'Mooing dog' ads may help spread gay rights

By Deb Price
Detroit News

M eet Norman. He's a rust-and-white Brittany Spaniel puppy who's just a bit different. He moos.

Norman's saga has unfolded in TV commercials in Colorado Springs: Norman, simply because he moos instead of barks, is rejected by his human dad, shunned by his littermates and forced to wander the streets.

Then, a kindly older woman, charmed by Norman's mooing, rescues him from the pound.

"By now, all of Colorado Springs knows about Norman, the puppy that mooed. Norman has the whole town talking about which differences are inherited and which ones are learned," a voiceover says, asking viewers to think about what makes a gay person "moo" while others "bark."

As those TV commercials, an ad shown in Colorado Springs movie theaters and signs on buses piqued curiosity about Norman, people were urged to go to borndifferent.org to find about what scientists know about the likely genetic and hormonal mix that causes folks like me to be gay.

Norman's debut coincidentally overlapped with statewide TV ads urging Coloradans to vote in November for Referendum "I," which would give gay couples basic rights, such as visiting a hospitalized partner, making end-of-life decisions and inheriting property. As Coloradans for Fairness and Equality points out in these ads, "It's not marriage. It's basic legal rights."

Together, the two ad campaigns cost $3 million, making Colorado the most expensive and innovative experiment in educating voters about why they should help remove the legal and social obstacles faced by those of us who are gay.

What's taking place in Colorado -- birthplace of the infamous Amendment 2 that the Supreme Court struck down in 1996 -- is groundbreaking as well because gay-rights supporters are gambling that they can capitalize on the attention generated by the anti-gay marriage measure and secure limited protections for gay couples.

"We're putting everything on red and spinning the wheel," says Sean Duffy, executive director of Coloradans for Fairness and Equality, who is among the growing number of conservative, heterosexual, married Republicans supporting gay rights. "What I love about this is that we aren't counting on judges," he adds. "We're taking it right to the people."

Besides Colorado, seven other states -- Arizona, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin -- are set to vote on gay marriage bans.

This fall, the gay-friendly side will still be the underdog. But if voter-education campaigns keep getting smarter and more engaging, that could change by 2008, when the states voting on bans will likely include progressive New Jersey and California.

And if the Colorado experiments help that state take a step toward fairness, they'll have something to teach gay-rights supporters in the 19 states including Michigan where voters need to be persuaded to erase gay marriage bans from state constitutions.

A mooing dog just might be the goodwill ambassador that gay Americans need. Meet Norman.