The contact information for the legislators can be found at the bottom of the call to action.

How do we start then? This is very necessary.

Agreed – our challenge is we don’t have a strong contingency in that area. If we can organize a group to visit the legislators, that would be great.

Absolutely. YES!

Derek does have a good point about the lawmakers, “seeing” the face of those who they write laws against. To have to look into the face of a Registered Parent and also be made to speak to a child/children of a Registered Parent puts the human factor back into it all.

Perhaps we should have some of us go to Tallahassee and make them “see” us.

Mostly a great point. Here’s why I mostly agree:

Lawmakers use anecdotes and stories to make a personal connection. All of the horrid laws you can think of probably began with a story… a story of a legitimate victim in a heartbreaking story.

The problem, of course, is that the call to action accompanying that story is one of just victimizing more people and creating laws and policies that do nothing positive for anyone. Everybody loses, and I mean everybody. The one possible exception to the all-around loss: those profiteering from being at the center of the oppression initiative.

Dehumanization is the quickest path to oppression. The holocaust, for example, would not have been possible without the widespread and highly effective propaganda campaign to dehumanize Jews and other target minorities. A significant problem in war (including WWII) is getting your fighters to stop seeing the enemy as fellow human beings so that they can pull the trigger. We can see reflections of this in our and others’ plights of present.

So, yes, we need to block further dehumanization and get our human status back.

Despite having all the statistics on our side, it’s still hard to convince anyone to care if they don’t see the human impact.

That said, the registrant community is in an age-old dilemma where the immense burden, shame, and threat of harm placed upon any individual brave enough to come out of the shadows makes it a disheartening prospect. This may be by design or accident, but it’s the reality. Overcoming that fear is how all the misunderstood groups of the past have overcome, most recently the LGBT community comes to mind.

The main problem with staying mum about status is there is now no registered person willing to have the spotlight on him. You see, the Books and the rest of the victim cultists say that we are “cockroachs” who scurry away when the light is shined on us. It is easier to dehumanize a largely unseen group (just look at Trump’s current anti-Muslim policies as an example).

Second, if you really want to impact legislators, you need to encourage families to come to legislative meetings and bring their kids along. This has been VERY EFFECTIVE in the other states that have done this– just ask your buddies over at ACSOL or better yet, ask Nebraskans Unafraid. You want to know who the best advocate against Nebraska’s LB60 was that day? It wasn’t me, it wasn’t the others who testified facts and figures, it was the baby of a registered citizen. When people SEE who these laws affect and the raw emotion they bring to the table, it makes it harder for them to pass bad legislation. This is why I KNOW that FAC’s current strategy is deficient.

Your strategy is like a football team with a one-dimensional offense, say, a team that only runs up the middle. What happens when you play a team that can stop the run? Your passing game sucks. Your defense isn’t stopping them. So what now? You’ve had the same playbook for years, and I see way better strategies from other states. You should be one of the biggest teams out there and yet you lack versatility. And those you choose to field, in my opinion, isn’t even the team that can win the big game! Lots of star players end up sitting on the sidelines or at home rather than the stadium because when you tell them to hide who they are, the impression is they are less of a player on this team.

I haven’t been impressed by your game up until now, but since you’re the only team in the land of ‘Duh, I hold out hope that you will see that other state groups are utilizing better strategies and present a more balanced offense. What the Nebraska group has done is a fine example of this– a small state got eight to testify, and not all of it was boring old facts and figures. These laws aren’t the result of fact and figures, they are the result of emotional stories. We can employ that same strategy. You need families testifying, yes, but having a father testify with his kids with him and giving an emotional testimony about how this will destroy his family will do far better than your fact-filled monologues ever will.

Don’t take this lightly. Those of you know know me know I’m a facts and figures guy. My website is mostly facts and figures. I get called to testify on facts and figures. But I also know that facts and figures only goes so far, just like running the ball in football only gets you so far. A sound strategy in football and in advocacy is to constantly shift strategies to keep your opponents guessing. Thus, I’d like to see FAC change this policy that registrants must keep mum about their status.