"We can't beat prejudice by ignoring it" wrongly implies that I do not support advertising campaigns that proudly feature our faces and families ("Political IQ: Overcoming the 'ick' factor," BTL Feb. 19). In fact, this is what my recent Op-Ed on Prop. 8 said:
"I am not saying we shouldn't be putting our lives, stories and faces front and center over and over again or that we can't move people solidly to our side. Most of us have seen how taking our lives up close and personal to people around us does, in fact, create change. Moreover, having these direct, real conversations is the only way we're ever going to squelch the ick and inoculate voters from attacks that exploit it.
What I am saying is that we can't leave this hard work until the last minute – which is what a campaign really is. We can't expect some brilliantly-crafted ads – coming from our collective heart – to be the silver bullets that kill anti-marriage ballot initiatives in the heat of a campaign, when there is no time and the other side is assaulting our movables with carefully-crafted messages designed to exploit every anti-gay fear and myth. Instead, we need to move people beyond short-term political campaigns and before they get underway."
{ITAL Matt Foreman, program director of the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
San Francisco, Calif.}
