COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. - The forlorn face of Norman, the mooing puppy, is all over this town.
The brown-and-white spaniel mopes through five TV ads and a movie trailer.
His silhouette decorates banners and billboards and city buses.
And every afternoon, a posse of young men wearing blue "let the puppy moo" T-shirts hits the streets to ask locals what they think of Norman's plight.
Norman is a puppy like any other, except he was born mooing instead of barking. Or so goes the plot of a quirky new gay-rights campaign.
By telling Norman's story — his struggle to change, his longing for acceptance, his confusion about why he is the way he is — Born Different aims to get people thinking about what it means to be gay.
Norman's star turn is funded with a $900,000 grant from the Gill Foundation, a Denver nonprofit that supports gay rights.
Norman is appearing exclusively in Colorado Springs, a town often associated with the religious right because it's home to the group Focus on the Family.
Organizers insist Norman's not pushing a political agenda; he just wants to spark discussion.
But the campaign fits with a broader strategy by gay-rights activists to step up public outreach in search of support for same-sex marriage.
Opponents see the puppy as an effective political tool.
"We're almost jealous," said Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman for Focus on the Family.
That group recently unleashed its own furry mascot — Sherman — to argue that Norman has it all wrong. The result is almost a parody of clashing claims. Norman's Web site, borndifferent.org, features the tale of "gay penguins" in New Zealand. Sherman's no-moo-lies.com counters with the "ex-gay" penguins of New York.
"Sure, making a dog sound like a cow is cute, but messing with marriage, the building block of civilized societies, is not," the Web site warns.
During a recent lunch hour, Norman's handlers stationed themselves outside a downtown Starbucks to try to start a conversation about gay rights. Several men and women brusquely brushed past, their faces registering disapproval. But at least a dozen residents stopped to talk — and to reflect.
Sharon Ragghianti, a 51-year-old nurse, told the activists that she considers homosexuality "an aberration ... not the way God made us."
"When did you choose to be straight?" Travis Nuckolls asked.
Ragghianti hesitated. "I didn't choose it. I was born that way," she said.
Perhaps, she added, sexual orientation was inborn for gays and lesbians as well.
Ragghianti said there was no chance a mooing puppy would soften her opposition to same-sex marriage. But she did credit Norman with a thought-provoking campaign.
"The more people talk about it," she said, "the more it's going to have an influence."
Lev 18:22.....22 "'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. NIV
Lev 20:13.....13 "'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman , both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. NIV
EDIT Tuesday: I should have added this yesterday. The argument put forth here is that people don't choose to be straight or gay. They say God made gays gay. Hogwash. The Bible says God made a helper for man. It was a woman, not another man.
Gen 2:18-24
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. NIV
It was God's plan - the picture he was painting - for a man and woman to be joined together as a couple. He even planned it right down to the perfect way male and female bodies fit together. He did not design men to fit like that. Or women to each other. It is those puppies who want to moo who are messing up God's perfect picture.
