In an interview with Utah’s Deseret News, New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan expresses hope in the wake of the New York marriage defeat:
If traditional marriage advocates can find the right tone in making their case, Archbishop Dolan believes they will ultimately come out on top, especially as the gritty realities of redefining marriage — divorce, custody battles, shifting standards of fidelity — complicate the romantic public perception of the campaign.“I think now it’s still new enough that it’s the flavor of the month cause for the culturally elite,” said Archbishop Dolan. “I would say it will be more analogous to the Equal Rights Amendment of 30 years ago. Everybody thought that was a shoo-in, and for a while it enjoyed a lot of dazzle, and all of a sudden it faded away.”
I certainly hope that the Archbishop is right. Has anyone done any work identifying the relevant similarities and difference between the two? Also, I should note that in terms of marketing metaphors, the process Dolan describes sounds not so much like flavor of the month as it does like the mass rejection of New Coke. Now that would be something.
