Comments on: California Equality: Wait til 2012 to attack gay marriage ban

By: Lori Hahn

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:14:15 +0000

Hellooooo? Did not this last debacle, shot in the foot at every turn by bad messaging to the wrong audience, bad PR advice, and an overabundance of organizations – all asking for handouts three times a week not clue anyone in?

Until we can get one group – and leadership totally not into self-aggrandizement who can work with other points of view (has anyone heard of a multi-pronged approach?) – to cohesively plot this out, we’re going to lose again.

Use 2010 to figure out the message and audience. Use 2011 to do the major fundraising. Take it to the streets in 2012.

By: Busty_StClair2009

Busty_StClair2009 — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 07:16:31 +0000

I just think its ididotic that they change there minds i Mean come on….. Lets allow Same sex Marriage, Turn around ohh no i think we can ban it… Make up your minds…lol..

By: AriG3

AriG3 — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:38:05 +0000

I see both sides of the argument but California should really take advantage of the economic climate. If you think we are having a hard time raising cash can you imagine the other side? They rely on 10% of ones income and given the circumstance 10% of 0 is not that much. Sounds ugly but when your opponent is down you don’t wait until they stagger back up. You kick like crazy until you get your way. As for donations, leverage your moral high ground and get people to donate talent and materials instead of money, hell if you need I can help you launch a public relations campaign in Spanish. Ill do for free. Also think about it if you loose in 2010 you learn and establish public interest. If your quiet until 2012 you risk the chance of a repeat with the presidential election, granted Obama might not be as popular in four years as he is now. Particularly if we do not see a bounce back in the economic situation. Granted housing prices probably wont start to bounce back on average until Q4 2010 or Q1 2011, and the republicans are going to gain seats in 2010 making the Dems efforts to mobilize churches even stronger. So if you want to put your chips on 2012 go for it I say make a presence in 2010 if it doesn’t work out, make connections at a grass roots level and keep on. There is no excuse, and gayactivist101 we as a voting bloc need to play both parties, if one doesn’t work we need to find a way to pit them against each other. Liberals shouldn’t have a monopoly on the gay vote, they haven’t done much for us. In closing its all about resources and God knows the GLBT community in Cali has access to a lot of resources.

By: bama-stu

bama-stu — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:50:54 +0000

Regardless of whether it is 2010 or 2012, if Barack Obama would step up the plate and say, in a public arena, that he is for repealing Proposition Eight then we will have a large number of people on our side. Until he steps up and does what he needs to do, things will be a lot slower than we want them to be.

By: charley

charley — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:16:57 +0000

This seems symptomatic of the lack of direction that plagued the no on 8 campaign from the beginning.

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:15:27 +0000

ECQA is so timid. Because they screwed up last time, they are afraid to be blamed if it loses again. They need to get out of the way and let other groups lead. It is not a question of blaming African Americans and other minorities: it is to note that the demographics favor us in 2010 more than they will in 2012. In 2012, our enemies will be making robocalls with Obama saying that he does is against same-sex marriage. (The dummies that ran the 2008 campaign did not even use a letter from Obama saying that he was opposed to proposition 8.) Of course, we have to try to win over minorities and even the Republicans, but when we have 49% of the voters in our favor it is folly to wait until 2012: that says that marriage equality isn’t a very important issue for us.

By: bstjohn

bstjohn — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:59:52 +0000

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.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:22:56 +0000

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/.

By: Patrick in Connecticut

Patrick in Connecticut — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:57:21 +0000

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.

By: bama-stu

bama-stu — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:38:26 +0000

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!