KnowThyNeighbor.org Volunteers Deliver "Menus" to Legislators Before Same-Sex Marriage Vote

Press Release, KnowThyNeighbor.org | July 10, 2006

MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, MA, July 10, 2006 --Volunteers from the gay rights group KnowThyNeighbor.org will be at the State House Monday, July 10th at 1pm, dressed in full waiter uniforms to distribute packets to senators and representatives with material entitled, "To Serve Massachusetts." The packets, encouraging legislators to think seriously about Wednesday's vote whether or not to allow the Amendment to Define Marriage to move forward, include a parody of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man" and a darkly comedic "recipe" called, "VoteOnMarriage's Constitution Trifle" which provides a chronology of the anti-gay marriage initiative petition from beginning to present day.

All 200 Massachusetts legislators will be greeted by a white-gloved KnowThyNeighbor.org volunteer who will present the packet and say, "For the Honorable Legislator… this is what will be served on Wednesday." The material that the volunteers are presenting is held in a black folder entitled, "To Serve Massachusetts" on which are attached photos of Kris Mineau, the Director of the Massachusetts Family Institute (the proponent of the anti-gay marriage petition) and Serling's original and menacing alien, renamed by KnowThyNeighbor.org as a "Discriminit."

The bulk of the material is the three-paged, humorous and dark narration adapted by Tom Lang, co-director of KnowThyNeighbor.org. This traces the path of "Michael Gaymen" an unfortunate victim who finds himself, as in the original Serling story, being misled by alien visitors who claim to be helping mankind but instead intend to serve man as an item on a menu. Lang's adaptation has the main character, Gaymen, addressing the audience with "This is the way nightmares begin..." and takes us through alien promises of curing such problems as "job loss, high property taxes, and un-affordable healthcare" in exchange for ending same-sex marriage. There are references to Mitt Romney, Church involvement, a planet to which people will be taken known as "Second Class," and the main character’s frightening revelation that "To Serve Massachusetts" is indeed a cookbook. The legislators will read in the finale that "we will ALL be on the menu" as Michael Gaymen went from "being an Equal Citizen in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to the ingredient in someone's political soup."

Lang says that he wanted to do something that would "give senators and representatives pause before Wednesday's Constitutional Convention." Lang continues, "KnowThyNeighbor.org has always been about being creative and pushing the envelope to get people to talk about what is at stake. Though this parody may seem humorous on the surface, I hope it will get a few legislators to think about the serious consequences of a "yes" vote on Wednesday. Real people will be hurt, real families will be endangered, and Constitutionally enshrined discrimination may be the end product."

View a pdf version of the packet that will be delivered to legislators.

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