"Family. It’s all about LOVE!" That’s the slogan you’ll read on a brand-new digital billboard on eastbound 794 in Milwaukee. Similar ads will pop up around town, including at bus shelters and inside the Amtrak Station. It’s part of the Cream City Foundation’s “Gay Neighbor” media campaign. Organizers hope the words combined with images of residents who are gay, will alter lingering stereotypes. WUWM's Susan Bence reports.
Cream City Foundation wants the heterosexual community to get to know their neighbors who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people.
“So we very much cared about what the straight communities had to say about every photo and every message that we tested.”
That’s Denise Cawley. She’s the marketing expert who helped the advocacy group come up with its billboard campaign. Cawley shared hundreds of photographs and dozens of messages with focus groups. She said it went on for months.
“We tried single people, we tried couples by themselves. None of those sorts of images worked as well as presenting people in the sense of family. We also heard from people that they thought that gay people don’t have families, certainly thought they don’t have children. Don’t even think to ask about a significant other, about they’re mother about their sister,” Cawley says.
So the billboard campaign brings viewers “face to face” with toddlers and teens pictured with their gay parents. There’s also gays with their moms, dads and partners. Cawley says it’s a way of illustrating that these are real people with real lives. Cawley says in the last census gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender families registered in every zip code across the nation. But she says there are still many gay couples who haven’t come out publicly.
“The fact that there are still hate crimes and there are still unfair laws, there are so many people who are still closeted. There are plenty of people who still have people come into their homes and have dinner parties and people don’t know that they’re gay. And we’re not going to be able to make inroads into more fair laws and opportunities if more people don’t realize how many gay neighbors they have,” Cawley says.
“When I was informed of the mission and the vision behind this project, I knew it was something I wanted to be involved in.”
That's Marc. He and his partner Thor are pictured on one of the billboards. You can’t miss it, they’re beaming on either side of their two-year-old daughter Lily. Thor says Lily entered their lives in December, 2006.
“We fostered her until March of 2008. And although the state recognized both of us as foster parents, the state only recognizes one of as adoptive parents. And I’m the adoptive parent, which means I’m the only that’s legally recognized. This campaign is hopefully going to illustrate same sex couples should also be co-parenting,” Thor says.
Thor says they share the same trials and tribulations all parents deal with in raising their kids.
Kristie agree, she and her partner Karen, are raising four children. Their family is also featured in the awareness campaign.
“They would tell you, they have to eat vegetables and fruit and they have to do chores. And the reality of our house is, I would guess, 99 percent the same as every other household on our block. I mean, the Disney Channel on in our house. So I would say from our kids perspective I think, it’s very, very, very similar to our neighbors,” Kristie says.
Kristie and Karen say, it was still a difficult decision whether to expose their children in this very public way on billboards and at bus stops.
“The last thing a parent wants to do is to put their child in harms way and, while I don’t feel like we’re necessarily doing that, it’s a little nerve-wracking. And there were days I did feel sick to my stomach about it and we talked about that a lot. But, we felt like the cause was worthwhile and we need to do it,” Karen says.
“My true feeling was, I came back to the code, you have to be a part of the change you want to see in the world and there was no other way to do it. And I think our families and our kids know, that it’s a worthwhile cause,” Kristie adds.
Kristie and Karen hope other campaigns will follow. This first one will last a month.
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