Political Whac-A-Mole

When I attended an LGBT political training session in December, I expected to learn about financing, polling and voter identification. I did not expect to learn a new way to play Whac-A-Mole, but it was one of the more useful things I took home.

For those not familiar with the arcade/midway game, Whac-A-Mole has the mallet wielding player attempting to hit plastic moles as they pop up briefly from one of five holes. The typical “strategy” is to watch all the holes, and when a mole appears, to hit it. That usually leaves all but the prescient or well reflexed chasing moles with their eyes, banging empty holes with the mallet and scoring few points.

The better plan, according to our instructor, is to pick one or two holes and hit those moles every time. The other three holes are just distractions that leave you playing on the game’s turf, not yours.

The same is true of political messaging: you are wise to slam home one message that works rather than chasing down every comment, event or news cycle that rears its head. Few things illustrated this better than the response to Phil Robertson’s views on homosexuality.

Robertson has a right to his opinion, GQ has a right to publish it and A & E has a right to suspend him or not, depending on how they weigh profit and image (the brevity of his suspension making it clear where they came down). That should have been the messaging, and the story would have died.

How can I say this when GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign told you to take up arms? Because I’m not fundraising. Both those groups are good at using extreme quotes to get money (with which they do laudable things), but they are reaching out to their base. I doubt either group would have wanted the Robertson story highlighted to swing voters. Whatever your cause in America, you rarely want to go up against freedom of religion or speech, and conservatives effectively painted us on the wrong side of both. You might as well hate apple pie and puppies.

Or football. Time spent discussing who Green Bay Quarterback Aaron Rodgers sleeps with is another distraction. If he were gay, and were ready to come out, he would. If he is straight or in the closet, he will remind us on cue that he “really, really [likes] women.” In 2014, this sort of “outing” makes victims, not progress, unless perhaps the outee is undermining LGBT issues (Rep. Aaron Schock?).

If those were distracting holes, which ones should we hover over in 2014? Workplace protections and marriage equality.

If you want a football story, it’s the allegations of former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. Not because he may have been fired for his vocal support of marriage equality; the Vikings have the same choices A & E had with Robertson. But anti-gay remarks by a coach, if true, could push workplace protections against LGBT harassment at the state, federal and NFL level.

The biggest story should have been marriage equality in Utah, but it was often dwarfed by coverage of Robertson and Rodgers. While it’s not everything, especially for the transgender community, it is the closest thing we have to a brass ring at the moment, and it’s on its way back to the Supreme Court. I don’t know what drives their decisions, but I bet they’re watching us as closely as we’re watching them. We need to show them LGBT Americans and couples who want to be treated the same as everyone else, not a shouting match against a TV star with religious views that the president espoused not so long ago.