Posted on 02/07/2004 2:26:21 PM PST by quidnunc
Among America's culture wars, one of today's most intense controversies rages around the issue alternatively identified, depending on one's point of view, as "normalizing homosexuality" or "accepting gayness." The debate is truly a social-ethical-moral conceptual war that transcends both the scientific and legal, though science and law most often are the weapons of choice. The ammunition for these weapons, however, is persuasion.
This article explores how gay rights [3] activists use rhetoric, psychology, social psychology, and the media — all the elements of modern marketing — to position homosexuality in order to frame what is discussed in the public arena and how it is discussed. In essence, when it comes to homosexuality, activists want to shape "what everyone knows" and "what everyone takes for granted" even if everyone does not really know and even if it should not be taken for granted. [4]
The first strategy of persuasion is to establish a favorable climate for your message so that the communicator (marketer) can influence the future decision without even appearing to be persuading. Pratkanis and Aronson refer to this as pre-selling. [5] This is at the heart of the homosexual campaign: to get consent via social construct today to determine whose idea of personal freedoms will prevail in our legal codes tomorrow.
Part II of this article provides a brief overview of the social climate and politics that ultimately led to the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) imprimatur of homosexual behavior. The declassification of homosexuality as a disorder by the APA provides context for the propaganda war proposed by Kirk and Madsen's homosexual manifesto fifteen years later. The section ends by reviewing the main elements of the campaign including the call to specifically discredit, intimidate, and silence opponents with particular attention paid to conservative Christians.
Part III presents the connection between persuasion and democratic processes. Rhetoric, persuasive communication, propaganda, and social psychology theories are foundational to the concept of selling homosexuality as presented in this article. The purpose of this section is to provide a greater understanding of why persuasion works in order to strengthen the later discussion of how it is applied in the mass persuasion techniques evidenced in today's "gay rights"-style marketing.
Part IV moves to the "4-P's" of the traditional marketing paradigm — Product, Price, Place, and Promotion — to deconstruct and to illustrate how homosexuality is packaged and sold as a competitive product in the marketplace often through education [6] and through positive media coverage. "What is pitched is different — a product brand versus an issue — but the method is the same. In each case, the critical thing is not to let the public know how it is done," [7] states Tammy Bruce, a self-described lesbian feminist and ex-president of the Los Angles chapter of the National Organization for Women. [8]
Part V presents several real examples of how this strategy is employed in five important markets of social influence. The areas examined, which touch every citizen in America, are government, education, organized religion, the media, and the workplace.
Part VI concludes by recapping some achievements of the gay rights campaign and discussing what these may portend for their opponents and American society in the future.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at regent.edu ...
"Where we talk is important. The visual media, film and television, are plainly the most powerful image-makers in Western civilization. The average American household watches over seven hours of TV daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a Trojan horse might be passed. As far as desensitization is concerned, the medium is the message -- of normalcy. So far, gay Hollywood has provided our best covert weapon in the battle to desensitize the mainstream. Bit by bit over the past ten years, gay characters and gay themes have been introduced into TV programs and films (though often this has been done to achieve comedic and ridiculous effects). On the whole, the impact has been encouraging. The prime-time presentation of Consenting Adult on a major network in 1985 is but one high-water mark in favorable media exposure of gay issues. But this should be just the beginning of a major publicity blitz by gay America.
Straight viewers must be able to identify with gays as victims. Mr. and Mrs. Peterson must be given no extra excuses to say “they are not like us.” To this end, the persons featured in the public campaign should be decent and upright, appealing and admirable by straight standards, completely unexceptionable in appearance -- in a word, they should be indistinguishable from the straights we would like to reach. (To return to the terms we have used in previous articles, spokesmen for our cause must be R-type “straight gays” rather than Q-type “homosexuals on display.”) Only under such conditions will the message be read correctly: “These folks are victims of a fate that could have happened to me...”
Just read your links above. Absolutely nauseating...
Indeed. Did you see the links in reply 117 above?
Oh gosh. Shucks. Durn. Wow, I'll not sleep tonight a WINK! :-)
That is so true. In fact, Simon LeVay, a homosexual himself, scientist and researcher has stated exactly that:
The A.P.A. decision was not made based on new scientific evidence--in fact, as gay-activist researcher Simon LeVay admitted, "Gay activism was clearly the force that propelled the APA to declassify homosexuality."
"Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."As two of the three little pigs learned, we must build our house out of something solid. This was an important teaching of Jesus as well. He said it is foolish to build your house on sand, or to build your core position on something that is easily washed away. Instead, we should build our position on something solid, something which stands firm under scrutiny.
In regards to homosexuality and genetics, the work of homosexual activist Dr. Simon Levay has often been used to support the idea that homosexuality is genetic, and his work is still quoted to this day. But what did Levay really find? Here is what Levay said of his own work:
"[His 1991 research] made the unassuming LeVay one of the most misunderstood men in America. "It's important to stress what I didn't find," he points out with the courtly patience of someone who long ago got used to waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. "I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are 'born that way,' the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain --INAH3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior. My work is just a hint in that direction--a spur, I hope, to future work."Ten years later still nothing from LeVay or anybody else.
In 1973 the APA (American Psychiatric Association) declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. According to Levay, it wasn't science that propelled the APAs change, he said "Gay activism was clearly the force that propelled the APA to declassify homosexuality."
Dr. Robert L. Spitzer played a pivotal role in the above 1973 decision made by the APA. Spitzer used to believe homosexuals couldn't change but after studying the results of therapy he now believes homosexuals can change:
"I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted--but that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe that's untrue--some people can and do change."
Spitzer concluded with:
"the mental health professionals should stop moving in the direction of banning therapy that has, as a goal, a change in sexual orientation. Many patients, provided with informed consent about the possibility that they will be disappointed if the therapy does not succeed, can make a rational choice to work toward developing their heterosexual potential and minimizing their unwanted homosexual attractions."This is amazing information! Homosexuals can change, they can leave their lifestyle! It's not just Spitzer and Levay making the above comments, although they are well known, it's being reported by many different organizations that thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle.
I had dismissed that possibility, but you've shown by quotation and exposition that there is a very good reason to suspect that these rencounters may be, as you say, spurious and put-on affairs.
Have you sent a note to e.g. John Stossel or other non-PC investigative types about this possible programming scandal? If it is true that Queer Eye is faking their straights, and they certainly have the opportunity since creative and content control are almost certainly in their hands, that would be a major black eye for the producers and the network, and a piercing of the garment of false trustworthiness in which activist gays have sought to clothe themselves when performing before lying to the public.
"He's soooo goooooood on the issues!!!"
Also, did anyone see the PBS Frontline on porn last week, which happened to mention prominently that federal pornography prosecutions came to a crashing halt when Sink Boy began soiling the White House?
He was sooooooo goooooooooooood on the issues! [Barf alert for scumbags and liars.]
More like the law of JimRob!
I think all these seminar posters are probably the same two or three people who just keep coming back again and again, spewing the same few seminar points, and bouncing out the door in a phony huff about two steps ahead of the mods.
Thanks for the links.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.