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Joel: Hi, welcome to Conversations, I'm Joel Edgardio with the American Civil Liberties
Union and today's conversation is with Matt Coles the director of the ACLU's LGBT Project;
that's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. Matt, thanks for being part of the conversation.
Matt: Great to be here. Joel: Some say that your legacy here at the
ACLU is how you figured out a way to combine the power of persuasion, public education,
the press with litigation. Matt: I'm not dead yet so I don't have a legacy
yet. Joel: It's a legacy you've started.
Matt: Maybe this is what they should put on my tombstone that changing the way people
think is as important as changing the law. You don't change society not in a broad diverse
Democratic, Republic unless you convince people to accept it. To me that involved thinking
creatively about methods of communication to stop just thinking about press releases;
you have to begin thinking creatively. How do you go about telling a story and I think
lawyers are, unfortunately, usually very bad story tellers.
Joel: Why is that? Matt: Because I think lawyers job is to focus
on the law and to focus on abstract principals and I don't think abstract principals move
people. The way you get people is with people. The trick really is to think what's the principal
I'm trying to communicate here? Now, find me someone whose tale, whose life embodies
that principal. If you want to do it really well, find me somebody whose life embodies
that principal who the rest of America is going to be able to relate to.
Joel: How does the ACLU tell stories if you say lawyers are lousy story tellers and we're
a house full of lawyers how do we do that? Matt: God, my colleagues are going to kill
me. No, I don't think lawyers are trained story tellers, I think anybody can be a good
story teller we're just not trained to be in law school. I think actually many of my
colleagues are marvelous at it and getting better all the time. In the end it's not the
lawyers you want telling the story at all I think. The lawyers should be the enablers
but that what they should be enabling is they should be enabling people whose lives embody
the principals to tell the story. Joel: This isn't totally new. In a way couldn't
you say this is like the finding Rosa Parks? Other groups employ these methods; she wasn't
the first who wouldn't go to the back of the bus. She had the great story ...
Matt: Joel, I've never had an original thought in my life. Absolutely, what we learn time
and again you can almost walk it through history is if you want to change the way people think
about something, if you want to move people you have to make it concrete, real. People
respond to principals and ideas but they respond to principals and ideas much more powerfully
when they're introduced to them through a human embodiment.
Joel: Let's go back further, this is Biblical. Matt: Sure.
Joel: Parables, stories but why is it if it's that old and that tried and that tested and
that true, how come more people don't do it or why is it that you had to come along and
try to [inaudible 00:03:51]. Matt: You give me too much credit but I think
we just needed to get the journalist together with the lawyers and get them talking to each
other so that the journalist would understand what the principals were and how they work
so that the lawyers would understand how to really embody them. You're right, it's a marriage
of two old things and there's nothing unique or particularly clever about it but it's embodiment
at this stage works. Joel: Matt Coles, it's been great talking
with you. Matt: Same here.
Joel: Thanks for being part of Conversations. Matt: It's a pleasure, take care, thanks Joel.
Joel: If you're watching Conversations online I'd like to invite you to click on the next
chapter to see the continued conversation with Matt Coles. For the ACLU I'm Joel Edgardio.