TWO TELEVISION COMMERCIALS FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY PREMIERE
TONIGHT, ELECTION NIGHT, ON NEWS 12 NEW JERSEY
Watch Garden State
Equality’s commercial “Busy
Family” at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ4hg3FqmCY
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 – Two television commercials
advocating marriage equality will hit the air in New Jersey
beginning tonight, Election Night, on News 12 New Jersey. They
are sponsored by Garden State Equality and Blue Jersey, the
state’s leading progressive blog. The two commercials,
each 30 seconds, are scheduled to run for at least two weeks.
Garden State Equality’s commercial “Busy Family,” which
you can view now at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ4hg3FqmCY, is
a cinema verite-style portrait of a real-life same-sex couple
at home with their two kids. As the couple feeds their
kids in a busy scene typical of any family, President Bush
is seen on a television in their living room, delivering
a speech to Congress about his belief that committed same-sex
couples should be banned from marriage.
As the scene unfolds, so, too, does text on the screen:
“Mike and Jeff missed the president’s speech
on protecting the American family. They were too busy
being one. Support the freedom to marry for same-sex
couples.”
“Mike” and “Jeff” are actually the
producer of the commercial, Whitney Pillsbury, and his civil-union
partner, John Clarke, with their own kids. The spot
takes place at the family’s home in South Orange, New
Jersey.
Pillsbury is creative director at the New York ad agency
The Kaplan Thaler Group, www.KaplanThaler.com. He
is well known in the industry for his edgy, award winning
advertising campaigns.
"I wanted to show just how normal – and American – a
same-sex family is." Pillsbury, his partner and
their three children were featured in a New York Times article
earlier this year on how civil unions are failing to provide
equality for same-sex couples in New Jersey.
The writer of “Busy Family” is Steve Salinaro,
associate creative director at The Kaplan Thaler Group. His
short films have been shown in festivals worldwide, including
The New York Film Festival.
Steve remembers, “I approached Whitney to help make
some posters for a marriage equality rally. The posters
then became the idea for the television commercial. Hopefully
it will lead to some weddings, too, maybe even mine.”
Blue Jersey’s commercial “Think Equal,” which
you can view now at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ise-NLtw1jI, is
produced by Jack Bohrer and Juan Melli for Blue Jersey, www.BlueJersey.com,
the state’s leading progressive blog.
“Think Equal” features two women friends, one
of them married and the other one in a civil union, talking
about what seems, at first, to be the similar rights they’re
each accorded under New Jersey law.
As the conversation continues, the
civil-unioned woman points out that in the real world,
her civil union isn’t at
all recognized as the equivalent of marriage. The two
friends then discover they don’t have the same rights
at all, symbolizing what hundreds of civil-unioned couples
across New Jersey have experienced since the law took effect
in February 2007.
In fact, dozens of newspapers across
the state, many conducting independent investigations,
have now run stories on the failure of New Jersey’s
civil unions law.
Garden State Equality has received
376 complaints from couples denied benefits or rights because
their civil unions are not recognized as the equivalent
of marriage. And in
the three hearings this fall of the New Jersey Civil Union
Review Commission, nearly 100 couples and other witnesses
testified over seven hours about the failure of New Jersey’s
civil union law.
Here is the text of Blue Jersey’s
commercial:
Married woman: Hello, I’m
married.
Civil-unioned woman: And I’m civil union…nuh..
nized.
Married woman: I have all the legal protections and
rights of a marriage provided by the state constitution.
Civil-unioned woman: I have those, too.
Married woman: I have insurance and pension benefits.
Civil-unioned woman: Me too.
Married woman: Hospital visitation rights. Just
last week, my husband was in an accident. I felt so
much better when I got to see for myself that he was okay.
Civil-unioned woman: The same thing happened to me. I
told the nurse that my civil union allows me visitation. She
wouldn’t let me in, or tell me what happened.
Married woman: Really?
Civil-unioned woman: Really.
Married woman: You should upgrade to a marriage.
Civil-unioned woman: I think so.
Text on screen: Think Equal.
The commercial features Monica Hunken as the married woman,
and Laura Newman as the civil-unioned woman.
"Everyone at Blue Jersey pitched in to make this commercial
possible,” said Jack Bohrer, the commercial’s
coproducer, “whether it was helping to raise the money,
finding props or generating support by blogging about marriage
equality."
Juan Melli, the founder of Blue Jersey
and the commercial’s
other coproducer, said: “’Think Equal’ highlights
the undeniable truth that words do matter. Until all committed
couples are given the right of marriage, the confusing semantics
of civil unions will serve to deny the LGBT community basic
civil rights. The progressive community has never accepted
'separate, but equal,' and we're not about to start now.”
Though “Think Equal” has
not aired on television before, Blue Jersey produced it
for the web in the fall 2006, right after the New Jersey
Supreme Court ordered the legislature to pass either a
civil union law or a real marriage equality law.
Interestingly, the failure of the civil
union law this year – since
the production of this commercial last year – would
today require a script even more pessimistic about the law’s
ability to provide the rights and benefits of marriage.
As hundreds of civil-unioned couples
in New Jersey have lived through in 2007, the civil-unioned
woman in this commercial would not be able to say “me too” as
to receiving insurance and pension benefits.
Regarding the commercial’s reference
to hospital visitation, the recent New Jersey Civil Union
Review Commission hearings included testimony from civil-unioned
couples who have faced obstacles hospital visitation because
they were civil-unioned rather than married.
