Gay Training

The San Francisco Chronicle had a story on Monday titled, “Training helps gay families win hearts”. A national organization, Family Pride, was in town offering workshops to train same-sex parents how to be spokespeople and to effectively address critics of family equality. I have not heard of the organization before and we did not attend the workshop. Family Pride’s website says it is committed to securing family equality for all families. One of their goals is to create a speaker’s bureau of people available to appear in the media and before legislators. To show and display a personal face, that same-sex families are regular people…like everyone else. Also they coach how to communicate in a language and terminology that resonates and appeals to straight Americans. What a great idea.

A couple interesting quotes from the article:

“They heard about using words and phrases that signal what they have in common with people around them – “being a fair person,” “in it together” and “building strong families” – rather than focusing on gay rights and sexual orientation.”

“Instead of appealing for “marriage equality,” parents should talk about what it means to be barred from marriage. The term “discrimination” should be shelved and replaced with the more concrete idea of “hurting,” trainer Trina Olson told the parents in San Francisco. And while there are more than 1,000 rights and legal benefits conferred with marriage, conversations about the emotional and social benefits are more persuasive, she said.”

“The images and voices of families are more appealing than legal and political debates to people who are on the fence about issues like marriage for same-sex couples.”