Mabius from "Ugly Betty" and "Grey's Anatomy" co-star Sara Ramirez.

"The overall movement for LGBT equality is maturing, and the next step in that maturation as a movement is to compel our straight allies -- friends, neighbors, co-workers, family members -- not to just be supportive of us in private, but to publicly stand with us," said GLAAD President Neil Giuliano.

A straight person has a better chance of convincing someone who may be on the fence on an issue like same-sex marriage than a gay advocate to whom the target of the appeal cannot as easily relate, according to PFLAG's Huckaby.

"It's important that those of us who work for equality realize the decision makers are the neighbors next door who will be voting in the next election, who will be talking in their faith communities about their stances on homosexuality," he said.

Sparking conversations is the goal of house parties like the one hosted by Silva and Seagrave as part of the "Let California Ring" campaign. Equality California, the state's largest gay rights lobbying group, has even come up with a list of talking points for supporters who are unsure how to broach the topic of gay marriage.

"It doesn't matter if it's through the courts, the ballot or the Legislature, it's the public understanding of the issue that is the key to being successful in any attempt to have equality," said Executive Director Geoffrey Kors.

Toward that end, Equality California started airing a television ad in five cities on Thursday that aims to reach "straight people who are moveable" by appealing to their empathy. It features familiar imagery, a bride glowing under a soft-focus lens and the adoring gazes of her family.

But on her way down the aisle toward her groom, she suffers a series of humiliating setbacks as she loses a heel, a branch rips her veil from her head and someone intentionally trips her. The unsettling scene ends with the tag line, "Everyday, gay and lesbian couples are prevented from marrying."

Gay rights is not the first social movement to seek supporters among allies who were once considered adversaries, said David Meyers, a sociologist at the University of California, Irvine. White liberals found a place, though sometimes uneasily, championing civil rights for black Americans during the 1960s, while feminists lobbying for passage of an Equal Rights Amendment eventually welcomed men to their ranks during the 1970s.

The risk of such a strategy involves the goals activists may be asked to put on the back burner while working with outsiders, Meyers said. An example of that is playing out right now in Congress, where Democratic lawmakers are trying to enact a law that would protect gays and lesbians from job discrimination, but exclude transgender people.

"It's the way you win some stuff," Meyers said. "In every successful movement in the past, there was always important stuff they didn't win."

On the Net:

PFLAG: www.straightforequality.org

GLAAD: www.glaad.org

Vigils: www.sevenstraightnights.org

Watch the ad: www.letcaliforniaring.org

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