The latest Protect Marriage ad (Video: Protect Marriage, via YouTube)
The parents of two children, prominently featured in the latest Protect Marriage TV ad (seen above), have labeled the ad “distasteful and exploitative.” They’ve demanded the pro-8 ad be removed from the airways and the internets, where it is being used to raise funds for the campaign to eliminate marriage equality in California — a cause none of the children’s parents support.
From the parent’s press release:
Outraged Parents of Children Featured in Latest Yes on 8 TV Ad Demand that Commercial be Taken off the Air Immediately
Latest Campaign Gimmick Termed Exploitative and Shameless by Parents
SACRAMENTO – The parents of the two children most prominently featured in the latest multi-million dollar Yes on 8 political spot today termed those ads “distasteful and exploitative” and demanded that the ads be taken off the air immediately. Both sets of parents – Laura Hodder and Matt Alexander and Jen Press and James Moore, sent two hand-delivered letters this morning. The first letter is to the Yes on 8 Campaign demanding the ad be removed from its television and its Web site where it is being used as a fund raising tool. The second letter to the San Francisco Chronicle asks them to intervene on their behalf. The Yes campaign manipulated video that the Chronicle has posted on its Web site.
In their letter to the Yes on 8 campaign, the parents wrote: “We are absolutely outraged that you have chosen, without permission, to shamelessly hijack the images of our innocent children to promote a cause that we in no way, shape or form support. It is even more maddening that you have willfully and calculatingly edited the images of our children, with menacing music in the background, in a way that is completely contrary to their nature and harmful to them.”
The footage manipulated by the Yes campaign, without authorization from either the parents or the Chronicle, was originally captured on Oct. 10 when the children took a field trip with their classmates and several parents to share the moment of their teacher’s wedding to her longtime partner. All parents were notified well in advance of the trip which was organized by some parents, and, in fact, two families chose to have their children not participate under California’s broad opt out law.
“I’m a school principal so I know something about education and parents’ rights,” said Matt Alexander whose son, Ben, is featured in the ad. “And the opt out law is something we readily apply all the time. So, let me join every other educator in the state and ask Prop 8 to also stop lying about the opt out law.”
“This field trip was about sharing a special moment with a teacher these kids love,” said Jen Press whose daughter, Lucy, is prominently featured in the political ad. “To turn around and distort images of our children is outrageous. We’re opposed to Prop 8, but irrespective of our position, it’s wrong to use any image of children without their parents’ permission. And we think every parent in California would agree with us.”
In the letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, the parents wrote, in part:
“Our children are being exploited and used as pawns to further a political cause…We ask that you intervene immediately on our behalf and issue a cease and desist letter to the Yes on 8 campaign. If the campaign does not remove the ad, we ask that you pursue legal action against them.”
Added Jen Press: “Prop 8 claims to be about families, but we’re here to say you can’t be for families by attacking our families. You can’t be for families and take these children’s innocent images and flash them not only on television statewide, but on your fund raising page. This must stop right now.”
Apparently the allegedly pro-family Protect Marriage isn’t all that interested in protecting all families and all children. What a shock! Now would be an excellent time to contact your local TV stations and demand that this insidious example of child exploitation be taken off the air.
UPDATE (10-26, 8:20 pm Pacific): Newly released video of the parents demanding Protect Marriage take the ad off the air:
(Video: No on Prop 8, via YouTube)
Comments
7 Comments so far. Comments are closed.Children have a right to a mom and a dad. The state of California allowing same-gender marriage may seem progressive to some– –but what it says to me is that the state of California sanctions a relationship that does not best serve children.
While no heterosexual parents are perfect, and some situations are down right abusive and traumatic, the response is not to eliminate a child’s right to a mom and a dad. The response is to better educate, better encourage, better help parents be better.
While a lesbian couple or a gay couple may provide a stable home, love, and support to a child. By definition, a same-gender marriage cannot provide them a mom and a dad. Every child has the right to a mom and a dad.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06021601.html
Society should sacrifice for the health and well being of its children.
This is why I am voting “yes” on prop 8 (on my absentee ballot).
http://prop8discussion.wordpress.com/category/legislation-and-social-issues/
yes on prop 8!
Your argument, to quote Kate Kendall (the Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights), “has nothing to do with expanding the right of marriage to include same-sex couples. The fundamental right that has been extended to same-sex couples to marry is not about severing the recognition of the importance of marriage to the stability of a family. It’s about recognizing and expanding that to include same-sex couples who form relationships, who become economically interdependent, many of them who have children, live in neighborhoods, and who support their community, and who now finally in the state of California are supported and recognized as having their relationship recorded under civil law the same dignity respect, and security as anyone else.”
I’ve read the initiative and the arguments from both sides. A NO vote on Prop 8 in no way eliminates “a child’s right to a mom and a dad.” Further, a No vote doesn’t take away a parent’s legal right, under California State Law, to opt out of any class that offers content to which the parents object.
The ad above claims that 96% of California schools require teaching about marriage equality. The truth is these decisions are made at the local level by local school boards elected by California citizens. It’s called, to steal a line from Protect Marriage’s propaganda, “the will of the people.”
In the Yes-on-prop-8/Protect Marriage press release accompanying the launch of the ad above, they vigorously object to the teaching of HIV/AIDS prevention in California schools — a course from which any parent by law can opt-out their children. Are we to believe that they’d prefer seeing kids infected with HIV?
You don’t address the actual content of this post, in which four parents have, in no uncertain terms, accused the so-called pro-family groups of exploiting their children for political gain. Or, is it that certain families that don’t conform to your definition of marriage forfeit the right to look out for the well-being of their children?
Finally, Life Site News is not exactly what one might call an unbiased news source. Their homophobia runs so deep that they cannot even bring themselves to use the word “gay.” They’ve not only drunk the Kool-Aid, they’re soaking in it.
Parents put their kids in a “public area” with such high stakes they can only blame themselves.
These videos and image are all within the fairness doctrine and reasonable use.
I am voting yes as the last thing I want is my kids being pictured like this on the internet and TV.
Protect our Kids!
“Fairness?” That’s debatable, since Protect Marriage edited the video and still identified it as having from the San Francisco Chronicle without identifying the edits. But then, we, who support fairness and equality for all, are used to their lies.
“Reasonable?” That’s a laugh.
Those parents had no idea that evil men would come along and exploit their children for political gain. You should be ashamed for blaming those parents.
If you’re going to lock your children behind closed doors to avoid the real world, I feel very bad for your children.
“Parents put their kids in a “public area” with such high stakes they can only blame themselves.”
What about the parents of the teenagers I’ve seen waving Yes on 8 signs here in the Bay Area?
Here’s a question for you Yes on 8 people: If Prop 8 is about “protecting marriage,” shouldn’t you be pushing for a Constitutional amendment to outlaw divorce? If the purpose of marriage is the production and maintenance of children, shouldn’t all childless marriages be annulled? Why are you so focused on the LGBT community?
And finally, if Prop 8 passes, I would like to know whether you think it should be included in history or politics lessons. It would mark the first time the California Constitution has been amended to specifically eliminate civil rights for an entire class of taxpaying California citizens. I believe this would truly be a historic development, and one that California schoolchildren should definitely learn about.
To take the fundies at their word, the State should be stoning adulterers and fornicators to death in the public square. But then their word is as laughable as their so-called faith.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: this calls for a poem.
A reflection on the Bible
by Mike Tidmus
The Big Book, while ancient, I surmise
Gets it clout from its ponderous size.
As its pages you turn,
The sum total you learn:
It’s a tome full of sex, gore and lies.
And another thing:
http://www.calitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7272
Would some of you Yes on 8 people care to comment on this? Not only were these people exploiting children, but they were tolerating, or perhaps even encouraging, some decidedly un-Godly behavior among them.