New York has passed marriage equality. Let's repeat that. In. A. Big. Bold. Font.
New York has passed marriage equality!
or even better
Why not then California?
With an incredible victory in the New York State Senate as tailwind, the question of whether to pursue repeal of Proposition 8 now comes to the fore. Is California to be left in the proverbial dust, awaiting a Supreme Court decision that even if favorable will take years and years? Or will the state put this scourge to rest a little less than seventeen months from now?
The answer is not blowing in the wind. The answer is in the hands of LGBT organizations similar to those that came together in a unified front (or perhaps were pushed!) to win marriage equality in New York. The answer is in the hands of donors similar to those who were willing to go to bat for marriage equality to the tune of millions of dollars in New York. The answer is in the hands of grassroots advocates similar to those who, in New York, worked their butts off. They called, they gathered signatures and postcards, they called some more, and they demonstrated on the streets and in the Capitol in anticipation of the vote. Would their analogues in California work their butts off to pass marriage equality in California if they were given the chance?
There's no doubt in my mind: the answer is 'yes'. 'Yes' to putting it on the ballot. 'Yes' that the money and enthusiasm will be there.
So I took a bit of a break this past month, and I figured by the time I came back y'all would have things sorted out: people would be surely by flying around with jet packs by now, God would have sent fires and floods to smite the unrighteous, and, if I really got lucky, Barack Obama would have "grown a pair".
And now that I'm back, debt negotiations are about to commence between that same Barack Obama and the Republican Congressional Leadership, things like Social Security and Medicare cuts are apparently on the table in order to protect tax cuts for the rich, and certain quarters of the Republican Party aren't even trying anymore to hide their racism.
All of which suggests that I shouldn't be looking for a jet pack anytime soon.
But there is some good news: God is apparently working hard, and states like Oklahoma and Arizona and Florida and Georgia and Texas have been alternately aflame or aflood, apparently as a result of their unrepentant behavior...and on the economic front, New York City's Stonewall Inn is going to make a ton of money this summer hosting weddings.
That gives us a lot to talk about...so let's get right to it.
On Wednesday I wrote a piece on Huffington Post and another at Open Left talking about the centrality of fixing the foreclosure crisis to any recovery from the economic meltdown. Since the toxic assets at the center of the meltdown are based on mortgages that are entering foreclosure at a rate of one every 13 seconds, we have to address foreclosure as a part of getting America back on its feet.
The Homeowner Affordability and Stabilization Plan (HASP), announced in Phoenix on Wednesday by President Obama, which will help up to an estimated 9 million families, is a good first step - and the first serious effort by the Federal government to confront the challenge. But just because there was an announcement does not lessen the urgency of the problem. We are still in a situation where four families every minute enter the foreclosure process. We believe there must be a moratorium on foreclosures until HASP is fully implemented.
So yesterday we at ACORN launched the Home Defenders campaign in seven cities - a campaign to force the question of moratoriums and to press the urgency of this crisis into the consciousness of elected officials on the state and national levels. This is a campaign of refusal and resistance, refusal by distressed homeowners to cooperate with the foreclosure process and resistance to attempts to evict them from their homes. And in some cases it is a campaign of getting people back into their homes.
I wanted to give everyone a report-back from our activities yesterday, which is in the extended text.
After seeing Gila's latest story on The Liberal OC, I've been thinking. I know, I know. That's a REALLY scary thought. But trust me, it's not scary.
All too often when we think of the netroots, we think of those big, glitzy, glamorous national blogs with all those hundreds of thousands of User IDs. We think of that huge convention in Chicago that just ended. We think big, and we think national. But when you really look at the big picture, the national scene is only a small part of it.
The SF Chronicle just caught onto this, and I'm glad to see them noticing. There's a giant segment of the netroots that hasn't been noticed much, but is nonetheless making a huge difference throughout California, and throughout the nation. Follow me after the flip for more...
