Friday, October 31, 2008

Haters Can't Work the Mall

The dwindling party that is MassResistance blew it big time again. They (maybe just Brian Camenker) couldn't work the clipboards and card tables well enough to gather the sigs to advance a petition to reinstate those anti-gay marriage laws from 1913.

Over at BayWindows, Ethan Jacobs reports on the latest MR failure. After getting approval to gather signatures, MR had until October 29th to collect 33,297 for the next stage. Actually and realistically the number would be 40,000 or so to accommodate fake and uncertifiable sigs. Instead, it was about 10,500 — about a quarter or a third of what MR needed.

You may recall that other anti-same-sex marriage and anti-gay groups like Mass. Family Institute punked out on this one. Lining up with MR for other ballot initiatives sapped their resources and colored them with the same loser stencil.

BW reports:
"The fact is this is a huge relief," said Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "It’s not that we were afraid we’d lose the ballot question, it’s that it would have taken so many resources, so much money and time and effort to defeat it, it would have been all-consuming, and it would have taken those resources from other issues."
So, there's something pro- and anti-equality types have in common. A combination of fringe groups and ballot initiative can drain an organization.

This failure is another arrow pointing the way to voter fatigue with such alarmists as MR. I figure their counterpart in Maine, the formerly Christian Civic League (now wearing Main Family Policy Council clothes) is in similar straits. SSM supporters and GLBT groups hesitate to ease off on the haters. I'm willing to consider them impotent if not totally gone.

Meanwhile, over at MR, there's not one word on what Brian's known for weeks about this failure. He also hasn't mentioned the disgrace of a stripping staffer who was apparently caught photographing kids at middle school for an MR documentary, as he put it.

I guess you just can't get good help anymore.


Afternoon Follow-up: After the BW report, MR did finally 'fess up. Even with what Brian claims was 300 helpers, they apparently ran out of fingers and toes and were surprised at how few sigs they had. He characterized it as the most difficult initiative ever, being based on principle only, having no effect on commonwealth residents. That didn't stop him from kvetching mightily — harrassed by gay activists, the public terrorized that their names would be public reocrd, no help from the R.C. Church or MFI, and not enough out-of-state money. That last one's right, "...we were counting on out-of-state donors to help with funding," he wrote, although that is the number one slam against GLBT organizations here, true or not.

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