National Ad Campaign
Targets Unmarried Voters

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In the fall of 2000, the American Association for Single People ran a series of advertisements directed to the 82 million unmarried adults in the United States who are being ignored by the political parties and by presidential candidates.

The first ad ran in USA Today on Wednesday, October 4, and in the same paper again on Wednesday, October 11, 2000.  A similar ad appeared in the Los Angeles Times on October 13, 2000.

Another ad ran in Student Leader magazine beginning October 27, 2000.

Our ad campaign caught the attention of Associated Press reporter Mike Schneider who released a story about it over the Florida State Wire on October 19, 2000.  The story was released nationally on October 22, 2000.  It also mentions that our ads would run in the weekly editions of the Village Voice and LA Weekly beginning on October 26, 2000.

The same ads we ran in the Village Voice and LA Weekly were published during the week of November 1, in the Orange County Weekly, the City Pages of Minneapolis, and the Cleveland Scene.

The ads were intended to serve several purposes:

  Most unmarried Americans are not aware of the extent of marital status discrimination that exists in the workplace, in the marketplace, and in government programs.  The ads will educate single people and unmarried couples about how they are being treated unfairly as employees, consumers, and taxpayers.

Single people have been suffering in silence.  The ads will remind unmarried Americans that "the squeaky wheel gets oiled" and encourage them to support the only national organization which makes ending marital status discrimination its top priority.

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party, as well as the smaller political parties, do not mention the issue of marital status discrimination and do not acknowledge the existence of unmarried people as a class of voters.  The ads will educate leaders of these political parties that single people vote in large numbers and that their issues and concerns should be addressed in party platforms, websites, and literature.

  None of the presidential candidates has even uttered the words "single people" in their campaign speeches, nor is the issue of marital status discrimination mentioned in the candidates' websites or campaign literature.  The ads will remind politicians that single voters are a constituency to be courted, just as the candidates pay attention to women, working families, seniors, people with disabilities, gays and lesbians, union workers, racial and ethnic minorities, and parents.