News this week that for purposes of the national head count, the United States Census will allow same sex couples to self-identify as married reminds me of one of the Think Equal ads that Blue Jersey produced 4 years ago. This was shortly after the NJ Supreme Court's decision in Lewis v. Harris, allowing the legislature to pass civil union legislation, which they did December 2006.
Civil unions were confusing, complicated and somehow not the same. Take filling out forms, which this 2006 Think Equal took on:
The Census forms - they hit the mail next week - don't recognize civil unions as such. Instead the documents offer a choice between 2 boxes: "husband" or "wife", or "unmarried partners". Your call. That new policy took effect in 2009 when the Commerce Department released a legal opinion that argued the federal government could tabulate and release same-sex marriage data under the Defense of Marriage Act. Ironic that something decent could emerge because of DOMA, eh?
In the 2000 count, officials re-coded same-sex husband or wife answers to "unmarried partners," since no state in the country recognized same-sex marriage at the time. Now, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and those hell-raisers in cow country Iowa allow gays to legally married. And Washington, D.C. where the first gay couple ties the knot today.
Dennis makes the case why same-sex couples should check the "married" box. And here's to a day when we get rid of the "other" box once and for all.
Okay. This is my all-time favorite of the Think Equal ads, mostly because much of it was improvised and when we were at the studio shooting it, we were laughing hysterically (but quietly) at the last line.
Maybe you know somebody who hasn't made up their mind yet on Marriage Equality, somebody you can send this ad to ...
Here's the 2nd of the fab Think Equal ads, on the tax complications inherent in civil union families that we made in 2006.
We'll be running a reprising some of the best marriage equality posts in Blue Jersey's four-year history. Do you have a favorite marriage equality diary from our collection of posts? Let us know what it is in Comments, and maybe we'll re-run it this weekend. Or write one of your own, like this.
This is the 4th, and last, of the Think Equal ads, called Counsel Equal, about the upsetting and emotional fallout to living as a committed couple who wants to get married, but can't.
Okay. As a bunch of us - I've seen calls to action from Garden State Equality, DFA-NJ, Ocean Grove United and informally to ACLU-NJ friends - get ready to head down Monday morning and lobby for Marriage Equality, Blue Jersey's going to be reprising some of the best of the hundreds of posts on marriage equality written here at Blue Jersey.
The Think Equal ads - 4 light-and-easy take-offs on the Mac Guy and PC Guy ads Apple's been running for years - are one of the best things this site has ever done, and among the people we have to thank for them are Jack Bohrer, who blogs here as JRB and at Huffington Post under his own name, and Blue Jersey founder Juan Melli. Jack tells the story of the national award-winning ads here at HuffPo. Enjoy!
The event was The Fourth Annual Images In Advertising Awards, presented by the Commercial Closet Association. And, Think Equal was one of two commercials in GSE's television campaign for marriage equality which was selected for the "Commercial Closet Award" - honoring the year's best LGBT television advertising campaign by a not-for-profit organization.
Along with Garden State Equality, the other organizations nominated in the not-for-profit category were GLAAD (United States), Gay Police Association (England), Outlive (Canada) and Adoption San Francisco (United States). So, this was some pretty still national and international competition. Congratulations to GSE for once again leading the charge for equality in New Jersey.
Indeed, kudos are deserved all around - well, except for the legislature, which still hasn't acted to bring equality to the Garden State, over a year later. GSE Chair Steven Goldstein highlights this sad state of affairs in a statement issued today:
the failure of the civil union law since the production of the commercial would require a more pessimistic script today about the law's ability to provide the rights and benefits of marriage. The civil union woman in this commercial would not be able to say "me too" as to receiving insurance and pension benefits today.
Awards are nice, and something to be very proud of. But, it's time for our legislature to make us even more proud, and move us forward, not backward, on the issue of marriage in New Jersey.
One of the four Think Equal ads produced by Blue Jersey and used as part of an ad campaign for Garden State Equality has been nominated for the 4th Annual Images In Advertising Awards in the category of "Outstanding Nonprofit Campaign".
Think Equal has made it past the first two stages of a three-step process - nomination and selection by committee. The winners will be announced at the award ceremony which is scheduled for July 28th.
Blue Jersey, yesterday we posted that almost 1 in 8 civil unions in New Jersey is not being recognized by an employer or insurer in New Jersey. The state had released its 90-day number of 852 civil unions, and Garden State Equality had received 102 cases of civil unions not being respected over the same 90 days. But did you catch this in today's Star-Ledger:
"J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, director of the state Division on Civil Rights, said it has gotten no formal complaints regarding civil unions but the benefits they provide are 'by far' the largest source of inquiries to his division. He estimated about 90 a month pertain to problems in obtaining health or pension benefits provided to spouses."
So at least 270 problems so far - astounding.
Remember Blue Jersey's television commercials on civil unions from last fall during the height of the civil unions battle? Never have commercials turned out to be so prescient. Watch them now at Think Equal
This week, civil unions went into effect as New Jersey continues to move towards full marriage equality. We at Blue Jersey did our best to help that along, with reporting and projects like Think Equal. But we also got help from some great people who wanted to make a difference.
Two of those people are Laura Newman (Civil Unions Gal) and Monica Hunken (Married Gal). Laura and Monica are amazing, friendly, and smart. They're also very funny.
Recently, Laura wrote and directed this short film starring Monica, titled, 'Sexy Clown Bitch.' It's been entered at On the Lot -- a competition organized through Steven Spielberg, Dreamworks and Mark Burnett Productions. Go check it out, rate it, and show Laura and Monica some love. They deserve it -- it's hilarious.
It's official. The first Think Equal ad will soon be on television thanks to help from Garden State Equality. (GSE press release):
"We also thank superb statewide organizations like the ACLU of New Jersey, NJLGC and GRAANJ for working tirelessly over the years to help New Jersey lead the way. Particular gratitude goes to BlueJersey.com, New Jersey's leading political blog, which has galvanized thousands of netroots activists for marriage equality in New Jersey. BlueJersey.com also produced four commercials for marriage equality, and we will help get BlueJersey's first commercial on television shortly." The BlueJersey.com commercials can be viewed online at http://www.bluejersey.com/thinkequal/
And by the way, we're still looking for contributions to pay off the debt we incurred to make the ads.
What we're doing is somewhat novel for the netroots. Often campaigns like these go from video to the web. We went from the web to video. And while our campaign is aimed at New Jersey's voters, it's also directed at the netroots around the country. For this reason, we've been getting some e-mails asking us how Think Equal came together. What inspired us to do this and, more so, how we pulled it off. So here's the story:
This is just a slight variation on the usual $5 Friday gig. This time we're asking for you to support us instead of your favorite candidate (because we're your favorite blog, right?). As you may know, we spent over $4000 to produce the Think Equal ad campaign. The ads have already been viewed by over 25,000 people and two more are still to come.
Jack (JRB), one of our front-pagers, personally fronted a large chunk of that himself (don't tell his mother). We've received support from Garden State Equality, BlogPac, and over $1,000 through small and large individual contributions, but we're still about $1500 in the hole.
We've known from the beginning that the fight for marriage equality would not be an easy one, but we also believe that New Jerseyans want equality for all loving couples. Based on that belief, we set out to show how equality can only be achieved through marriage. It's a long overdue conversation that we hoped to jumpstart by injecting humor into a very serious topic.
If the legislature passes civil unions, it will only be a matter of time before the inequalities depicted in the ads manifest themselves yet again in people's lives. Then, Think Equal will be more relevant than ever.
As far as we know, no blog has ever attempted to do a professional-quality campaign like this before. Unfortunately, there is no infrastructure in place yet to support these types of projects, which may explain why they don't normally happen. We're at your mercy. If you think this is a worthwhile effort and want to see these types of projects in the future, make a contribution. If you want to see Think Equal air on TV in New Jersey, make a contribution. And if you have the resources to provide stable funding for progressive infrastructure in New Jersey, we want to hear from you.
Update: Some people are reporting technical problems with the paypal contribution page. You can try this direct link, or else go directly through paypal and send a contribution to contact@bluejersey.net and put "Think Equal" in the note.
As of this posting, over 10,000 people have viewed the first Think Equal ad.
The second ad in the series is coming very soon. Stay tuned.
Many, many of you have used the Think Equal site to contact your legislators and encourage them to support marriage equality. The tool is a quick way to automatically contact all 40 Senators and 80 Assemblymembers. If you haven't contacted them yet, do it now.
Despite the volunteer efforts of lots of people, this ad campaign cost us over $4000. Many of you have contributed generously, though we're still in debt. If you can afford a contribution, it would be very much appreciated. No amount is too small.
Jack has a great introduction to the Think Equal campaign below, and I just want to add why I think it's so important that people understand the difference between civil unions and marriage. Civil unions may look like marriage on paper to some, but we already know that these kinds of awkward legal constructs have failed in New Jersey.
Consider Paula Long and Rosalind Heggs of Camden who have been together over 15 years. They were registered as domestic partners and also had a civil union from Vermont. Under New Jersey law, they have hospital visitation rights and the right to make decisions on behalf of each other when the other is sick. That's what's on paper, but when Rosalind had a heart attack and needed a blood transfusion, the hospital refused to allow Paula to give consent. Paula even had a highlighted copy of the relevant law with her, but that didn't matter to the hospital. They demanded to see their marriage certificate. (see video of their story)
It doesn't matter how many rights you pile onto a word. What good is having the right to see your partner in the emergency room if the nurse at the door won't let you in? A successful legal fight is little consolation if you missed the chance to say that last goodbye. And why should an expensive legal battle even be necessary to claim the rights everyone else gets by default?
Under the guise of equality, the legislature may be about to make the same mistake it made when it recently passed the domestic partner law. No matter what name you want to call Paula and Rozz's relationship, the story above will be repeated unless that name is "marriage". It's the only word every hospital staffer - and every resident of this state - understands.
Hey everyone. I'm eager to start posting again after being away for a while. You see, I've been working on Blue Jersey's latest, ambitious project, "Think Equal." Yesterday, I mentioned on the Huffington Post that Blue Jersey would do what New Jersey's state legislature and government refused to: educate the public on the legal and real world differences between civil unions and marriage. Today, Blue Jersey announced the launch of "Think Equal" - a series of shorts and a website that explains why we support marriage equality.
The Think Equal campaign was thought up when Juan and I discussed the different ways that we could use the internet to influence the legislature's decision on marriage and civil unions. The idea for doing video spots just came to us one day, and we developed a concept and wrote four scripts within a few hours. I then started cold-calling film professors and production companies, looking for help.
In the less than three weeks since, we've collaborated with a professional production crew, actors and musicians to help create these four short informational pieces. The shoot was yesterday, and it was hectic but successful. The four spots are parodies of the popular Mac and PC ads, where one character embodies a Mac, and the other a PC. The ads were produced on a budget of less than $4,500 - most of it coming from my own, very unemployed pocket. (Sorry, mom.)
In the first spot, "Think Equal," two women - one married, the other with a civil union - discuss some of their common legal benefits, and the uncommon ways in which their rights are enforced. See it at the website. Three more are to come, with new and interesting scenarios. (And they're funny, too!)
