The gay rights movement has made tremendous advances in the last few decades. Whereas before gays could only express themselves secretly for fear of the consequences, gay rights are increasingly accepted in mainstream society, and discrimination against them is much less accepted. Gays are still threatened by violence, but while gay marriage was previously illegal, gays were condemned as going to hell, and people feared that gays wanted to “recruit” their children, most people don’t bat an eye at gay marriage now, the idea of gay “recruitment” is increasingly discredited and condemning gay people to hell is now opposed by many Canadians, as the Wildrose Alliance found out the hard way in the last provincial election.
One of the reasons that the gay community has made the advances it has is because more people realize that gays are not a threat to anyone, and that their “agenda” is wanting to be able to live peacefully. Other groups have made similar advances as society realizes that what they’re advocating is often quite reasonable. Social movements that are often seen as “fringe” causes can often become much stronger as they get “buy in” from people outside their own smaller group.
The question, then, becomes how can and should smaller fringe movements build support for their causes? One of the reasons that communism failed in Canada was because of the mass murder and violence that communist regimes in other countries engaged in, which didn’t exactly endear Canadians to it here. On the other hand, a large part of the success of getting Canadian women’s rights to vote recognized came from years of tireless advocacy and public education before the federal and provincial governments eventually recognized women’s voting rights. Aboriginal people have been engaging in similar advocacy, whether through Harold Cardinal’s “Red Paper” of the 1960s or the more recent Idle No More movement.
However, what typically isn’t conducive to success are tactics that resort to insulting the very people the advocates are trying to convince, whether attacking them as being stupid for voting against their “class interests” (which, curiously enough, only the advocates ever seem able to properly define for them) or saying that people in dominant social groups who suffer some sort of problems deserve what happened to them, such as American professor Ward Churchill infamously claiming that the people who died in 9/11 deserved their fates. It’s not clear how the advocates who say such things expect the people outside their own political or social groups to eventually agree with them.
On the other hand, advocates who engage in more positive outreach can often get greater support for their messages. If they play their cards right, their goals can also be integrated into the platforms of larger political parties and movements as part of their platforms.
What won’t work, though, is calling people stupid for not supporting your cause. How would you ever get public support that way? And without public support, how will you ever achieve your goals?
Jared Milne is a St. Albert resident with a passion for Canadian history and politics.
