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This piece comes out of this past weekend’s California Statewide Leadership Summit, reconvened in San Bernardino this past weekend. The writers of the piece, Sara Beth Brooks and Chelsea Salem, are California lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community organizers who both attended the summit.
Related, mainstream media (MSM) articles regarding the summit and/or the straw pole vote discussed in the article below are the San Francisco Chronicle‘s New straw poll of gay marriage leaders: Overturn Prop 8 in 2010 and Same-sex marriage backers weigh ballot date, as well as the New York Times‘ Backers of Gay Marriage Rethink California Push and the Bay Area Reporter‘s Consultants prefer 2012 Prop 8 repeal.
~~Autumn~~
The Elephant In The Room
By Sara Beth Brooks and Chelsea Salem
The California LGBT movement can all agree on one thing: we want to take marriage equality back to the ballot box. Two months ago 250 California activists met in Fresno to address the factors involved our new campaign, specifically the question of when: 2010 or 2012. We were asked to return to our towns armed with the most current polling data, and hold local meetings to capture the voices of our community.
We were told that the Get Engaged Tour was designed to truly listen. In this spirit, we returned to our home cities and started organizing. We held large meetings and intimate gatherings. At every event, we took a straw poll of the major question on everyone’s mind: do we return to the ballot on marriage equality in 2010 or 2012? This vision of engaging our community with intensity was inspiring. There was debate in public corridors and consensus was not forced. We promised community members and community leaders that everything would be clear after July 25.
The Statewide Leadership Summit reconvened in San Bernardino, California last Saturday. The seven-hour meeting wasn’t modeled after the Get Engaged Tour that we organized in 80 cities across the state; the anticipated tour results did not hold a prominent place in the agenda. 
We were under the impression that San Bernardino would be about reporting back on behalf of the communities we represent. Instead, the meeting was packed with lectures on ballot process and lacking in true debate at all. The Get Engaged report that was distributed was missing at least six cities that we know of, as well as any hard data related to the straw polls. When asked about the missing data, it was stated that because some of the tour sites reported in generalities rather than specific data they had chosen not to present any specific numbers. If it wasn’t to inform and then represent the voices of our community, what was the tour designed to accomplish? With this question unanswered, the day wearing on the hearts and minds of those present, we were still held back from even a plenary show of hands regarding the ballot.
Actual efforts towards any decision didn’t begin until well after 2:00pm, when the heat and the fatigue had worn the crowd down. After the arguments for each date — 2010 and 2012 — were presented, there was a lengthy and uncontrollable floor debate about if we should make a decision, and if so, how we would make it. When we would take a vote, sometimes it wasn’t clear what we were voting on. It’s hard to vote for a structure when you don’t have a structure yet for voting. Someone finally posed the question of whether or not votes should come from individuals, or be limited to one per organization. Someone else wondered aloud how the voices of those not present would be heard.
There wasn’t a vote on our most important issue — when are we going back to the ballot on marriage equality: 2010 or 2012? — until well into hour six. We did not establish a decision making process first, so this vote took forty-five minutes to complete, and was counted at least three times. The results of the non-binding straw poll are that the community wants to return to the ballot in 2010, but the meeting concluded with, “Make sure you report back by August 15 on 2010 versus 2012.”
No. No, no, no. Absolutely not.
In every statewide poll of our community, it’s been overwhelming response for 2010. EQCA, Courage Campaign, and MEUSA all polled their memberships and came to the same conclusion. Some regional communities came out in favor of 2012, but the Get Engaged Tour support for 2010 was overwhelming. And the vote in that room, however skewed and jaded by hours of activism under the heat lamp of the IE, showed 2010 as well. How many times are we going to ask our community to vote on this?
Furthermore, we made promises to our community to bring back a decision. We understand that growing pains are a necessary. However, the indecision that San Bernardino leaves in the community’s mind must give way to the next step. We came to the summit ready for the catalyst that would propel us forward. Frustrated and disappointed, the summit was an incredibly successful failure. The failures are clear, but the success was that we left San Bernardino with more determination than we came with. The summit was not just about a ballot measure, it was about the movement.
***
It is time for action. Whether you call it a “Coalition of the Willing,” a moniker we feel is sadly inadequate, or 
however you refer to those who have met their personal benchmarks to move forward to the ballot box, there is a united force that is moving forward with a campaign to restore marriage equality on November 2, 2010. The community has made the call and it is up to our leaders to answer it.
We need our leaders to step forward now. As Torie Osborn says, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” The campaign starts today. It is time to stop talking about a ballot campaign, and time to start running one. According to a document presented by Love, Honor, Cherish, a volunteer force of 10,000 each working one five hour shift would get us the signatures we need to qualify. It’s time for lawyers to draft language and the community to discuss it. It’s time to make that September 23rd deadline for ballot language to be submitted. It’s time for a campaign manager (We read that Steve Hildebrand is looking for work — and is already a friend of Courage Campaign).
***
So, if you wonder what’s next for marriage equality in California? Work. It’s time to get to work, California. The campaign to win your rights back starts today. Already there are groups canvassing across the state, some on a weekly basis. Groups like Marriage Equality USA (MEUSA), Courage Campaign, and Equality California (EQCA) have structures in place for canvassing and phone banking. Join a local canvassing team or get the information and resources from local representatives and start your own street team! Help build this campaign yourselves. No one else is going to build it if we don’t — and the statewide group is being politicized through stalling tactics.
Now is the time we have been waiting for. Now is the time to do the one thing we all agree needs to be done: restore marriage equality in California. The time for talk is over; the time for action is now.
~~~~~
Sara Beth Brooks is an organizer in San Diego, California. She can be reached at sarabrooks@gmail.com
Chelsea Salem is an organizer in Orange County California. She can be reached at seasalem@gmail.com
28 Comments
The time to take the fight for equality back from our self-appointed leaders is now.They blew it once. They’re not getting a chance to blow it again. The repeal of Prop 8 will be on the ballot in 2010 and every group better get behind it pronto.
Thanks to Sara & Chelsea…And all those real grassroots activists who have really been working their hardest to undo Prop H8 in Cali. It breaks my heart to leave the state and see all this hard work by these wonderful people go ignored, unappreciated, and/or trashed. I really hope the “Coalition of the Strong-Willed and Hard-Working” can lead on a real 2010 campaign. Hopefully then, the more recalcitrant “establishment” will follow.
Well, I can understand…Why these self-appointed leaders are still huffing and puffing. They were used to being in charge. Now, they’re not.
And honestly, I can see some of the points made by Unite the Fight on the chaos that’s starting to cripple the CA activists again. However, I disagree with them that this makes 2010 impossible. Rather, I think Torie Osborn is right when she says that we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for. If we were to just develop a good campaign plan and abide by it, we can win. Simple as that.
It’s too sad that the establishment “leaders” would rather poo-poo the activist base and mock the real drive to get rid of the marriage ban rather than do something constructive to move forward and work with us.
Unfortunately, things haven’t changed in California. Polling shows that if this measure if brought back to the ballot box so soon it will lose again.
Work needs to be done on a grassroots level to change the hearts and minds of the non-LGBT people in the state. It’s really impossible to build grass roots support while also planning a campaign and asking for money.
While the people in California like to think that the state is very liberal and on their side, Nov 2008 proved otherwise. A lot of work still needs to be done.
A sign of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.
“We need our leaders to step forward now”No, what we need are new leaders. We keep talking about what what “the leaders” need to do…and then we stand by and wait for some “leaders” to show up and do what we tell them to do…anyone see the fallacy here? Instead, we got opportunists, career politicians that have in their best interest to draw out the process as long as we let them.
Who appointed them as our leaders? They did.
Who is allowing them to remain our leaders? We are.
Seriously, with Prop 8, where did all that lovely money go? To produce a few corporate-bland television ads that only aired a few times…something stinks in Denmark.
At this point, creating a competing organization will NOT muddy thing up, nor split the effort of the movement. Right now, any funds going to the fight are disappearing into a black hole, so there is nothing to lose by creating a counter org, one that actually speaks for the people it represents.
And Mr. Kors, stop sending those Chicken Little-esque “CRITICAL: We must act now! (by sending money to Equality California)” emails…please. They make it seem like all you are interested in is fund raising. Oh, wait…
I’m confused about what the elephant is the room is.I favor 2010. Seems the writers and most people favor 2010.
Is the elephant that you are referring to in your thread title Autumn is that that’s not going to happen with present leadership.
I read the NYT article earlier this am before I read this post. Since the POC Prevail statement earlier this month the elephant in the room seems to be that TPTB don’t want a vote to happen until 2012.
I’m disappointed but resigned. I’ve already been a canvasser this summer. I’ll stop if it’s 2012 until closer to that date (go ahead and flame me whoever wants to) not out of protest but out of live going on. However, repealing prop8 in 2010, I’m ready to roll.
Yeah, they are…Someone “in the know” admitted to me that these “CRITICAL!” and “URGENT!” emails are just being used to raise money to pay salaries. And for what, exactly? I don’t know.
I was really starting to respect EQCA again when it seemed like they were listening to the grassroots… And when they brought in new blood (like Marc Solomon from MA) to shake things up. But now, it’s deja vu all over again. They’re ignoring their own grassroots and the enthusiasm of their new staff in favor of “experts” only interested in steamrolling 2012 against our wills. I just hope a “rogue coalition of the willing” that gets 2010 moving will give them, the Task Force, and all the other groups halting progress a wake-up call. I really don’t want to see the movement any more fractured than it already is, but what can we do when so many in the establishment seem more willing to fight us than the radical right?
Sincere questionWhat leaders are we talking about now when we say they would rather “poo-poo the activist base”? Truly, I’ve seen them engage our community more than ever before. I feel it’s the community that’s lost all trust and focused vision to move forth. Our leaders are taking our cues from us. And now it’s chaos.
I agree with Torie. I love her to death. I think she’s amazingly smart, brilliant and a rich mine of experience. I think developing a good campaign plan needs to happen. But who’s to do it? No one’s stepping up to the plate, and when some tries to, they’re shot down. We’re still bickering on how to decide who’s to do what and when, and how THAT’s going to be decided, so on and so forth.
I’m not saying either that 2010 is impossible. I’m actually neutral on the date. I will support any date as long as our community is united behind it. My post you reference is about uniting us first behind a plan through effective leadership, otherwise, we’ll fail. However, after the Summit, it seems to me like that’s not going to happen anytime soon, taking 2010 further and further away from our grasp.
I won’t…
You have every right to do so if the establishment thwarts a 2010 campaign. This is the biggest point that they’re missing IMHO. Where will the energy go if we delay? It will probably leave California!
And how will 2012 be any easier? There will be another Presidential Election. (Need I say more on our “fierce advocate”?) Candidates on all levels will be competing for all that campaign cash that the LGBT establishment thinks will just magically fall into their hands for a 2012 marriage campaign. Momentum will have been lost by then, and we’ll still have little time to set up a campaign.
yeah, I sent a small donationto EQCA as well as to Courage Campaign but…I mean, given the budget crisis in California (esp. with all sorts of threats to LGBT social services in California as well as nationwide) aren’t these financial resources better spent elsewhere at this time?
i wish I had your crystal ballCan you tell us who the Republican nominee will be in 2012?
Heck, who will be the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2010? And the Democratic.
So, if you have to work steadily and slowly to win back your rights you’ll just “stop.”
But if you keep canvassing now (along with a few hundred of your likeminded friends) how exactly are you going to change the minds of 100,000 voters in the next 55 weeks?
Not necessarily…http://www.ocprogressive.com/d…
That is, we can win in 2010. You’re correct, however, that it will take hard work to win. That’s what frustrates me the most about all of this. So many activists are ready to work, but the establishment “leaders” don’t seem to do any. Full equality won’t be handed to us on a silver platter, so our “leaders” need to stop acting like this is what will happen.
This makes it sound too easy.It’s a legitimately hard decision. It will actively hurt us to try again and lose. We should not fight again at the ballot box until we can win. If we can win in 2010, we should campaign for an amendment in 2010. If we can’t win until 2012, we shouldn’t campaign for an amendment until 2012.
So can we win in 2010 or can’t we? I don’t know the answer, and I doubt anyone does with certainty. However, I think the professional activists who study the issue full-time have a better idea of the answer than the rank-and-file community does. We should leave the decision in their hands and then judge them on the result. If election day 2010 rolls around and we have no amendment on the ballot but the polls suggest that we would have won if we had, then we can get angry at the leadership and withhold funding. Same result if we do have an amendment on the ballot and it loses.
I know, there’s a strong case to be made that EQCA really fucked things up in the 2008 cycle. Maybe they’re not the smartest guys in the room after all. But surely there’s a group out there that is. I’d suggest GLAD, the ACLU and the Gill Action Fund as extremely competent pro-gay groups whose opinion we should trust over the vote of the masses.
The thread title……came from the writers. I was a little confused by the title as well, but I posted this without my comment on that, or any other part of the article.
I’m not endorsing the contents of this diary in posting this, by the way: I’m giving these two well-regarded grassroots activists an opportunity to air their views without me commenting one way or the other about the contents of their piece.
It seems like most of the arguments sayingthat 2010 is unrealistic also say that 2012 is just less unrealistic, but still a monumentally difficult & perhaps impossible task.
Most of the arguments I’ve seen for 2012 actually function as more compelling arguments for 2014, 2016, or 2018, or something more along those lines.
2010 is where the energy is at. With each passing year, assuming our better organized & better funded opponents choose not to use the extra time at all, the number of people we have to “convince per day” drops but it still isn’t going to be an easy fight if we wait until 2012.
The only wild card that can maybe beat those odds is the energy on our side. And that energy is for 2010.
A wild card and 6,000 volunteers and 30 million dollars will get you a winThat’s all…. grin
What Jake said.
If we could do it without the huge expenditure,I’d say we should have a pro-equality referendum on the ballot at every election in every state with an anti-equality law or amendment on the books. Instead of letting the hetero-supremacists think it’s a settled issue, we push the reminder that no, they’re continuing to choose to insist on their own legal supremacy while the rest of us continue to live with the consequences.
Has there ever been a pro-equality referendum?ani-equality, yes, how well I know, but I don’t ever recall a pro-equality ballot initiative.
The point seems to beless a matter of “when will we be more likely to get this passed” and more a matter of “why do the professional ‘activist’ set even bother to ask the rest of us for our input if they’ll just ignore it anyway?” I’m used to seeing astroturfing on the right, but this pseudo-vanguardist stuff is just obnoxious.
I proposeIt hurts less to try and lose, than to quit and lose.
Not going to the ballot in 2010 is a default loss. It will hurt.
The other wild card There seriously could be another wild card here. Petitions are being circulated to put another anti-immigrant ballot measure up for a vote. This will change everything. California is a majority minority state, Latinos and Asians make up the majority of California. If this ballot measure gets put on, there will be a battle like most of you have never seen. This will tip the scales against us.
How long with this go on?What do we want?
Gay rights!
When do we want them?
Um, eventually?
Someone’s always going to be happy to tell us we should wait.
Clearly for those who wish to delay the campaign until the 2012 election cycle (or later), an option is to run out the clock. In October they can say, “well, we wanted to go for 2010 too, but now we can’t get on the ballot.”
I don’t want to be too cynical, but I think some of the foot dragging is strategic.
For years, I practiced checkbook activism. Now I’m actually doing other things too: getting signatures on petitions, fundraising, raising awareness (and I could probably do more).
If the Prop 8 repeal is not on the ballot in 2010, those organizations responsible for holding it back won’t be getting my cash.
Why couldn’t it be an opprotunity to build allies?…and show how open minded we are with gay rights groups strongly & publicly opposing anti-immigrant measures.
Why couldn’t that be just the opportunity we’ve been looking for, & need to build allies on our fundamental beliefs of fairness & equality, and bring in those groups that we desperately need to reach out to more?
Repeal Proposition 209if you can and gay group can get solidily behind that. It’s an idea, anyway.
How do you change evangelical minds?Sometimes, it does happen, but by and large the religious types are wholly inflexible on gay rights, any compromise would in and of itself be a grevious sin.
Maybe you don’t have to!Maybe you can get more non-LGBT non-religious types to vote.
We will get equality only when it costs too much to deny uswe will obtain it by making it too inconvienient for others to deny that to us, too costly, too much trouble.
We will not get it through gentlemanly lobbying strategy; I’m sorry, but strangely that has not worked out well.
Still, we as a community cannot be troubled to to the work necessary for radical activism…
So, perhaps we might get something in, say 2018.