Your Woman

Colorado Springs is one queer city. It's also filled with homosexuals. For the most part I'm perfectly fine with that, but just like when people want to tell me about the way to heaven and they pull out the Mormon Bible, or when a homeless man attempts to convince me that the world is ending, I take the substance and tact of the argument into account before I automatically discredit the source.

Let The Puppy Moo

The Gill Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Fund (if you look at their websites you'll find they're the exact same organization), in 2006 began a million-dollar ad campaign centered around a lovable little spaniel puppy named Norman. Several TV spots, a multitude of newspaper ads, and innumerable yard signs and bumper stickers which still blanket the city told the story of Norman, the mooing puppy.

In an attempt to woo the general populous of Colorado Springs into supporting the cause for gay marriage, GILL/GALF gave it the face of a cuddly little canine whose only flaw was that he was born different.

When I first came to the Springs, I saw a single yard sign in a neighboring lawn which, next to the adorable mug of Norman, read "Let the Puppy Moo," and I instantly knew what it meant. Only a real bunch of screw-ups could come up with such an obviously ill-conceived argument. One which, in the eyes of a person biased against their cause, instantly identified them despite its obscurity.

The obvious flaw? Puppies aren't born mooing. It doesn't happen. It's absurd.

To try to prove that humans are born homosexual by symbolizing the gay community as a puppy who does something completely and utterly against its nature is something that only the opponents of gay rights would think of doing.

I've been teaching fables and allegory to my 8th graders for a couple weeks now and even they could pick out the flaw in this ad campaign. Using personified animals as symbols or models of human behavior is only an effective technique when the animals actually possess the qualities that you want to highlight in their human counterparts. Foxes are sly. Sheep are followers. Donkeys are stubborn, etc. Puppies, however, don't moo.

That's probably why, if they ever did have a website, which a campaign of that nature would be insane not to have, they took it down after they realized just how ineffective and costly such a campaign would be.

Wow.


On a lighter note:

If you love Pam as much as I do, then you'll love this video. If you don't, well, you'll love it anyway.


P.S. I have no idea whether the person singing today's song of the day is a man or a woman. I've been listening to it since 1993 and I still just have no clue. However it's my favorite gender-confused song, so I thought it was appropriate.