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Balliett: Author of DOMA asks for repeal

Jennifer Vanasco — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:12:06 +0000

One week before Join the Impact’s National DOMA protest, the waves of change are already starting to form! Bob Barr, the infamous author of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), wrote an op-ed in the LA Times stating that DOMA should be repealed! This is something worth celebrating, and something we should take to the next level.

Ever since we announced the Jan. 10 National DOMA Protest, we learned that many members of the LGBTQ community do not even know what DOMA is.

DOMA, put simply, is one current reason LGBTQ rights are so hard to come by. When you drill down to the heart of DOMA, it was launched as an effort to keep same-sex couples from gaining the same rights as heterosexual married couples… in other words, it was born out of a need to restrict the rights of the LGBTQ community.

DOMA has been used time and time again to continually restrict the rights of the LGBTQ community in employment, spousal benefits, property ownership, insurance, etc. Many view it as discrimination written into the constitution (I am one of those many).

On Jan. 10, we are protesting to repeal DOMA and to gain 1 million Signatures on our Open Letter to Barack Obama. This letter is meant to serve as a reminder to Obama of the promises that he made to our community, which he wrote in an Open Letter to the LGBTQ Community in early 2008. In that letter, he promised to repeal DOMA.

We drafted a letter that uses his exact words in an effort to remind him just how accountable we expect him to be for his promises. Many requests have been made to broaden this letter and add a request for full gay marriage, or other initiatives to the list.

We do not want to deter from the point of the letter, though: Repeal DOMA. Hold True to Your Promises. Your Words DO Have Meaning.

DOMA Defined:

On September 21st, 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into federal law. DOMA, wrote discrimination into the Constitution with two strict regulations:

No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.

The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.

To drive the point even further, 37 states slowly but surely adopted DOMA as a state-wide regulation further amending state Constitutions. This appalling law tells the American people that it is OK to discriminate. That it is OK to recognize the LGBTQ community as less than equal. This same law, that the California Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional set the precedence for Proposition 8. This same law has nullified many rights that come with Domestic Partnerships. This law does not just affect members of the LGBTQ community – it also repeals rights from heterosexual non-married couples. This law has nullified the heterosexual rights that come with Common Law Marriage. This law blurred the lines of separation of church and state even further. And this law, is one of many that President Elect Barack Obama has PROMISED to repeal in his “Open Letter to the LGBTQ Community.

DOMA is not a speed bump on the road to full equality. It is not even a road block. DOMA is a gigantic brick wall that is crumbling!

On Jan. 10, we encourage you to find a protest in or near your city. Join in this important national moment, where we will work together to shed light on the negative effects of DOMA. Help us get signatures between now and Jan 10th on the Open Letter to Barack Obama.

Bob Barr, who created the beast, is now in our corner to help us defeat it! He started the wall crumbling, now it’s time we come together this Saturday with our own “demo team” to help tear it down!

Balliett: Why ‘Day Without a Gay?’

Jennifer Vanasco — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:36:29 +0000

We’re getting a great deal of discussion on Join the Impact about Day Without a Gay. A lot of people have questions about what to do on Dec. 10th, why we chose the 10th, or why we chose this event in general.

I thought I’d take a minute to explain the purpose behind Day Without a Gay (although David Craig has his own personal story that explains why he came up with this idea).

Simply put: The LGBTQ Community contributes $700 Billion per year to the U.S. economy. When you put that into perspective, that’s the same amount as the economic bailout package.

Our community could be, in a sense, the economic bailout… so we’re good enough to put billions a year into the system, but not good enough to be afforded the same rights as everyone else who contributes to that system?

This is ONE of the THREE things Day Without a Gay is all about.

1. An economic boycott for 1 day. On December 10th: International Human Rights Day. Do not use your phone, do not turn on the TV, do not go online, do not buy ANYTHING. Take it one step further if you wish: take $80 out of your bank account and keep it in your pocket all day. We are taxpaying citizens who are asking for the same rights as every other tax paying US citizen.
2. A day of VOLUNTEERING. That’s right. Don’t sit in your house with all your lights off staring at the wall. Let’s get out there and show this world just how much our community has to offer.

There are many ways to volunteer: Go to a soup kitchen, talk at a local school, work at a retirement center, collect food for the LGBTQ Food Drive, or work with your local LGBTQ organization to get marriage equality petition signatures in your area. Join The Impact is teaming up with the Courage Campaign to gather 1 Million Signatures to repeal Prop 8. These are just a few ideas.
3. A day of VISIBILITY. We are asking that people call of work for this event. This is a great way to show just how many of us there are.

Now here’s the IMPORTANT thing to note: there are still many states that do not have sexual identity inclusive ENDA laws. In other words, in many states, an employer can still fire an employee for being gay. Consider your situation both economically and personally before calling off work.

There are MANY WAYS to show visibility on December 10th. If you cannot call off work, we ask that you show up to work wearing a White Knot, but don’t forget to PACK YOUR LUNCH and refrain from that tempting coffee run.

So Join us in making an impact in many ways on December 10th. Let’s show the nation just how expansive our impact can be – how we give to the economy, and how we can all come together and give to our local communities. View the PRESS RELEASE here.

To quote Prop 8 the Musical “There’s Money to be Made.” How are we going to pay for the economic bailout? Why not allow the LGBTQ community to join in Civil Marriage? Could you imagine how much we would spend on weddings?!

Well let’s find out how much won’t be spent on Dec. 10th.

Prop 8 Exclusive: Young gay marriage activist leads national protests

Jennifer Vanasco — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:06:45 +0000

“You know that book, The Tipping Point?” asks the young Internet maven, referring to Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 work exploring cultural shifts and the small things that incite them. “Well, on Sunday night, I said to myself, “Holy crap. We’re at the tipping point!”

Seattle activist Amy Balliett, founder of web-spawned phenomenon “Join the Impact” realized that the site ‐ at that point, only a two-day old project ‐ had reached a certain critical mass, logging 50,000 hits per hour. The “impact” was crashing servers.

Little did she know how viral this thing would become.

“Join the Impact” began as a blog post and email template by Willow Witte, a friend of Balliett’s who had sent the missive to inspire friends after the passage of California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 8.

The success of similar propositions in Arizona and Florida, as well as an anti-gay adoption measure in Arkansas, only added gravity to the situation. Witte encouraged contacts to forward the note to their local LGBT groups to solicit plans of community action. Balliett responded to her friend’s email saying, according to a post on the site, “We shouldn’t wait, we need to mobilize now, and we need to on a national level, at the exact same moment, throughout the country.”

And mobilize they did: this past Friday, Nov. 7, ‘”Join the Impact” hit the web. Five hours later, the site logged 10,000 visitors. Apparently a lot of other people shared the young women’s desire to turn despair into resolve.

By midnight, 20 cities’ worth of young volunteers had signed on to organize protests against the discriminatory propositions.

The next evening, Nov. 8, the site had tripled its hits.

By Monday morning, a plan had emerged: Cities around the country would organize their own efforts to coordinate a synchronized protest for Sat., Nov. 15, 10:30 a.m. PST. The movement became officially global with hits from the UK and France, and by Nov. 11, over one million visitors had come to the site.

Across the country, posts on Craigslist, bulletins on MySpace, and emails on ListServs with titles like “Meet at City Hall next weekend!” and “Upset about Prop 8? Here’s what YOU can do about it,” began to buzz with notice of the upcoming national protest.

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