Devastating Rolling Stone Feature Blames 'No on 8' Campaign For Prop. 8's Success

In what amounts to a direct hit to the solar plexus of No on 8 Campaign leaders, the latest issue of Rolling Stone has a story called "http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24603325/samesex_setback">Same-Sex Setback: Don't blame Mormons or black voters - the California activists who tried to stop Prop 8 ran a lousy campaign" by Tim Dickinson that brings the gay community's internal debate over the effectiveness of the No on 8 campaign to the mainstream public.

Queerty readers will recognize a lot of the criticisms– a lack of central organization, idiotic ads, failure to engage minorities and grassroots leaders, the psychotic lack of a ground game, it even compares the No on 8 campaign to the McCain campaign, which is something we do all the time here– but this is the first time a mainstream publication has tackled the issue head-on and the article is likely to shift the public debate over Prop. 8.

Let's just go to the quotes, shall we?



It really just goes on and on like this and the whole article is a must-read. The failure of the No on 8 campaign has galvanized the community in an unprecedented way and the resulting movement and nascent coalition of civil rights activists that have marched, protested and boycotted since Nov. 4th represent the new face of the gay community. While No on 8 leaders like Lori L. Jean have stood on podiums and said, "There is only one group responsible for – The Mormon Church", we now know that is not the case, if we ever believed it to begin with.

The article ends on a positive note, pointing out that because Prop. 8 passed because of mismanagement and that the vote was close it is possible to win at the ballot box. As we previously reported, No on 8 leaders have been wary post-election to embrace another ballot fight, believing that the gay community should focus its efforts on the courts.

Of course, the question now is, "Who's going to listen to them?"

http://www.queerty.com/rolling-stones-blames-no-on-8-for-prop-8s-success-20081203/#more-34280

I pretty much was saying the same thing right after the election. What we have as so-called 'leadership' is a joke. Lori L. Jean of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center went on vacation for a month and Geoff Kors of Equality California left for two and a half weeks. They were MIA in the lead-up to this vote and during the time we had a comfy lead in the polls. And then they have the audacity to blame the influx of Mormon money? Give me a break. You don't scramble for money at the end, you build a solid and impenetrable movement. And you never spend a minute being complacent.

their ads were non-effective and bland, and the ad from Yes on 8 with Gavin Newsom saying "it's here, whether you like it or not" was very effective and in your face. I do believe it will pass next time, but they've got to hammer home the fact that no group should have more rights than another, whether it's gays and lesbians or single people.

we have all the same benefits as marriage in our domestic partnership laws. Marriage is not necessary in CA, IMO. My partner and I are registered as Domestic Partners and we're happy with that. In our minds we are married. We don't need a marriage certificate to make it real in our hearts.

There are numerous differences between domestic partnership and marriage in California. Also, we may never enjoy equality at the Federal level unless we make progress at the state level. It's too bad you are so happy being a second class citizen.

He's despised outside of SF. He's hallucinating if he thinks he has a shot at being governor.

He's a tool and will not be the next govenor of CA. Thank God.

That's how Barack did it.

re complacency.

Early on, the polls looked pretty good and I think there was a good bit of a "this is in the bag" attitude going on. It should have been more aggressive from the word go.

I plan on spending much more time and energy on and offline making sure that LGBT equality is achieved within the next 10 years.

During the Clinton years, I was very active. Yet during Bush, it was like screaming into a tornado after a while. But watching Barack and his campaign has been been a real eyeopener.

:sarcasm:

There is no comparison between a political candidate running for office and the power of religious bigotry and propaganda. The gay community isn't at fault for not "wooing sympathy" from hateful people anymore than black children in Arkansas in the 1960s "failed to gain sympathy" from white desegregationists.

that will be a more meaningful suggestion.

if opponents had put forth half the effort that they have since after the election, it never would have been close. the weekend before the election there were yes on 8 idiots all over the city, due to the pray-away-the-gay hate fest at the Murph. nowhere could i find any counter-demonstrations.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081208/osborn

.........
"Push Back on Prop 8 Comment
By Torie Osborn
This article appeared in the December 8, 2008 edition of The Nation.
November 19, 2008

California's LGBT community has risen up in anger following homophobic onslaughts before, most notably in 1991, when 50,000 people took to the streets of LA following Governor Pete Wilson's veto of a simple job-equity bill. But this time is different; the right's victory on Prop 8 seems suddenly out of step with the zeitgeist. This is the new Obama era of progressive patriotism, and the homophobes who outgunned the No on 8 campaign seem like a throwback. Jon Stewart, as he parried recently with Bill O'Reilly, named gay marriage as the next step on America's long and jagged journey to justice. Could it be that gay marriage, widely blamed for John Kerry's loss four years ago, is the next winning issue on this country's agenda for change?

The Yes on 8 forces ran a brilliant campaign. Along with their usual lies to frighten people about children and religion, they beat us at our own game. The right built a strong multiracial religious coalition that reached African-American and Latino voters across the state, the majority of whom supported Prop 8.

I watched their coming victory with a sinking heart. Thirty years ago, I worked tirelessly against Prop 6 (the Briggs initiative to fire gay teachers), and in 1986 I was Southern California campaign coordinator for No on Prop 64 (the LaRouche initiative to quarantine people living with HIV/AIDS). But this year I poured my political passions into the Obama campaign, working 24/7 to get him elected president. I was based in the main LA office, then in Nevada, where I helped coordinate Latino and African-American volunteers doing voter-to-voter registration and GOTV. Our plan worked magnificently: the Silver State turned deep blue, by 12 percentage points. Working side by side with an amazing team--mostly women, mostly African-American and Latina--I caught the early warning signs on Prop 8. When Yes on 8 signs began sprouting up on her neighbors' lawns in early October, one African-American Obama volunteer, Angie Rodriguez, asked me, "Where are the No on 8 folks? My neighborhood has been visited by the Yes people twice already."

Perhaps more telling was when Mitchell Schwartz, Obama's California director, asked me in mid-October, "Why aren't Barack's own words opposing Prop 8 plastered all over? This was the only proposition he took a stand on, and people need to know it!" When I passed the question on to a friend on No on 8's executive committee, he explained that they had decided that Obama's position was too confusing, because he opposes gay marriage but came out against Prop 8. But that critical decision to set aside Obama's position (until the very end, after a campaign shake-up) allowed the Yes on 8 people to step into the void and put out deceptive fliers and robocalls saying Obama supported Prop 8. If No on 8 had acted early and forcefully, telling Obama's true position, it could have made the difference.

There were other No on 8 campaign mistakes. On GOTV weekend, I walked the streets of Henderson, Nevada, with my friend Phill Wilson, who runs LA's Black AIDS Institute. I was shocked to learn that Phill had never been called by the No on 8 campaign. Nobody in the LA gay community knows better than Phill which African-American church leaders can be moved on gay issues; it's been his life's work for more than two decades. And the powerful LA labor movement, with its sway in the Latino community, was not engaged. A small gay Latino group, Honor PAC, and some independent Latina activists had to take over the East LA No on 8 office in the last weeks. Their heroic work kept the Latino yes vote lower than many had predicted. Another positive story: API Equality, a vigorous grassroots effort in Asian/Pacific Islander communities begun three years ago, also autonomous from the official No on 8 campaign, helped persuade 51 percent of APIs to vote against Prop 8.

In Gus Van Sant's must-see new movie about assassinated San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, there's a scene on election night 1978, when the Briggs initiative went down. Harvey gets a call from Los Angeles County--"We've beat it by 65 percent here!"--and the celebration begins. You can't win on a gay issue in California without winning LA County. In 1978 that meant a savvy, LA-based campaign that delivered the Bradley coalition of white liberals and south-side African-Americans. These days it means engaging real support from our allies in labor--canvassing and phone-banking and not just fundraising. It means going door to door in South and East LA. The No on 8 campaign, with its power center in San Francisco, did neither, forgetting what Milk knew thirty years ago.

But the future looks brighter. Marching in that Saturday protest alongside LGBT community members were thousands of straight supporters. Among them were my new friends from the Obama campaign, now passionate allies in the emerging coalition to undo Prop 8. I didn't have to ask them to come. "I was so busy working for Barack's victory, I forgot to organize my family, but I'm here now, for as long as you need me," said Alma Marquez, the Obama field staffer responsible for statewide Latino outreach, with tears of regret. Alida Garcia-Okoebar, a sister Obama volunteer, told me, "We're all fired up and ready to go! Now we know our next campaign!" Raul Moreno, another Obama campaign friend, told me to call him when we get to work reversing Prop 8: "Sister, you got next!"

If the courts fail to overturn Prop 8, the strategy will likely be to put a hard-to-win pro-gay marriage ballot measure before the people of California in two or four years. In this new era of hope and change, and given the passionate chorus of diverse voices that have chimed in since November 4, I have absolutely no doubt that the rally cries of "¡Sí, se puede!" on marriage equality herald victory next time. "

...........

Suppose some churches got together and decided to take the right of marriage away from blue-eyed people. Does that mean that all blue-eyed people have to contribute money and volunteer to protect their rights? And if they lose, it's their fault for not organizing well enough?

This is ridiculous.

...a fight that one should NEVER have had to fight in the first place. I'm also sick of everyone strategizing over how to woo voters to our side for the *next* election (2010?), as this amounts to conceding that one's civil rights are okay to put up to a popular vote.

I'm pissed at that the CA Supremes dropped the ball when they refused to intervene in Prop 8 being put on the ballot in the first place. It should never have been. They had better reverse this, and soon, if they want to redeem their sorry asses.

I have no doubt that the article is probably accurate, but still - why should there have to have been a campaign in the first place??

The main point in the article from The Nation was that "IF" the Calif. Supreme does not reverse PropHate8, then, what could be learned for the next pro-marriage rights proposition down the road. That's a thought I dread, but, it's important to look at all scenarios.

These "campaigns" about other human beings are atrocious.

Those boy-band pushing pop-star bimbo promoting douchebags can go f*** themselves! :mad:

and that damn quote the Yes on 8 people used very effectively......."whether you like it or not".......Gavin's an asshole.

there would never have been a May 2008 CA Supreme Court decision giving GLBTQIs the right to marry in the first place.

get a clue.

,

:eyes:

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and dropped into ads about teaching homosexuality in schools?

Yea, that was all Gavin's fault.

That was shameful bullshit.

We couldn't dream of a better ally to have in any mayor's office in the country.

And if you can't recognize that, I think we all know who's the stupid one.

the door where we needed it.

vitriol heaped on the "No on 8" folks by our own people in the "comments" section as if the "YES on 8" bigots are NOT to be held to any account for foisting this upon us in the first place. :(

I'm tired of listening to this "victim mentality" emanating from within the community. It's completely counterproductive. I find myself many times thinking, "quit your whining and fucking DO something about it". ACT-UP, for example, got things the fuck done. They were able to change FDA clinical trials protocol to speed up the approval of new HIV meds while people were dying all around them. We also have them to thank for Expanded Access Programs. And that was at a time when there was barely any acceptance of the LGBT community.

We lost a substantial lead in public opinion polls on Prop 8. Not only is that due to the Mormon hate campaign, but also because we didn't have a strong infrastructure in order to combat the campaign they waged. And two of the so-called 'leaders' took some substantial vacay time right when they were needed the most.

Harvey Milk went from city to city, town to town, appeared on any radio program or TV show that would have him. He spoke at any open public forum he could find throughout the state of California during the Prop 6 battle over 30 years ago. We need to revisit this type of activism and capitalize on the amount of energy we see coming from organizing on line. The motivation and desire to change things is there. Talking and debating all of this around here is all well and good, but it doesn't get much done. After the rallies, I contacted my local LGBT org in Jersey, Garden State Equality, to see if they had any work for volunteers. The only way we stop this from happening again is if we start organizing now. The 4 state loss on Election Day should be a huge lesson for what not to do in the future, the next time we have to combat these vicious bigots.

From the same article (p.3):



It doesn't help to have the leadership of the Democratic party endlessly equivocate on state sanctioned civil rights.

And the Yes on 8 crew capitalized on the equivocation.



Even though both he and Biden were publicly against Prop 8, they Yes crew was still able to get away with this.

But that lack in Party leadership shouldn't absolve the local and national LGBT orgs from sharing in the blame and taking at least some of the responsibility for Prop 8's passage.

Frank Schubert showed us his capacity to run an "effective" campaign; no matter what the costs. And with the wrath of an unjust God and the money from "good" people everywhere <sarcasm>, they were only able to beat us by half a million votes. Their magnificent and unprecedented response to the California initiative process just barely saved their moralistic asses (this time).

Do I blame local and national LGBT organizations for the failure? No. We were outplayed. It seems to me we should study the winners and learn a few things about grassroots mobilization, fiscal forecasting and manipulative messaging.

The blame for 8's passage can be placed on the people who deserve it. After all, there is no context which justifies the revocation of state sanctioned civil rights. Our community was attacked by bigots and zealots while our political allies avoided us like the plague. Worse still, some of our allies like us just fine as long as we remember our proper place. I suspect there was some level of "Bradley effect" -- whatever the gay equivalent would be.

In any event, it's a interesting read. I don't trust the well-placed anonymous Democratic consultant who obviously has an axe to grind but hey -- we learned a lot about controlling perception in regard to Prop 8. Why should the post-game analysis be any different?
:)

The only comparison I can think of would be how there was a tightening of the polls in both situations, and the only reaction each time was to scramble for money at the end and hope that the Hail Mary pass would pay off.

People still think that the Bradley effect actually happened?

This is, of course, bigger than Prop 8, since 3 other states had referendums up for the voters to decide. Do I blame local and national LGBT organization for the failure? Absolutely. The fact that you admit we were outplayed in your post and then go on to enumerate the ways we got schooled is proof that we have a failure in our infrastructure that needs to be corrected.

oblivious to the well orchestrated Yes on 8 coalition until it was too late. That well funded coalition took the low road, big time, all the time, and in this instance it managed to work.

i.e. Jack O'Connell's (CA Sec. of Education) well done ad addressing the "they'll teach homosexuality in grade school!" nonsense came out late in the campaign, iirc. The Yes folks had been touting this message for weeks.

Overall, perhaps the perception that we were in the right, and that would win the day, obscured the political realities. I wish it were different, but it is what it is.

That said, hindsight isn't always 20-20. What if can be an exercise in futility.

We still will see what the CA Supreme Court has to say. {I hear both houses at the state capital have resolutions encouraging them to overturn the proposition as unconstitutional.A good argument, imho.)

And, time remains on our side.

Thanks for the post 'n link Jack.

I absolutely agree that this is outrageous that we're having to defend or criticize a campaign that put our human rights up for a goddam popular vote.

But the bottom line is if we have to fight, then we better figure out a way to do it better and to do it right.

More victim blaming. Sickening.

It's absolutely disgusts me that we have to beg bigots for civil rights. That's what it boils down to - we didn't beg the right way. Fuck that.

That's Activism 101. It takes away all of our power and gives it back to those suppressing us in the first place.

There's a reason why King's "I Have A Dream" speech wasn't called "I Have Been Victimized".

That a lot of it might have been self-inflicted?

Very old-fashioned and naive of me, isn't it?

What's so impractical about examining where we went wrong so we don't let the next win slip away?

Examine the whole picture and you may see the mistakes made on our side.

We didn't have the resources to counter their well-funded campaign.

What are we going to do to ensure this doesn't happen again?

by shitting on people whose very humanity is put up for a vote every couple of years is getting old.

People who propose to put other people's civil rights up for a vote are bigots. Period. Let's not let them off the hook.

And why are you so eager to let Geoff Kors and Lori Kean off the hook?

I simply get tired of people blaming the victims.

I suspect that there is plenty of blame to go around here--it seems likely, for example, that complacency played a major role here (even here on DU we are often treated to the sight of Californians acting as though it is only out here in the provinces that one might encounter bigots) but we can't lose sight of the fact that the people who put 8 on the ballot and poured millions of dollars into passing it and voted for it are ultimately responsible for its passage.

Let's not minimize their role in all this.

fits the description pretty nicely.

Can't recall who that might have been, though.

and how to improve our grassroots efforts means I'm minimizing the bigots? That's really funny.

What are you doing locally to enact change?

move beyond prejudices and easy answers, and so on. I've been doing it for twenty years now.

What are you doing to bring about change in the world? (Being all self-important on internet forums doesn't count, by the way.)

But to answer your question, I do nothing IRL to change the world. I'm just a self-important internet blowhard.

I've never organized people in Brooklyn to protest Fred Phelps after 9/11 and raised over $1200 for FIRE/FLAG/EMS.

I never worked on 'In The Life' as a production assistant.

Never have I volunteered at Human Rights Watch. I just sit on the internets bitching and complaining.

Nor do I even work as an HIV/AIDS educator.

By all means, continue layering on your insults. It only makes you look less informed.

It's all very impressive, but I still disagree with you--if I am allowed to do so.

The original was rather nasty.

Of course you're allowed to disagree. Why do you feel the need to ask for permission?

It's hard to think of Geoff Kors as a 'victim' when his campaign was drowning in so much cash that they didn't know how to spend it properly. It's seems more likely that those who donated to the campaign were the victims.

If during the 1950s, a local black church wanted to produce a newsletter analyzing the missteps of the civil rights movement thus far, that's one thing. If a national entertainment magazine in the 1950s lambasted the "disorganized and pathetic" efforts of the black church it would be counter-organizing and inappropriate.

And, to be clear: I place the BLAME squarely at feet of those who voted YES.

Careful--that'll get you a stern lecture around here!

One: Those who voted yes are to blame, and even if the No camp did *nothing* to oppose them, they would still be to blame. They are evil fuckers who deserve to suffer.

Two: Even though we shouldn't have to fight for equal rights, the reality is we have to, and we ought to make sure we do it well.

As I said elsewhere, I shouldn't have to lock my car to keep it from being stolen, but I do lock it because that's the reality. But if my car is stolen, locked or not, the person who stole it is to blame.

who seek to lay the blame on the victim in a mainstream publication that is likely to have a pretty much evenly divided readership when it comes to our rights. Restricting criticism is also restricting the discussion.

these things than many of my GLBT peers are.

I don'twish to restrict criticism, though my wish would be that the criticism be more about the content of the argument than sexual orientation of the person making it. I think logical and reasonable arguments do not reside in identity, but in logic and reason.

And again, I'm a little out on a limb here in terms of the comfort of others. No disrespect intended.

because of a very unflattering article about our community. A little of topic I suppose, or maybe not

I obviously donated, but the time I was on DU preaching to the choir in the GLBT forum, I could have been hitting the streets, or doing something.

This was one of the biggest, most important votes of our lifetime, and the bottom line is I know all of us could have done more.

But there was zero outreach from No on 8.

Once again, I blame the Yes on 8 people first and foremost.

I blame the fact we were charging people for No on 8 signs, when the Yes on 8 people were dumping stacks of them in the street.

Disgusting human beings.

And why were we spending money on television ads in San Francisco? Dumb.

We have to learn to do better from a grassroots level.

All of the grassroots-organized demonstrations after the election are a perfect example of how we can get the message out if we work together.

That was not going on during the campaign.

Most of us just signed checks and sat back and waited.

GLBT centers in places like WeHo couldn't get volunteers to come in to make phone calls before the vote, yet after the vote the phones were ringing off the hook with folks asking where the victory parties were going to be, I have to wonder how badly people wanted to stand for their rights. That kind of thing aggravates me. If such a thing were happening in my state, I'd be out in the streets beforehand, but that's just me. I have been very active volunteering in the GLBT community a very, very, very long time and that is a very old story to me -- there's a lot of people who are damned willing to party if someone else is willing to do the work.

What never seems to hit home in our community is a simple fact: If someone is attacking you, you fight back. You don't sit on your ass waiting for "someone else" to get out there and do the dirtywork for you. If you want your rights, you have to take them. Nobody will ever, ever hand them to you for nothing, not even asking. You fight. Dirty if you must, but you fight. If you don't fight, they will take your rights, your dignity, and your humanity every time.

That doesn't just apply to gay marriage, though this is just the latest casualty. That applies to every single constitutional right. I'll offer the last eight years of *-co as an example. They have trodden on every one of the heretofore sacrosanct Bill of Rights, save one, with unfettered spying, "free speech zones", extraordinary rendition, etc. Now they're reaching for more, to wit:

Prop 8 was just one shot across the bow because LBGTQ people are an easy target. Let one enumerated right get removed, the rest get easier and easier. Now, let's pose the 800 pound question, hanging like a fart in church: Who's next? Precedent for the removal of equal citizenship has been established if this prop stands. The next group that the far-right decides to hate on will be even easier to make "less-than-citizens". Unless this is stopped now, the snowball will only get bigger.

I'm not blaming the victims who fought back. The valient heroes who dug in and fought, though wounded are still heroes nonetheless. My hat is off and I honor your service to the LGBTQ community at large.

I'm blaming the complacent who took victory for granted: the leadership who wouldn't lead; the troops who wouldn't take up the task when the leadership didn't lead; the ones who live in perennial denial "it couldn't happen to me" or "it can't happen here"; the dizzy queens who wouldn't show up at the community centers to make calls, but would call to find out where the victory party was (and was shocked to find out there wasn't going to BE one because they couldn't be bothered to work for it).

Look at the last nearly eight years and tell me again that it can't happen. The extreme right are extremely organized. It's time we got our shit together. If we want to party, it will be after we've earned one.

blame for their own bigotry.

It's like other issues of self care: A burglar who steals from your house is the criminal, whether you locked your door or not - but it's in your self interest to lock your door.

nt

I blame the organizer and funders of PHate8 and every single person who voted for it.

Now, as far as the next time, the next go round, the next Prop and the next State that marriage rights come up, there is something to be learned from this last campaign. Of course, that just makes sense. But the Rolling stone is being provocative in it's language and annoying the piss out of people and in so doing their message is lost.

The Nation looked at the strategy and tactics surrounding the anti-PHate8 campaign and managed not to make it accusatory towards gays. They were also hopeful.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081208/osborn

.........
"Push Back on Prop 8 Comment
By Torie Osborn
This article appeared in the December 8, 2008 edition of The Nation.
November 19, 2008

>>But the future looks brighter. Marching in that Saturday protest alongside LGBT community members were thousands of straight supporters. Among them were my new friends from the Obama campaign, now passionate allies in the emerging coalition to undo Prop 8. I didn't have to ask them to come. "I was so busy working for Barack's victory, I forgot to organize my family, but I'm here now, for as long as you need me," said Alma Marquez, the Obama field staffer responsible for statewide Latino outreach, with tears of regret. Alida Garcia-Okoebar, a sister Obama volunteer, told me, "We're all fired up and ready to go! Now we know our next campaign!" Raul Moreno, another Obama campaign friend, told me to call him when we get to work reversing Prop 8: "Sister, you got next!"

If the courts fail to overturn Prop 8, the strategy will likely be to put a hard-to-win pro-gay marriage ballot measure before the people of California in two or four years. In this new era of hope and change, and given the passionate chorus of diverse voices that have chimed in since November 4, I have absolutely no doubt that the rally cries of "¡Sí, se puede!" on marriage equality herald victory next time. "<<

Well, this much is true from the RS article:

>>It's ironic that the coalition to define marriage in California as the union between "one man and one woman" was anchored by a church whose founder claimed 33 wives. It's also ironic that the coalition — which framed Prop 8 as a fight to protect California's children — was quietly knit together by the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco, who once excused the molestation of children at the hands of a pedophile priest as mere "horseplay."
<snip>

As the demonstrations suggest, there is a silver lining to the passage of Prop 8. Because it succeeded due to the mistakes and mismanagement of its opponents — rather than deep-seated hostility to gay and lesbian couples — it can be overturned at the ballot box. Since 2000, the margin of voters in the state who oppose gay marriage has plunged from 23 points to only four.

"The speed at which this issue is moving is unprecedented in my personal political experience," says Bill Carrick, a prominent Democratic consultant who worked on the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy. "Support for gay marriage has moved so far, in such a short period of time, that I think we're going to look back at Prop 8 as an aberration. History is headed in a very pro-gay-marriage direction, and it probably is going to happen in a much shorter time than anybody imagines."<<

That may be true for blue states such as California. I think that the passage of Prop 8 indeed was an aberration for California, and it will soon be overturned one way or the other.

But I'm not so sure about deeply red states such as Idaho, Utah, Mississippi, Alabama and others. If this issue is left to the individual states then we may well soon see a nation divided with gay marriage legal on both coasts and in a few other places, yet it will remain illegal in much of the the so-called heartland. So that's why I feel that a solution on the national level is more realistic if we are going to bring equal rights to all parts of the country, not just some parts.

I hope that President Obama can take a leading role in this. It will start with the repeal of both don't ask don't tell and DOMA, both of which Obama favors repealing. Then after that we need to bring Obama along on the issue of a nationwide legalization of full fledged gay marriage.

It doesn't matter, what individual personal attitudes are in any State, red or blue, ideally, that is why this should never come up for popular vote again.

Civil rights cannot be taken from any minority group, especially in "deeply red states such as Idaho, Utah, Mississippi, Alabama and others."

There are plenty of States that have now passed anti-gay marriage laws which can be challenged in Court.
If the Calif. SC strikes down Hate 8, that sets a precedent to work from in other State Courts.

Yes, the I expect the pledge to repeal DOMA, but I don't see the US Congress bringing up nationwide "legalization of full fledged gay marriage" anytime soon.

In short, State by State, in the Courts, battling over our rights as a minority and challaneging laws under the Equal Protection Clause.

I'll put my money on Lambda, before I put it on Congress, as far as fighting for us.

ETA: Here is a thread you might find of interest:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=98255&mesg_id=98255

A Quick Review of Equal Protection Clause and It's Application to Gay Rights.

.........

Also, I need to do more reading on DOMA and also, whether Congress has any say in marriage or is it a States right in the first place, for gays and straights?

You got me thinking now, there is so much to learn and so many questions about law and society.

peace
bd12

That should be true, but it always isn't. In the real world, judges are influenced by political pressures. And in some states such as my home state supreme court justices are elected by the people, not appointed. I don't think it's a coincidence that in every case where a state supreme court ruled in favor of gay marriage, it was a blue state such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, or California. Unfortunately, I don't see the Idaho State Supreme Court and courts in several other red states legalizing gay marriage anytime soon.

I still think that a federal remedy is more realistic.

No? Then how the fuck are they to blame?

You can argue all you want that the anti-Prop 8 campaign was a disaster (I'm quite sure that much more could have been done, and much more effectively), but at the end of the day, the only people to blame are the unbelievable assholes who voted yes on Prop 8. Whatever their motivations, whatever they were told (or not told), each one of them went into the voting booth, made a choice, and voted to strip rights from fellow human beings. There is NO justification for that, and blaming the anti-Prop 8 people (or blacks, or the elderly, or religion, for that matter) only serves to let the assholes who DID vote for it off the hook.

If you voted to deny the marriage of Californians, REGARDLESS of your reasoning, YOU are to blame for the denial of marriage to Californians. And you are an unmitigated, bigoted ASSHOLE.

and missing the point, in a circular fashion.

The article is entitled:

Same-Sex Setback
Don't blame Mormons or black voters - the California activists who tried to stop Prop 8 ran a lousy campaign
TIM DICKINSONPosted Dec 11, 2008 11:00 AM

..........

It is an analysis of the campaign and there was a campaign for and against propHate8.

That's not saying absolve those bigots who voted for PHate8.

That's not the same as saying blame all gays.

It is an analysis of the campaign strategies and the value of that might be as we face other political campaigns in other States such as the less talked about NY State Dems, who are in power, plan to shelve putting a gay marriage law to the legislatuere in 2009 because it is "notthe right time."

I agree with you that the POINT of the article is more could have been done. I whole-heartedly agree with that statement. However, the article STATES that Prop 8 passed because of things gay people didn't do. I have a !HUGH!! problem with that.

We can examine what went wrong in order to best determine how to tackle the issue in the future, but we should NEVER. EVER. say that gays are to blame for the passage of Prop 8. Bigoted, asshole, non-gay fucktards are to blame for the passage of Prop 8. Period.

Because no where in this thread did I place the entire blame on our community.

And it appears that some of the responses think this article is laying the blame entirely at the feet of the LGBT community, which it clearly is not doing.

it was a follow on.

Probably should have moved it one segment over, I was thinking of it as a running conversation.

On edit: Looking back over a few days of replies, I was agreeing with you. I think your #34 says much the same thing.

peace -

bd12

That's what I thought, but I just wanted to be clear.

:pals:

If you've got stuff to refute that, by all means, let me know. I'd love to meet the gay person who doesn't believe gays deserve the right to be married. I'd have a few things to say.

Toaster lad, You can hate these people all you want but it won't win the next election. The job of educating people is not done and the passing of 8 proves that. Hate is a waste of energy. We need to work harder and smarter next time and we will win. IMHO

Many of the people that voted for 8 were confused and some were just stupid. We can fix some of these people. We really can't change anything by just hating them all. We isolate ourselves that way and that is what our real enemies want. Don't give into it.

And to me that means being strategic about focusing efforts.

we need to think through the best approach. Someone just posted about the rw taking out a full page ad in the NYT about gay "violence and intimidation."

The lies about gay "violence" as opposed to our actual peaceful and legitimate protests do need to be answered clearly and forcefully, their lies must be exposed, otherwise, once again, the public will buy into the sound bite, the ad, the quick message lies and even our peaceful protests will be met with hostility and anger, ultimately their goal is to silence us.

It doesn't matter who is to BLAME for Prop 8 passing...it passed. Pointing fingers gets us relatively nowhere, as long as we identify what needs to be done in the next go-round.

That said, I don't think that we should let the next "go-round" be up to the good people of California. I think we're in a nice legal place here, and we should take this mess right to the state Supreme Court. If they have the balls, they'll uphold the reading they've already made: that we're people, like everyone else.

P.S. Has anyone else noticed how hard it is to type while buzzed?

You can get as angry at the bigots as you want, but that's not how change will be brought about. The Yes on 8 people drove a very successful campaign and we need to analyze what they did, then replace the leaders of our movement with those who can learn how to effectively fight this. Education can go a long way in fighting bigotry, and so can 'acting up'. We need to be much more active on both fronts.

...but the blame STILL belongs with the Mormons. Prop 8 was failing until the Mormons dumped tens of millions of dollars into misleading and out-right deceptive ads pushing for its passage.

To absolve them of their guilt in the matter is to miss a huge point that needs to be made.

Of course, it is true that there seems to be a leadership vacuum in the GLBT community in terms of organization and fighting for rights. While there were a lot of good "ads" for the no-on-8 campaign, most of them were web-only, under-funded, and not supported by the official organizations we were all donating money to in order to fight this.

And where the hell were HRC and GLAAD?

But to not ALSO blame the influx of mormon money is ridiculous. The Mormon church needs to be held accountable for their actions.

Besides, finger pointing doesn't get us anywhere we need to be. The fact remains: for the first time in my memory, a minority had EXISTING CIVIL RIGHTS taken away by an ignorant and bigoted majority. And they did it with a simple majority vote. If that doesn't chill you to the core, nothing will. Nothing could be more un-American. Nothing sets a worse precedent. There is no more slippery slope than this.

We need to learn from the mistakes, hold the ignorant bigots accountable, and work to educate the masses.

This was precisely the problem. Equality California and others seemed to do a good job in the years leading up to Prop 8 keeping those interested educated about the legal proceedings, but something definitely went wrong during the final push for funding of No on 8 as the proponents leaped way ahead. It's almost like they wanted to fail.