Published in 1989, After the Ball is a seminal work which laid out a comprehensive plan to establish the “normalcy” of gays and lesbians and secure broader acceptance and rights.  It is subtitled, How America Will conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s.

The manifesto was laid out by a pair of Harvard graduates.  Marshall Kirk (class of 1980) became a researcher in neuropsychiatry.  Hunter Madsen (class of 1985) received his degree in Politics and went on to work on Madison Avenue and become an expert in public persuasion tactics and social marketing.

Today, twenty-five years after its publication, what is most striking about their work is this:  Their ambitious plan, with a few verb tense changes, could be repackaged and sold as a History book, presenting a very accurate picture of what we have all witnessed happening over the last quarter century. Perhaps the only aspect of the plan that can be faulted just a little is its timeline.  It took twenty five years, not ten, to achieve its goals. Not bad.  Still an A.

American folklore tells us that a young Yale student named Fred Smith penned a paper for an economics class in the early 1960's outlining an overnight delivery service for the computer information age.  That paper, rumored to have received a C, became FedEx.

The success of the plan laid out in After the Ball parallels that of FedEx, only it was not a business plan; it was a wildly successful social psychology/marketing plan.  And it has changed American society every bit as much as FedEx has, and in the long run, probably far more.

Nuts & Bolts

I'll focus on just one chapter, which describes the essential components of the plan:

Part II:  Driving the Wedge

Chapter 3:  Strategy:  Persuasion, not Invasion

I’ll refrain from inserting a lot of commentary because it is unnecessary.  Every word of this will resonate with anyone who has paid attention to societal and cultural issues over the last twenty five years.

We have in mind a strategy . . . calculated and powerful . . . manipulative . . .  It’s time to learn from Madison Avenue, to roll out the big guns.  Gays must launch a large-scale campaign--we've called it the waging peace campaign--to reach straights through the mainstream media.  We’re talking about propaganda (page 161).

You can forget about trying right up front to persuade folks that homosexuality is a good thing.  But if you can get them to think it is just another thing--meriting no more than a shrug of the shoulders--then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won.

OK, I have to comment:  We reached this stage a long time ago.  For a humorous take on this, watch episode #1 of "Queer Duck," a cartoon which aired weekly on the Showtime Network beginning in 2002.  When Queer Duck decides to come out of closet at work, the response from the waiting room full of patients (Queer Duck is a receptionist at a doctors office) is a communal, "Yeah, so what?"

Application of the keep-talking principal can get people to the shoulder-shrug stage.  The free and frequent discussion of gay rights by a variety of persons in a variety of places gives the impression that homosexuality is commonplace.”

One more thing:  Is being gay really "commonplace?" According to the Williams Institute, the premiere LGBT think tank at UCLA Law, gays and lesbians comprise just 1.7% of the adult population.  We gays and lesbians are not all that commonplace, it just seems that way because we have been granted such an overwhelming, high-profile presence by American media.

Constant talk builds the impression that public opinion is at least divided on the subject and that a sizable bloc -- the most modern up-to-date citizens -- accept or even practice homosexuality.

.... The main thing is to talk about gayness until the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome (pages 177-178).

Undermining the Moral Authority of Churches

[G]ays can undermine the moral authority of . . . churches over less fervent adherents by portraying such institutions as antiquated backwaters badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology. [This] has already worked well in America against churches on such topics as divorce and abortion.  With enough open talk about the prevalence and acceptability of homosexuality, that alliance can work for gays.

Here I go again:  I recently returned to full fellowship with the Catholic Church.  Clearly what is meant by “less fervent adherents” are high profile politicos and pundits who cloak themselves in Catholicism, but embrace ideologies antithetical to it, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Vice President Joe Biden, Governors Cuomo and O’Malley, talking head Chris Matthews, and writer E.J. Dionne.

In January Pope Francis recounted how a little girl in Buenos Aires told her teacher that she was sad because "my mother's girlfriend doesn't like me."  In response, he said:

"The situation in which we live now provides us with new challenges which sometimes are difficult for us to understand," the Pope told leaders of religious orders, adding that the church "must be careful not to administer a vaccine against faith to them."

Yet how much more have these surprise validators, operating within the Church's warm embrace, vaccinated others against faith?  Perhaps "vaccine" is too mild a term.  Whether with good intentions or selfish ones, they have administered venom.  They haven't vaccinated against faith:  They have poisoned faith with their toxic regressive, pagan ideologies.

TVs and Trojan Horses

Back to After the Ball:

. . . Where we talk is critical . . . In the average American household the TV screen radiates it’s embracing bluish glow for more than 50 hours every week.... These hours are a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a Trojan horse might be passed (page 179).

In practical terms this means that cocky mustachioed leatherman, drag queens, and bull dykes would not appear in gay commercials and other public presentations.

This is an admission that as a community, the authors suggest that gays must suppress who they really are, at least in public.  Instead:

Conventional young people, middle-aged women, and older folks of all races would be featured, not to mention the parents and straight friends of gays (page 183).

Media Mantra:  Gays are Victims

Then there's the crucial strategy of presenting gays as victims, even when the vast majority could never legitimately be identified as victims:

In any campaign to win over the public gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector. (page 183).

. . .

Two different messages about the gay victim are worth communicating.

First the public should be persuaded the gays are victims of circumstance, that they no more chose their sexual orientation than they did say their height, skin color, talents or limitations.  (We argue that, for all practical purposes, gays should be considered to have been born gay-- even though sexual orientation, for most humans, seems to be the product of a complex interaction between innate predispositions and environmental factors during childhood and early adolescence.) . . . And since no choice is involved, gayness can be no more blameworthy than straightness.

Second they should be portrayed as victims of prejudice.  Straights don’t fully realize the suffering they bring upon gays . . . (page 184).

In order to make a Gay Victim sympathetic to straights, you have to portray him as Everyman.  But an additional theme of the campaign will be more aggressive and upbeat.  To confound bigoted stereotypes and hasten the conversion of straights, strongly favorable images of gays must be set before the public.  The campaign should paint gay men and lesbians as superior -- veritable pillars of society.

. . . By casting its violet spotlight on such revered heroes in no time a skillful media campaign could have the gay community looking like the veritable fairy godmother to Western civilization. (pages 187-188).

Does this all sound familiar?  I won't even get into the imperative of identifying anyone who objects to the gay agenda as a victimizer.

Overexposed?

Let's return to an earlier statement:  "The main thing is to talk about gayness until the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome."

The most recent Pew Poll found that public acceptance of same sex marriage is now up to 54%.  Does this really reflect an enthusiastic embrace of the notion of same sex marriage?  -- Or --  Is a vast swath of the population just sick and tired of hearing about gays in the news day after day for the last few years?

Maybe they're also sick and tired of irrational accusations of bigotry and homophobia every time they try to enter into a reasoned discussion about same sex marriage.  Many who have been shut down for trying to engage in intellectually honest conversation, have concluded, "Why bother?  Just let them have what they want.  Maybe then they'll fade away."

Fade away?  Don't count on it.  There is never an end to progressive ideology.  Statists never have enough power and control.  This will never end until the very institution of marriage is obliterated from human civilization, in which case, we will no longer actually have a civilization.

I'm gay and I oppose same sex marriage because it is not marriage.  It is something else.  I, too, am tired of being labeled a "self loathing gay" and a "hater."  I am not.  But I refuse to be silenced by those who seek to manipulate and silence rather than enter into rational discussion.

Silencing techniques -- the modus operandi of the marriage "equality" activists -- will continue relentlessly until one day they discover that strategy no longer works.  But it is only each of us refusing to be silenced which will hasten the arrival of that day.

It's Up to You!

In Conclusion, let's go to the book's introduction:

In all candor, we’re convinced that the whole of our scheme will work as intended.  Some elements, though potentially highly effective, will probably be rejected by gays out of hand, because they require too much effort or too much discipline or too much self-restraint or too much money or because, as Oscar Wilde once dismissed socialism, their accomplishment would take up too many nice evenings.  To be blunt, we can only recommend.  It is up to you, fearless reader, to act (xxviii).

Remember, this was all written in the late 1980s.  Twenty-five years later, this is now wise advice for all who are not “homo-haters,” who are in fact, lovers of all mankind, but who object to the implausible notion of same sex marriage.  If you love humanity, and harbor no bigotry, but object to the demand to call two men or two women, married:   "It is up to you, fearless reader, to act."