It Stretches Our “LIFE” Brand
Right to Life supporters,
There has been much in the news lately about 2 RTL groups in Ohio adding marriage between one man and one woman to their mission.
I have been talking to various RTL groups and thinking through this myself and have come to 4 thoughts I would like you to consider.
1 – We are making great strides in the life movement. We are approaching 70% folks who say we should not use tax payer money for abortion, 70% say not in the third trimester, 62% say not in the second trimester and those who oppose abortion outright is climbing each year.
2 – The genderless marriage movement, is unfortunately, trending the other way. Because the media and shows on TV glorify being homosexual and heterosexuals have not done a great job with marriage in the past 35 years, this movement is gaining popularity to the tune of 2-3% per year. I predict in 2 years, there will be a referendum to overturn Ohio’s Constitutional Amendment of traditional marriage, and it likely will win.
3 – We have strong donors and supporters who are split on this issue and may no longer support life if we also are talking genderless marriage. I have a 10 point talking points that I use for genderless marriage, but it’s a much harder sell right now compared to the Life movement.
4 – It waters down our brand. A brand cannot be stretched too far or it becomes meaningless. I’ll give an example….Toyota tried selling a $45,000 car about 20 years ago. It failed miserably because Toyota is thought of as a low to mid brand of car. Not high end. They then developed the brand Lexus, which today, is selling cars in excess of $80,000. They could not ‘stretch’ the Toyota brand to cover the high end segment because consumers felt Toyota was not ‘special’ and people who can afford these high end cars wanted something special. For some folks, cars make a statement about who they are or what they’ve accomplished. If they see someone in a Toyota Corolla at $7,000, it hurts their image. Thus the launch of Lexus and what we have today. Same company, two brands. I think the same thing may happen to the Life movement.
While I support traditional marriage and think this too, will hurt or society, I think this movement should be separated from the Life movement.
Thank you for your consideration and please forward this to whomever you wish. I’m open to suggestions, but these are my thoughts after much consideration and study.
Nino Vitale
V.P., Champaign County Right to Life
http://www.freewebs.com/ccrtl/
wyandotcountyrightolife 