Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...California Equality: Wait til 2012 to attack gay marriage ban
08.13.2009 8:26am EDT
(San Francisco) California gay rights activists are at odds over when to ask voters to repeal the state’s same-sex marriage ban, with one of the largest groups saying it needs until 2012 to put together a winning campaign and two others saying they plan go to the polls next year.
For months, organizers have been weighing the best strategy for gaining back marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples following their devastating loss last fall, when voters passed Proposition 8 banning same-sex nuptials just months after the California Supreme Court ruled to allow them.Outrage at the defeat caused gay rights activists to spill into the streets, their anger galvanizing supporters in California and elsewhere to push forward.
Yet at the same time, a rift developed among California activists, with critics claiming the failed “No on 8″ campaign had focused too intensely on liberal enclaves along the coast and did not effectively reach more conservative areas of the state, or minorities.
Equality California, which led the “No on 8″ charge, said Wednesday that holding off until 2012 gives organizers more time to raise money and win over residents in those conservative areas. The group also said turnout in a presidential election year will be higher than in next year’s gubernatorial race and will include more young people who tend to favor gay marriage.
“Emotionally, we all want to win marriage back as quickly as possible,” said Marc Solomon, Equality California’s marriage director. “We really think that we have a shot in the next three years. But we have one shot, we don’t have two shots. We’re not waiting at all. We’re going hard. But we think the campaign is a three-year campaign.”
Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based Courage Campaign announced in an e-mail to supporters Wednesday it would push to get a measure on the 2010 ballot. And John Henning, head of Love Honor Cherish, said his group also would continue to focus on next year.
“If you tell people that they’re going to have to wait, a lot of people are going to lose interest,” Henning said. “They’re going to make other commitments, they’re going to get the message that this isn’t important enough to act now.”
The anger over losing marriage rights – as well as the momentum from legalization in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont and Iowa – have been strong arguments to launch the earliest campaign possible.
Even Equality California was eyeing 2010 immediately after Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote.
But Solomon said recent interviews with donors, sympathetic clergy, political consultants and organizations that work with gay families advised waiting for 2012.
He said it was unrealistic to quickly raise the needed cash – likely $40 million to $50 million – in a bad economy, especially when big donors are being asked to give to social service organizations whose budgets have been slashed.
The 2008 fight cost supporters and opponents $83 million.
Both Equality California and the Courage Campaign allowed for a possible change in strategy. Solomon said he would not rule out playing a role if an initiative does make it to the ballot next year.
And Courage Campaign Chairman Rick Jacobs said before his group can take the battle in California to voters, it must help other states fighting to legalize same-sex marriage, including Maine, which became poised to recognize the unions when lawmakers in May set aside a state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Gay marriage opponents want to force a November vote in Maine to outlaw the nuptials, and Jacobs said the Courage Campaign needs to be involved in that fight.
Voters in 29 states have approved state constitutional amendments that ban gay marriage.
Meanwhile, an effort to legalize gay marriage in California is also playing out in federal court. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco said he is dissatisfied with all the court filings meant to lay out the important legal issues and key evidence, and ordered new submissions with more details.
question???
why arent we sueing the churches? we do have a constitutional right of freedom of and from religious persicution, and that is whats happening, we are being forced to live by the rules of certain churches doctrine, even if we dont belive or attend.
The reason we can’t fight a ballot initiative every year is simply that we don’t have the money. Equality California has learned a lot from their Prop 8 embarrassment – one of my dear friends has been put in charge of re-organizing the San Diego area canvass/campaign, which is designed to target conservative areas and bring on as many second, third, and fourth language speakers as possible to help bring the issue to minority voters. I would say they learned something, and have a different strategy this time around.
Along the minority lines, stop blaming African-Americans. If there’s a demographic that isn’t supporting us, then we need to change that demographic’s opinion, and that is what EQCA is trying to do now. The problem is, all this requires money, for fuel to shuttle people around, for materials to hand out, for paid commercial time. If our money goes to a 2010 initiative and it does fail, it’ll be even harder to raise the same amount by 2012 because people will already have given what they can.
Unlike a Legislature-passed proposition, ballot initiatives take money to establish and in this case, money to spread the word. Churches might be tight right now, but they can still pull money out from no where; once a private citizen is out of money, we’re out of money.
Yes, fighting in 2010 is the morally right thing to do. But if we fail in 2010, what’s to say that it will be any different in 2012, unless we’ve already been building a campaign starting with minority and conservative outreach /today/.
Well, I had intended to send money to Equality California, but I certainly won’t if the official strategy is to wait to 2012. As a few others have noted, 2012 is a presidential election year, and we will be struggling against largely religious conservative African-American voter turnout, as we did last year. Additionally, I agree with other people who have suggested that a lot of voters will have moved on to other topics by then. Instead of dividing my money between CA and Maine, I guess I’m going to send it all to Maine.
As of right now, the California legislature is considering a ballot initiative that would require a 2/3 majority to pass, rather than the current majority (51 percent). If that goes on the ballot for 2010 and passes, then our battle for 2012 becomes that much harder. In light of this, we need to push for a 2010 initiative to repeal Proposition 8 and pull out all the stops.
gayactivist101: You are absolutely right when you say that California is not a “liberal” state. When I first moved there, my impression of the state was San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and all the beaches in between. Imagine my suprise when I found myself in the High Desert surrounded by rabid Republicans. There are more “red” areas in the state than “blue.” In Lancaster, in the Antelope Valley – about 70 miles NE of Los Angeles – the City Council held a Yes on Eight rally last year attended by the mayor, the local assmebly and senate members and a whole load of other elected and non-elected officials. In my experience, there are more Rednecks in California than there are in Alabama!
The Mormons will be out in full swing again no matter when you do it. They donated the majority of the money and were 88% of the volunteers running the program.
I did realize that in 2012, there will be lots of competition for election donations, whereas 2010 won’t see as much, since it is not a presidential election year.
God willing Obama is still alive and running for re-election. Sorry to mention it, but it is extremely scary with all the right-wing nut jobs stirring up so much hatred. I am beginning to fear for his life!
This is why we lose almost every time.
The California wack jobs that got Prop 8 passed are trying to pass a proposition in 2010 that will make it more difficult to change the California Constitution. God help us is we stand back and watch them criminalize us again.
EQCA wants to wait–AFTER they screwed the pooch the last time. These people have pretty much discredited themselves, unless they can prove they learned something from losing the Prop 8 battle.
Don’t let me get left out–I’m with those of you asking why not every election cycle? If there’s a specific reason not to, like the cost being too high, I can understand that. It doesn’t matter what other states don’t have–who the hell said that we all have some obligation to be collectively discriminated against? How about we help each other up rather than hold each other back? If it happens in Cali before Ohio–hell, why not? Every victory counts, and the more we win the stronger we are for the remaining fights.
I believe that the question of Gay Marriage should come up for a vote in California (and the other 49 states) in 2010, 2012, and every other year until it is passed as law all across the country. There is no sense to patiently waiting for something that might never come. The fight needs to be a constant stream of ever growing and never ceasing legal battles across the country and in our own communities. We LGBT citizens have been too complacent and too easy to pacify with small victories when the ultimate issue is one of basic fairness and equal CIVIL rights. The day we as a collective group begin to make some serious noise is when we will no longer be ignored. Can anyone say, “no taxation without representation”? It’s an idea…
We should go for 2010. There’s no down side to losing in 2010. We’ll just go back in 2012, 2014, etc. until marriage is legalized, which it will be some day.
What’s the problem with trying in 2010, while maintaining a 3-year strategy for 2012 ? A lot of legislation works that way in legislatures; there’s no real reason to forgo a 2010 attempt. Yes, this makes fundraising more challenging, but an honest, earnest effort put toward 2010 may actually help.
(BTW, gayactivist101, the article may have been better written as : “The anger over losing marriage rights – as well as the momentum from RECENT legalization in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont and Iowa – have been strong arguments to launch the earliest campaign possible.” I don’t think the article ignored MA.)
i too would like gay marriage to be legal again in CA as soon as possible. but waiting might be a good choice. if we can’t trust people to be as interested then as they are now, then we’ve lost already.
but it’s also true that in a presidential election year, we’ll be stuck with the same problem as last time — high African-American turnout. and we all know that didn’t help us last time around.
be in 2010 or 2012, it’s an uphill battle. if the last election taught us anything it’s that we’re not as far along as we thought. and true allies are few and far between. we’ve come a long way, but that aint sayin much.
If DOMA has been repealed by 2012, think how much more effective the campaign in CA could be. With DOMA, gay couple with marriage would get no more rights than domestic partnerships. With DOMA gone, marriage would mean 1,138 federal rights. That’s a much easier case to argue. So put the community’s efforts into overturning DADT and DOMA in 2010 while continuing to lay the necessary groundwork in CA.
Maybe not such a bad idea? It is a craps shoot for all three groups. If you win, they are a hero, if they loose, they are idiots for trying so early.
Raising $ is hard now, time changes things faster than $ and two more years could make things much, much easier.
Oh “We can’t wait, people need marriage equality today!”, well for those of us in other states, we will sure as hell will be waiting a lot longer than a couple years.
I know Maine will not same-sex marriage, don’t get me wrong I am a gay men fully supporting the full way to civil marriage, but I just do not think that marriage equality is possible in Maine, since only 40 percent of residents there say they “support” gay marriage.
REMEMBER 56 percent of residents of California said they “support” gay marriage – well in reality it was only 48 percent at the ballot box in 4 November 2008.
California liberal – my ass it is
California can not be liberal – why you ask:
* You can not drink alcohol until you are 21 for all people;
* California has the death penalty still in use;
* You can not have any sex until you are 18 for all people;
* Gays can not get married
California is as conservative as an anti-gay redneck facist on a eco-friendly surfboard in Taxas!!!!!
Where is Massachusetts???? – in the line that quotes:
“The anger over losing marriage rights – as well as the momentum from legalization in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont and Iowa – have been strong arguments to launch the earliest campaign possible.”