Last weekend, as I was driving up to San Francisco, I saw signs by both opponents and proponents of California's Proposition 8. The Yes camp had a sign that said Restore Marriage, while the No camp has signs that say Unfair and wrong.

Now, I'm strongly against Proposition 8, but I have to say, the No camp has a pretty crappy slogan. The point of these signs is to convince the undecided and ignorant voters. Unfair? Unfair is what whiny 4 year olds say when they're unhappy about how little candy they got*. Besides, there's some research that shows not everybody cares as much about fairness as liberals do. Wrong? Well, some people think it's not wrong, and that's why it's up for vote. On the other hand, who could say no to restoring marriage? Yes, it's misleading because the proposition isn't about restoring anything (in fact it's about taking away rights from homosexual couples), but an undecided or ignorant voter isn't going to necessarily know that.

Personally, if I were to come up with a slogan, I probably would've gone with something like Support Equality, or Stop Discrimination; anything that's easier to say "Yes, I can support that" than "unfair and wrong". On the other hand, I wonder if there was market research showing that "unfair and wrong" was effective among undecided voters.

*Just to be clear, I'm not trying to belittle the issue here. I'm just saying that without context (which campaign placards often lack, as do ignorant voters), that's what people may think of when they see the word "unfair".