Digital News Report /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A group of gay and lesbian Californians announced today they will be “taking to the airwaves” to demonstrate why the right to marry is so important for their families.
The group, GetToKnowMeFirst.org, is planning a campaign of five 30-second commercials to run throughout Inauguration Week in January. The spots will run in both urban and rural markets.
“It’s important that our fellow Californians see the faces of the real families that are directly affected by the passage of Proposition 8,” said John Ireland, the group’s organizer.
One of the spots in the GetToKnowMeFirst.org campaign will feature Sonia and Gina, a couple who are raising a son and daughter, ages 6 and 3. “Don’t take my family’s rights away. Get to know me first,” Sonia says in the ad. “Our families may look different from yours, but we’re not. We need the same things… like marriage… so we can protect and provide for our kids.”
Another spot will feature Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, the original plaintiffs in the marriage lawsuit that eventually led the California Supreme Court to legalize marriage for same-sex couples in May 2008. That ruling was overturned by the passage of Proposition 8 in November.
Two of the ads will also be in Spanish. One profiles a Latina couple and the other profiles a family with triplets, headed by two men.
All of the spots are available online at GetToKnowMeFirst.org
POWER UP, an education-based non-profit film studio in Los Angeles, is sponsoring the project and will be producing the spots. POWER UP has produced award-winning LGBT cinema since 2000. They are online at PowerUpFilms.org.