By Dave Zirin x-posted fromEdge of Sportswith permission.
As supporters of Gay Marriage have discovered, it's never easy to be on the Mormon Church's enemies list. The Church of Latter-Day Saints backed the anti-Gay Marriage Proposition 8 in California with out-of-state funds, and gave the right a heartbreaking victory this past election cycle. But the Mormon Church has been challenged in the past. Just ask Bob Beamon.
If you know Beamon's name it's almost certainly because he won the long jump gold medal in legendary fashion at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Beamon leapt 29 feet, 2.5 inches, a record that held for twenty-three years. Great Britain's Lynn Davies told Beamon afterwards, "You have destroyed this event." This is because Beamon was not only the first long jumper to break 29 feet, he was the first to break 28.
I am re-posting this diary for Bruce Hahne (a NO ON 8 "super-volunteer") who posted it on Daily Kos earlier today. It deserves to get much wider attention. I like the fact that it not only includes criticisms of the NO ON PROP 8 campaign from an insider but also recommendations on what to do in the next anti-gay ballot measure campaign. I asked Bruce for permission to re-post it to Calitics and he gave it freely.
The post is (VERY LONG) and divided in two parts:
PART I: Problems with the no-on-8 campaign
and
PART II: Recommendations
But what we may not all know is that on September 22, 2008, Connell's firm, Connell Donatelli Inc., was paid $200,000 for their work for the Yes on 8 campaign.
In any case, before his untimely death, Connell had been a key witness in the King-Lincoln v. Blackwell lawsuit regarding fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio.
Conservatives have for decades cultivated a politics of victimhood - presenting themselves as victims of some group, usually liberal and often an oppressed minority, in order to gain sympathy for their insane beliefs and to delegitimize progressive ideas and actions. We're witnessing it on Proposition 8 as well, and now the media is playing along. The result is a massive distortion of the true effects of Prop 8, and the normalization of support for discriminatory policy.
The specific case is that of Margie Christofferson, who quit her job as a manager at LA's El Coyote Restaurant under pressure from activists and customers angry at her donation of $100 to the Yes on 8 campaign. Her journey from oppressor to victim has been aided by Steve Lopez of the LA Times, who wrote a deeply flawed column on Sunday casting Christofferson as a sympathetic figure:
Margie Christoffersen didn't make it very far into our conversation before she cracked. Chest heaving, tears streaming, she reached for her husband Wayne's hand and then mine, squeezing as if she'd never let go.
"I've almost had a nervous breakdown. It's been the worst thing that's ever happened to me," she sobbed as curious patrons at a Farmers Market coffee shop looked on, wondering what calamity had visited this poor woman who's an honest 6 feet tall, with hair as blond as the sun.
That sets the tone for a column that blames the victims of Prop 8 for making this poor woman cry, and Lopez isn't above repeating disputed claims that riot police showed up at El Coyote during a recent rally. But perhaps the most troubling part of the column was Lopez' normalization of her support for discrimination:
But I didn't like what I was hearing about the vilification of Margie Christoffersen and others in California being targeted for the crime of voting their conscience.
"Voting our conscience" has been one of the key methods by which Prop 8 supporters have escaped responsibility for their actions or even acknowledging what Prop 8 was - an attack on the legal equality of thousands of Californians merely for their sexual orientation. When framed this way the Yes on 8 position becomes almost unassailable, immune to criticism. "They're just voting their conscience," we're supposed to think, and not be allowed to ask them to face the realities of what they have done, not be allowed to criticize them for voting to take away equal rights and destroy existing marriages, and not be allowed to act with our own conscience by denying those who backed Prop 8 our patronage. Each of those acts is cast as an aggressive and hurtful act, where the oppressed are cast as oppressors.
Lopez mentions almost in passing that "thousands [of gay people] feel as though their civil rights have been violated" but their concerns and views don't get the sob story treatment Margie Christofferson got - even though she knew full well what she was giving money for, and continues to believe that her vote for Prop 8 was the right move. As Lisa Derrick notes she has never apologized to her once-loyal customers for what she did. Obviously she feels no need to offer any such apology.
Lopez' column writes the real victims of Prop 8 out of the story and replaces them with their victimizers. Once again GLBT Californians and their fundamental rights are treated as either deviant or invisible. The only people whose opinions matter are those who oppose gay rights, and if someone dares call it out then they become the oppressors. Standing up for gay rights, for marriage equality, becomes itself an act of hate.
Margie Christofferson is not a sympathetic figure. She is someone in deep denial of reality, who is unwilling to reconcile her relationships with her own intolerance. It's not the rest of Los Angeles's job to play along with it, to enable it, to pretend as if it doesn't exist. Doing so merely continues the decades of injustice that comes when good people do nothing and discrimination is treated as normal.
It would be nice if the traditional media would recognize this. It's not likely that they will. Martin Luther King, Jr. may be venerated today but he was a controversial figure in his day who received FAR more criticism from the media than credit, who was told that the March on Washington was a dangerous provocation that should not be attempted. The Civil Rights Movement rightly refused to let such concern trolling stop them. We who are part of the marriage equality movement would do well to learn that lesson.
On the "Day Without a Gay", I took the day off from work where I decided to use my time and skills where I was strongest. As a librarian I have a knack of finding sources and providing them to the researcher potential of sources.
So on that day, I headed to a major research library (I work at a community college library that would be limited in resources on what I needed to do), where I would have access to electronic resources, with print sources nearby, if needed.
Already by reading one book and one article, I learned about past Mormon Church activism that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment, but also learned how an anti-gay amendment was defeated in Idaho because the No campaign successfully appealed to Mormons in that state: http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
The idea here is if people do their research, they can make golden discoveries. I believe if activists and a campaign are more information literate, they will be smarter in their outreach, strategies, let alone help the general public become more information literate as well, on the issue of LGBT rights and Marriage Equality.
A) Laughable? What's "laughable" is Gary's "6,000 years" assertion re some global six-millennia-strong definition of marriage.
B) Consequences? Gary: maybe some of us are thinking about the consequences for first- and second-graders with LGBT parents, rather than simply ignoring them.
C) Frame it however you'd like, Gary, but if I allow my kids to attend the wedding of a teacher - who they adore - what business is that of yours? Your framing of what you call "a mistake" strikes me as yet another example of folks like you making it your business to infringe on the rights of parents like me.
I just finished reading this from the LDS "Newsroom" ...
Which reminded me that I'd previously written Maurine Proctor (editor of an influential Mormon mag) back in August about some of the stuff that Meridian (her mag) was putting out there in support of Prop 8 ... and that she'd replied with an article by Roger Severino, legal counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
The same Becket (of recent No Mob Veto fame) and Ballard (of Mormon Apostolic fame) who were BFF long before they recently started whining about our post-election actions.
Which led me to mutter to myself: enough with the Kabuki, Ballard.
As if Stop The Mormons hadn't long since put together the definitive timeline re your shenanigans.
I will be on KRXA at 8 this morning to discuss this and other topics in California politics
The Public Policy Institute of California released a poll today about voter decision-making on Prop 8 (and some other props, including 1A and 4). Their conclusion is that Prop 8 passed because its Republican and evangelical supporters were highly motivated to pass it, whereas Prop 8 opponents lacked a similar sense of urgency. From the PPIC press release:
* Evangelical or born-again Christians (85%) were far more likely than others (42%) to vote yes.
* Three in four Republicans (77%) voted yes, two in three Democrats (65%) voted no, and independents were more closely divided (52% yes, 48% no).
* Supporters of Republican presidential candidate John McCain were far more likely than those who backed President-elect Barack Obama to vote yes (85% vs. 30%).
* Latinos (61%) were more likely than whites (50%) to vote yes; and 57 percent of Latinos, Asians, and blacks combined voted yes. (Samples sizes for Asians and blacks are too small to report separately.)
* Voters without a college degree (62%) were far more likely than college graduates (43%) to vote yes.
* While most voters (65%) consider the outcome of Proposition 8 to be very important, the measure's supporters (74%) are far more likely than those who voted no (59%) to view the outcome as very important.
The poll also indicated that support for same-sex marriage was split, 47% in favor, 48% against, and 5% opposed. That suggests to me that the Yes on 8 campaign's lying ads about the effects of Prop 8 had some effect on voter behavior.
Still, if the poll's conclusions about voter motivation are accurate, then it adds more fuel to the criticisms of the No on 8 campaign for not having done an effective job in mobilizing its own base to vote, and not doing a good enough job of creating a sense of urgency around the proposition - and in reaching out to other communities, including communities of color. If and when this goes back to the ballot we can expect the anti-marriage forces to be highly motivated to vote. Our side, the supporters of marriage equality, need to be motivated as well.
The PPIC poll has a wealth of other information on state politics, from approval ratings of the governor and the legislature (Arnold fares better than the Legislature - 42% approve of Arnold, 49% disapprove, 9% no opinion; and a whopping 66% disapprove of the Legislature) and public opinion on the initiative process.
The Brethren [the top echelon of Mormon leadership] have felt that the best way to organize and pass the Proposition is to have an Ecclesiastical arm and a Grassroots arm to the organization ... The senior folks who run the grassroots are LDS at the coalition and are headed by Glen Greener and Gary Lawrence.
Here's Gary, back in August, firing up his Mormon brigades ...
If same-sex marriage advocates [win], the whole structure collapses - the family, the nation, and in time civilization itself. The time has come for those of us who believe that God, not man, created marriage ... to take a stand and defend it.
(Gary's astounding post-victory TV interview after the break)
To me one of the clearest targets for the Prop. H8 boycotts and protests is Cinemark. Their CEO Alan Stock gave $9,999 to tear apart my family; that's my ticket money recycled to attack me.
Another nasty trend is emerging from the homophobes behind the Yes on 8 campaign.
Apparently shocked by the national uprising in support of full equality under the law for gay/lesbian families, leaders of the Prop. H8 campaign have rolled out a new tactic: threatening the Supreme Court.
What could get opponents of same-sex marriage in the street, however, would be the state Supreme Court tossing out the vote, he said. San Francisco city officials, joined by the city of Los Angeles and Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties, have petitioned the court to do just that.
"I think you'll have a revolution on your hands at that point," Pugno said.
Because nice people understand that nice means keeping close to home until all this recent unpleasantness blows over.
That said, Sonja, do you honestly believe that you're the only member of the LDS church who's been involved professionally with the Yes on 8 campaign? What about this guy? Or this guy?
Looking east from San Francisco or LA or even Sacramento, with the right kind of eyes, you can almost see this cycle's high water mark, where the Obama tsunami peaked and crashed back towards Chicago.
Homages aside, the real lesson is what has happened since the election. The 20th century, focus grouped to not offend, top-down media campaign run by the No on Proposition 8 campaign will be in the same historical chapter as the Hillary "in it to win it" inevitability campaign. They had big money, but in a post-broadcast environment it was junk without strategy.
So with the California Democratic Party in desperate need of dismantling and rebuilding, let's look at the the Long Tail which should have been the natural principle behind No on Proposition 8. Every candidate for the CDP should be focused on translating CDP strategy to take advantage of this dynamic in California.
Despite threatening weather, organizers estimated that nearly 5,000 people came out to City Hall in Boston, MA to stand together as supporters of marriage equality. Organizers, including local politicians, leaders with Mass Equality, and U.S. Congressional Representatives Rep. Nikki Tsongas and Rep. Edward Markey all spoke to the crowd.
Massachusetts made history in 2004 when it became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage. That thought was not lost on organizers today, many of whom traveled to California in the lead up to the vote on Proposition 8 to help with the No on 8 campaign. State Rep. Carl Sciortino read from the Constitution of the State of California, "All people are by nature free and independent and have certain inalienable rights." Thus launched the demonstration.
Some quotes and highlights:
Rep. Nikki Tsongas (D-Mass.): "We are a partner with everyone across the country when it comes to bringing about marriage equality."
State Rep. Byron Rushing: "I am here this afternoon because we are engaged in struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. We are here to struggle. In this democracy, marriage is a civil institution, and in a democracy, all civil institutions must be open to all who qualify."
Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass):(Reflecting on the fact that gay marriage is now illegal in California, while it is legal here in Massachusetts) "There is one thing that distinguishes Massachusetts from California on the issue of gay marriage. We are right, and they are wrong! ... Gays should have the same rights as straights. As God's children, they should have the same rights straights have. Everyone is entitled to full rights under the U.S. Constitution, so now we engage in this great struggle. ... They asked the ancient Greek philosopher when we would know full and true justice. And he answered: We would know true justice when all of those who have not been harmed are as angry as those who have!"
Gary Daffin (LGBT political activist and Executive Director, Multicultural AIDS Coalition): "Here in Massachusetts, we wanted our brothers and sisters in California to wake up after the Election and relax and feel at home in their country. It took Black people 400 years for us to feel at home in our own country. It might not take the LGBT community 400 years, but we need to keep fighting."
Heather Baker (special ed teacher and Boston LGBT rights activst): "We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly. We need equal rights across the country."
Even though the weather wasn't picture perfect, the scene outside of Boston City Hall was. And yeah, that may sound cheesy, but the energy level at today's "Join the Impact" rally in Boston gave me faith that we can build this national movement to ensure marriage equality, and work to foster LGBT rights in all 50 states.
(The impact has been joined. - promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))
Yes, Ventura, there is a Progressive Left--and it came in force today for Join the Impact. It's a common joke here that we live in "Ventucky", though our situation less resembles that of the deep South and more that of a clinging outpost of Red, stuck between the swaths of Blue that are Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. We have the gag-worthy Gallegly as our representative, and even unprincipled liars like Tony Strickland somehow manage to attract over half the population here to vote for them. True, the demographics have been changing with voter registrations to match, but that has translated neither into electoral gains nor significant grassroots activity in the Democratic and progressive community--though that is changing due to the tireless efforts of people like our new VCDP Communications Director Brian Leshon.
But today a sea of Blue washed up on the Ventura shores in front of the Old San Buenaventura Mission to let Ventura and all of California know that yes, we do exist. And no, we're not taking it lying down anymore. Unfortunately, the pictures here don't do the crowd justice; an amateur photographer is emailing me some pics that I'll be putting up as soon as I get them.
It was definitely fire-and-brimstone time in Los Angeles today as approximately 15,000 "No On 8/Join The Impact" protestors gathered near the steps of LA City Hall. Major fires both north and south of us ringed the city in smoke even as the skies above remained a brilliant blue. But neither the fires nor the freakishly warm temperatures (in the 90's) did much to affect attendance.
A few observations:
The City establishment was surprisingly well represented considering the fires. Councilman Bill Rosendahl, LA's first and only openly gay council member, was the first to speak, followed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a number of dignitaries in the Gay and Lesbian community, and City Attorney Rocky Delligadio (who talked about the upcoming legal challenges)
Protesters held all manner of home-made signs (my husband, who worked with me on the general election, remarked how refreshing it was to see so much diversity compared to the graphic uniformity of the Obama campaign).
My favorite, held by a very good looking man in his early twenties, read "Are you sure you want me marrying your daughter?"
Matthew Lawrence, 28, of Santa Ana, California is just one of approximately 500 people who have contacted Signing for Something ( http://www.signingforsomething... )in the last few days to announce his resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of the Mormon Church's handling of and involvement in the gay marriage issue. Matthew is gay and is the son of Gary Lawrence, 67, who is the "State LDS Grassroots Director" for the state of California. (See http://yesonprop8.blogspot.com... ).
Matthew Lawrence, in an e-mail interview with this diarist, said that although he is "extremely upset and frustrated" with his family and that he has "cut off communication with them," that "at the end of the day, I do love them." The elder Lawrence was also the Mormon Church's point man for the Prop 22 campaign in 2000. Matt says, "I love my family so much, but it's hard to not take this personally. We had a brief falling-out over Prop. 22, but that got mended. But two anti-gay initiatives in eight years, it's impossible not to feel attacked."
(Unsurprisingly, it's the LDS leadership that is uniformly anti-justice. Individual members may have different views, and are willing to act on them. This should be applauded - promoted by jsw)
Mormons continued to register their resignations with, and post resignation letters to Signing for Something this week, citing "hatred" and "discrimination" among their chief reasons for quitting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These resignations come among the continuing backlash against the Mormon Church's involvement in passing California's Proposition 8 last week to take away the right of civil marriage for gays and lesbians.
Excepts of a few recent letters are posted here, with links to the full letters.
I am a gay man who, after serving a [Mormon] mission to the Netherlands, left the mormon church (although not officially) as they have no place for me. I've always felt that I didn't need to upset my family or make waves by requesting that my name be removed from the records. After all, I didn't recognize the church's authority anymore so what was the point?
Earlier today Dan Walters repeated the canard that Obama brought new voters to the polls who voted for Prop 8, providing its margin of victory:
Last week, however, 10 percent of voters were African American while 18 percent were Latino, and applying exit poll data to that extra turnout reveals that the pro-Obama surge among those two groups gave Proposition 8 an extra 500,000-plus votes, slightly more than the measure's margin of victory.
To put it another way, had Obama not been so popular and had voter turnout been more traditional - meaning the proportion of white voters had been higher - chances are fairly strong that Proposition 8 would have failed.
That brought out Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight.com to bust this particular myth:
But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters -- the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) -- voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.
Now, it's true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance -- they were helpful on balance. If California's electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin.
That's the first point we all need to internalize and repeat often - Obama brought out a more progressive electorate that improved on the 2004 numbers and made Prop 8 a closer battle than it might otherwise have been. And while Prop 8's passage is a catastrophe no matter the margin of its victory, closer is better as we lay the groundwork for a repeal vote.
The second key point is Obama brought out a younger electorate, and that voters under 30 were strongly against Prop 8 - regardless of racial identification:
Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.
At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.
Perhaps what's needed over the next few years is a California version of The Great Schlep - younger Californians, no matter the community in which they live or identify, ought to do all they can to convince their family members to not vote against marriage rights.
Even if that particular strategy isn't used, Nate Silver's analysis shows that the effort to turn Prop 8 into another opportunity to divide us on racial lines and to scapegoat African Americans is missing the point rather dramatically.
Despite threatening weather, organizers estimated that nearly 5,000 people came out to City Hall in Boston, MA to stand together as supporters of marriage equality. Organizers, including local politicians, leaders with Mass Equality, and U.S. Congressional Representatives Rep. Nikki Tsongas and Rep. Edward Markey all spoke to the crowd.
Yes, Ventura, there is a Progressive Left--and it came in force today for Join the Impact. It's a common joke here that we live in "Ventucky", though our situation less resembles that of the deep South and more that of a clinging outpost of Red, stuck between the swaths of Blue that are Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. We have the gag-worthy Gallegly as our representative, and even unprincipled liars like Tony Strickland somehow manage to attract over half the population here to vote for them. True, the demographics have been changing with