A facade of voicelessness for the voiced

This ad campaign in support of same-sex marriage featuring Cindy McCain is hard to fathom. The Advocate says that Cindy McCain and others were "photographed with duct tape over their mouths to symbolize that their voices aren’t being heard on the subject of marriage equality."

My mom says:

I get that she supports same-sex marriage, but what does that have to do with anybody forcibly silencing her? If you have something to say, lady, just say it and quit blaming others.

It's generally better, in political discourse, to focus on substance than process unless there actually is a process problem that's too important to ignore. And I don't see one here. Who's being silenced about same-sex marriage? I'm not -- I can say whatever I want about it on this blog. If I have a voice, then Cindy McCain -- a multimillionaire who's married to a US Senator -- definitely has a voice.

Kasey Nicholson-McFadden has a voice. He says:

It doesn’t bother me to tell kids my parents are gay. It does bother me to say they aren’t married. It makes me feel that our family is less than their family.

He made that statement to the New Jersey legislature, and it was reported in the New York Times. He's only 10 years old. If he can be heard making a substantive point in this debate, then rich celebrities can be heard too. If they want to.

This is essentially the same problem that keeps coming up when people like US Attorney General Eric Holder complain about America's supposed failure to have a national conversation about race. As John McWhorter aptly said in response to Holder (which I blogged at the time):

I suspect those who call for this "conversation" know the claim has become more gestural than concrete. Otherwise, they would state their case directly rather than asking to "talk." ... What, or who, would determine that we had finally "talked" enough?

If you want the country to engage in a particular substantive discussion, lead by example.

Perhaps there's an implicit populism in Cindy McCain's protest. If unspecified, impersonal forces have prevented genuine debate on the issue from occurring, then the public can't be blamed for not being more supportive of same-sex marriage. But if this is the intended message, it's condescending in addition to being wrong.