The following is a copy of an e-mail I just sent to the National Organization For Marriage after I received a robocall from them on Friday. FYI, all the links below were not in the e-mail I sent but added here for your reading benefit.
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To Whom It May Concern:
I came home from work Friday night to see there were two messages left on my answering machine. The first was a hang-up from a local business and the second was a robo-call from your Executive Director, Brian Brown. On the message, he urged me as a California voter to vote for Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina due to her opposition to gay marriage. He went on to say that Barbara Boxer is -- horrors! -- for gay marriage.
Well, Brian -- can I call you Brian? -- let me explain a couple things to you so you guys can save your resources. My husband and I are one of the 18,000 legally married same-sex couples here in the Golden State, so we aren't your target audience here. Obviously, we are pretty fond of our same-sex marriage and so far, the presence of 18,000 legally married gay couples here haven't plunged California into the ocean. (Indeed, all the problems California currently is having with the budget deficits started way before same-sex marriage came into the fore in 2004.) So, the whole concept that gay marriage is bad is rather lost on those of us who are actually gay married. Do yourself a favor and take our number off your list.
You can also remove the phone numbers of all of our family members (they range in states from California, Illinois, North Carolina, and Virginia), our friends (who are spread all across the country) and our co-workers here in Los Angeles. If you go, let's say, by the amount of Facebook friends my husband and I each have, that's 600 people between the two of us. That'll be a pretty extensive list of phone numbers and addresses you can remove from your list. I can only imagine expunging those numbers will help free up time and resources so you guys can focus your attention on other people.
Let me help you guys out even further. If we take my husband and I as the base and that we as one couple have around 600 people in our orbit who support us and like our marriage, then logic dictates that this would extend to the other 17,999 legally married same-sex couples here in California. So, multiplying 17,999 by 600, you now have 10,799,400 phone numbers and addresses to remove from your rolls. Imagine how more efficient your operation will be by doing this! Considering the problems your organization is having with the Internal Revenue Service about disclosure violations and issues involving funding, you guys should try to cut costs wherever you can.
In closing, I hope your action of taking my number off your robo-call list will help your organization operate more efficiently. Thank you very much for your time, and have a great day!
Sincerely,
Jon Collins
lol; nice! Brian, while you're at it, you can remove 99% of the 221 people in my friends list, and I'm working on the remaining 1% to open their eyes to the fact that gay people are, as the term implies, people too. If little ol' straight me has 200 friends who are not afraid of gay marriage and insist on treating gay people as human beings deserving of respect and civil rights, and assuming half of the 13 million inhabitants of the Greater Los Angeles area feels as I (and my friends) do, that's at least another 1,300,000,000 you can probably remove from your rolls just from the friends lists of other Angelenos like me.
Gee. It's looking kinda slim for you, Brian. Imagine the money you're going to save on postage!
Kiss kiss,
Katie
Posted by: katie d | November 01, 2010 at 12:07 AM