It was there, and then it was gone. Good riddance.
A week ago, a billboard appeared on the side of the former Republican Party headquarters that asked, “Who voted against protecting marriage?” It answered its own question with “Terri Austin.” On Nov. 30, The Herald Bulletin reported on the billboard, which was paid for by the American Family Association, a Tupelo, Miss.-based family values group.
In a hasty turn of events, the billboard was gone that weekend. The space, owned by Jerry Alexander, was purchased by the office of Rep. Mike Pence for his upcoming re-election campaign. Pence’s office and Alexander both denied the billboard was taken down for Austin’s sake.
Micah Clark of the Indiana chapter of the American Family Association called taking down the billboard “this weird kind of thing that happened,” but vowed it would be up in other Madison County locations to remind voters of Austin’s vote in the last General Assembly session that prevented a same-sex marriage amendment from going to a referendum.
There used to be a saying that all politics is local. Despite many who might be against same-sex marriage, Austin reports that she received a lot of support from constituents when the billboard went up. It could be because people don’t like to see outside organizations with an ax to grind infringing on their politics.
In 2004, in Ohio, some British consultants were bringing an anti-President Bush message to the voters who reacted belligerently to the foreign intrusion upon their election.
The same principle is at work here. Anyone can and should be able to rent that billboard space, but the simplistic message meant only to push the buttons is irresponsible to the voters. It assumes that emotionally charged sound bites are more important than reasoned debate.
Clark told The Herald Bulletin that the AFA is against same-sex marriage because it denies a child the benefits of a two-gender family. This is a national political stance by the AFA to sway voters away from candidates with whom they disagree.
But the AFA doesn’t know Austin or her constituents and to whitewash Austin with a sweeping, and false, generality doesn’t add to the political dialogue but seeks to shut that dialogue down.
Austin has spoken of being against same-sex marriage, which she stated last spring. Her concern was for the potential to skirt domestic violence laws and how employers could use the law in providing insurance to unmarried couples.
The AFA doesn’t care about any of this. It has one narrow message to get out, and this time it’s about Austin. We’re glad the billboard has been taken down. Politics is a complicated process, and the speech that accompanies it should be an accurate reflection of the issues, not some knee-jerk reaction to a specialized agenda.
Voters have grown weary of baseless attacks on politicians, but the AFA doesn’t seem to care in its quest to boost its agenda at the expense of fair debate.
Opinion
EDITORIAL: Austin billboard had no context
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