Education becomes marriage fight tool

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SAN FRANCISCO — In one ad after another, voters in California and Maine were besieged with images of what would supposedly happen if same-sex marriage were legal: Students on a field trip to a lesbian wedding, kids gobbling up books featuring gay couples, kindergartners learning about homosexuality from their teachers.

The strategy worked. Overruling the courts and lawmakers, voters defeated gay marriage ballot measures in California last year and in Maine this week after conservatives convinced residents that same-sex unions would become common classroom fodder without any say from parents.

Voters seem to be swayed by the notion that gay marriage will be a corrupting force among children, even though critics attacked the message as a blatantly misleading case of fear-mongering.

Gay marriage opponents discovered the effectiveness of the schools message in last year’s successful effort to pass Proposition 8 to outlaw gay marriage in California.

With the help of focus groups, surveys and ammunition unwittingly supplied by their opponents, political consultants Frank Schubert and Jeff Flint soon found a new way to frame the issue, by focusing on education.

In California and Maine, gay marriage supporters countered the claims with spots featuring prominent elected officials — California’s chief of public instruction and Maine’s attorney general — who insisted that same-sex marriage had nothing to do with schools.

Melissa Murray, an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, said gay marriage advocates underestimated how deeply Schubert and Flint’s schools message resonated with the public.