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We Shall Fight Them In . . . 2012? That Good For You?
Don’t overturn Prop 8 in 2010. It’s too soon. At least that is according to the same people who brought us the fact that the LGBT Community in California has to fight to overturn Prop 8 in the first place. These are the same people who believe that the easiest way to fight Prop 8 was to let Prop 8 pass. It was, after all, a strategy so sharp that it cut them. Supposedly this diverse coalition’s motto is “prepare to prevail.” Yes, wait for them to give us marriage rights and then we win.
How about they adopt the motto “we haven’t got a clue.” Largely the push for a 2012 ballot initiative stems from the idea that the reason why Prop 8 passed was a heavy percentage of votes coming from minority communities. Unfortunately, the notion that sixty percent of a demographic which makes up only five percent of California’s population was not enough to actually push Prop 8 over the fifty percent line seems to have been lost on some groups. Of course, the P2P’ers, as they are called, feel that Californians should not rush “back to the ballot to remove the voter-imposed ban on same-sex marriage from the state constitution in 2010 would be rushed and risky. We should proceed with a costly, demanding, and high-stakes electoral campaign of this sort only when we are confident we can win.” At least according to SFGate. Never mind that the opposition groups may be finding fund raising hard right now between the economy and the discovery by a large number of them that their donations to these groups have to be made in the public arena and that can lead to economic repercussions. Indeed, a number of people and businesses which provided the Yes On 8 campaign with its funds discovered that their donations have to be shown to the public, and many people who stood behind the No On 8 campaign withdrew their business from them.
This is a common track right now. Many of the more traditional groups are more than a little ready to push the idea of how the fight for LGBTI rights should be slow, sleepy and quiet. Ted Olson and David Boies should not file their lawsuit on Prop 8 because ‘now is not the right time’, or because ‘they do not have a track record’. Never mind that the Supreme Court is likely to vote in favor of rights for gays, lesbians and transpeople by roughly five to four. Currently, Equality California, the Courage Campaign, Marriage Equality USA and others have a war chest already approaching fifty million and the campaign has not even really begun.
Back in the 1950′s, there was a view that those who would not begin to promote the fight to end desegregation were cowardly. Strangely enough, there were many more blacks who were against the fight to end desegregation than there were for it. Many of the prominent black businessmen, such as those living in Atlanta, felt that the push to end desegregation was moving too fast. Many of those who pushed for a faster move towards desegregation felt that those were opposed to the campaigns were too afraid to stand up to their oppressor.
While this is a rather broad, unnuanced view of the split in the Civil Rights movement, the reality is that there tend to be different segments of the fight who want to move at different paces.
According to the Courage Campaign, over eighty percent of those that they polled want a return to the fight on Prop 8 in the next session. Perhaps a better track would be for them to push for a Constitutional Convention for California. Many of the problems facing California stem from this constant stream of propositions that have to be voted upon. Recently, California Governor Arnold Schwartenager was unable to get a slew of propositions passed the California voters in order to save the state from reaching the point where they were handing out IOU’s to cover their own expenses.
Right now, many of the anti-marriage equality groups such as the National Organization for Marriage are hurting. NOM was made the laughing stock of the nation after their rather disastrous Gathering Storm commercial which aired in Vermont after the marriage debate was over. It was one of the most lampooned advertisements in the nation at the time. Many of these groups are under stress based upon their ability to afford to give. What is more, many churches and religious groups are under massive financial stress with some of them actually losing their lands and buildings because tithes are down and the costs of running those buildings have simply gone up. Of course, the mortgages and loans taken out on the buildings probably helped with that.
Is there a better time than right now to fight to take down Prop 8?
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7 Responses to We Shall Fight Them In . . . 2012? That Good For You?
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Maggie Gallagher
July 17, 2009 at 5:07 am
Just side note–Organizations like NOM are hurting? NOM has raised $3.6 million in the first 5 months of this year, and has more than tripled our number of small donors. Your comment aboiut NOM being hurt is classic in-group thinking. Everyone is entitled to their opinion it doesn’t hurt my organization .
I do think our country is hurt by the push for gay marriage. I am sorry we disagree on this marriage thing. In your mind that makes someone “anti-gay” I understand that. I wish it were not the case, but there we are.
Take care, Nobody in the room but just you and me and all of us Americans fighting about first moral principles. Americans do that.
Maggie
Sei
July 17, 2009 at 5:37 am
As opposed to the $50 million that the marriage equality groups have raised in the last quarter, and that was of the one that I know right away. Hm….$50 million versus $3.6 million. Add to that, the tendency by your group Ms Gallagher, to make easily lampooned advertisements and to make your advertisement buys in ineffective areas. After all, the times I saw the Gathering Storm ads were during one of the most liberal hours of television, on a television program which features an open lesbian as its host, and it happened after the veto override. Add to that, you have operations in at least two states- Maine and California- that I know about, and somehow $3.6 million seems rather paltry when trying to run a sustained anti-marriage campaign anywhere in this country even for five months. Not to mention the fact that your group is rather a laughing stock when it comes to the mainstream of the nation between the debacle with Carrie Prejean and the few attempts to scream over that controversy on networks like MSNBC to try and get your message through to any audience by FOX’s daytime audience and the Gathering Storm advertisement. Sorry, but I stand by my assessment. If your group had raised around forty or fifty million for the last quarter, I would be making a different assessment. I am not in the habit of group think, Ms Gallagher, nor do I tend towards the delusional. Most of my analysis tends towards the cold and logical. Anti-marriage groups like your own are hurting. $3.6 million is a rather pathetic amount of money when even the groups in Maine have raised more than that already this year. You are suppose to be operating on a national stage, and local groups have more money than that right now. Your going to operate in Maine, California and New York on less than $4 million dollars, and the New York battle has been going on for some time now.
BTW, what you are doing is attempting to destroy one of the founding principles of this nation. Namely, that of the Freedom OF and FROM Religion. You see, your belief concerning same-sex marriage is based upon a specific Christian view point and not the view point of other religions including those of several Christian sects and many non-Christian religions. I am more opposed to you being un-American and anti-Constitution than I am about you being against homosexuality. I do not care if you are against homosexuality. What I do care about is your attempts to impose your religious beliefs upon this nation because you and people like you cannot understand, accept, or embrace the idea of all religions being equal under the law. You erroneously believe that this is a Christian, or occasionally a Judeo-Christian, country. That is, of course, when people who hold your opinion do not want to sound anti-Semetic. Of course, I remember the views of a few of your cohorts which include the ideas that involve things like the duty of America is to spread Christianity and to convert everyone to their view of that religion.
What you are doing is far more dangerous and damaging to America than marriage equality ever would be. What you are doing is attacking the very foundation of this country’s identity. All we’re doing is ordering it some new drapes. Of course, many in your position feel that the only way to “save this country” is to destroy it.
What is more, Ms Gallagher, the nation’s opinion on this subject is slowly turning against you. This is not about ‘protecting children’, or any of the rather heavily debunked lines of attacks that you present in attempts to strike fear into people (btw, people are more afraid right now about the economy than marriage equality and so they don’t have any fear left for the color of the drapes). Once three legislatures passed marriage equality bills and nothing horrible or bad happened to those states, Ms Gallagher, sentiment in this nation started taking an uptick towards accepting this type of legislation.
I am sorry, Ms Gallagher, but $3.6 million dollars is a laughable amount, especially since so much of it has to go to salaries such as your own.
Nate
July 15, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Yeah, I disagree with Equality California and the HRC. It’s time to kill the Gay Inc. and really have a grassroots movement! The power of the people is bigger than the power of a corporation.
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