In one of the most clear indications yet of just how panicked the National Organization for Marriage is now that their cash-cow has been mortally wounded, they are following in the footsteps of the RNC, coming to the conclusion that their problem is all in their messaging and has little to do with the message itself.
Citing a paper written by Nathan Hitchen of the John Jay Institute, You’ve Been Framed: A New Primer for the Marriage Debate, The Narrator's Brian Brown (what is it with guys named Brian Brown?) comes to the conclusion that in their fight against marriage equality they need to "discuss marriage in a way that appeals not only to reason, but also to emotion, intuition, and imagination." It seems he pretty much admits here that their "reasoned" arguments have fallen so flat that the only thing left to them is to appeal to baser human instincts to get their sad little points across. According to Brown, this effort needs to be rebranded "so that we can pursue a future in which we are no longer viewed as haters and bad guys." Nowhere does he discuss why on earth they may be viewed as such, but I digress.
In Hitchen's paper, he contends that opponents of marriage equality should give up on persuading with reason and turn to these five alternative methods of advancing their message:
PRO-MARRIAGE COMMUNICATORS MUST APPEAL TO THE MORAL INTUITIONS
OF AUDIENCES BY USING EMOTION TO INVOKE NARRATIVES AND TELL
STORIES WITH NEW METAPHORS AND MEMES IN ORDER TO INFLUENCE THE
EMOTIONALLY CHARGED DEBATE ABOUT REDEFINING MARRIAGE.
EMOTION: Marriage advocates must use emotion to switch an
audience’s confirmation bias in their favor because
people search for reasons to believe an appealing
message whereas they look for contrary evidence to
dismiss what they feel opposed to.
NARRATIVE: Pro-marriage messaging must address personal and
social narratives by which people reckon with their
identity in the world.
STORY: Marriage advocates should tell stories that include
both sides of the debate in ways that position moms
and dads as heroes who cannot be replaced in the lives
of children.
METAPHOR: Marriage advocates must argue their positions using
fresh metaphors to highlight the social importance
of marriage because successful metaphors transform
perspectives (e.g., “America is a Shining City on a
Hill”).
MEME: The brain encodes ideas and beliefs into its neural
structure as memes. Marriage advocates must
produce messages consistent with the Six Elements of
Sticky Memes: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible,
emotional, stories
Writing for
The Witherspoon Institute, the same outfit that gave us the widely discredited
Regnerus Study, Brown shows us how the use of reason is not necessary when you have an audience full of malleable minds that don't need no stinkin' reasoning.
Debating MarriageChanging aspirational narratives is also partly done through metaphors. Research has consistently shown that audiences are more likely to remember and comprehend complex arguments through images. Marriage advocates, Hitchen suggests, should communicate truths about marriage and the common good through metaphors such as “marriage is our country’s social infrastructure.” Marriage isn’t just a religious institution or a majority-rules game for the same reason highways and harbors aren’t—men and women are the harbors from which children set sail (which is partly why some people in France and Britain who want homosexuals to be happy don’t favor gay marriage).
And finally, narratives are changed through memes. Hitchen says marriage advocates should compress their arguments into easily replicable ideas that can stick in people’s minds and slowly challenge prevailing assumptions. “Marriage equality” is the meme that is currently dominating the debate. Even disagreeing with it implicitly accepts its premise.
To beat such a “sticky” meme, marriage advocates would have to popularize a stickier meme (preferably stealing back a term the other side likes to use). For example, the meme “true marriage is more diverse” appeals to the distinct, complementary differences between mothering and fathering (instead of the “mono-gendered” structure of two men or two women). Or the meme “changing marriage creates inequality” could be attached to stories of the unequal emotional experiences of children raised in single-sex environments. For memes to work, they have to be on the leading edge of every pro-marriage argument, all the time.
I would like to wish them the very same luck that the RNC has had with convincing Blacks, Latinos, Women, LGBT people, and anyone else who isn't a narrow-minded white male in his 60s that the Republican party just loves them to pieces so vote GOP! It isn't as if there hasn't been years and years of demonstrable data that proves that NOM's sole raison d'être has been driven by anti-gay animus. Slapping a coat of lipstick on that pig has about as much chance for success as expecting that same pig with pretty lips to fly.