Q Of The Day: Are You Sending Any More Money To The California Campaign(s) For Marriage Equality?

It's all about the moolah

I don't think it was the organization's fault.  I think millions of individuals in the GLBT community took Prop 8's failure for granted, including myself.

I donated $20, and that was because it started looking bad near the end.  I would have donated earlier but I thought it was in the bag.

I think I share the same sentiment with many.  Maybe I'm wrong.  "No On Prop 8" failed because we were outspent.  Not because of how funds were executed.  Plain and simple.

This was a wake up call.  I plan on donating again.  This time sooner rather than later.

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by: shaz4005 @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 03:16:52 AM CST

If you want to help

Donate money to Lambda Legal, http://www.lambdalegal.org
They're already doing the legal work to try and over turn 8.

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by: wearbear @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 03:40:36 AM CST

Careful, apparently progress coupled with failure is now unforgivable

Unfortunately, because Lambda has lost court cases in the past, I can't give to them anymore.

I'm told that "you don't do the same thing again and expect different results" by the author of this thread.

So no matter that the percentage of the vote was closer than is was a few years ago, these people failed and they must be destroyed.

Guess I can't keep giving to AIDS efforts, political groups, pet shelters, etc.

My money's all mine now.  To hell with anyone else.

Oh, wait.  My brain's working now.  Forget everything I just wrote.

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by: HunterC @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 05:21:21 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Seriously?

If Lambda lost court cases because they were unprepared and had a bad legal strategy, a loss would mean we shouldn't give to them.  It is not the losing that is Autumn's problem, it is the poor strategy that helped bring about the loss.  Those ads were TERRIBLE.  No one answered the robo-calls.  No one answered the charges we were trying to indoctrinate children and prosecute churches, at least not effectively.  I don't even live in California, and I could see that.  

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by: ChristopherM @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 10:09:56 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I donated to NCLR

They actually produced results, in the form of the original ruling, and they were the ones who argued against 8 being on the ballot in the first place, and they were ready with their court submission as soon as the results for 8 were in. They seem to be very much on top of this, well organized and productive.

Cause any fool knows, a dog needs a home; a shelter from pigs on the wing

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by: QueerInSoCal @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 08:02:46 AM CST

Gas money

I'm spending my money on gas to get to gay rights rallies.

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by: Bill Ware @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 08:16:03 AM CST

Get a grip Autumn

I have been involved in LGBT activism for years (grassroots and I have held leadership offices). One thing never, ever changes and that is community bitchers.

It is no wonder that we aren't further along than we are. We have to fight people like you, every. step. of. the. way.

Monday morning quarterbacks that bitch and moan and gripe and get on the blogs and scream that you should not give orgs money.

All of you that think you can do it better need to step away from the computer and start organizing, and if YOU can get it done, I will applaud you.

There are indeed times that all organizations should be critisized and scrutinized but trying to tear them down in the middle of the battle is just plain stupid.

I personally would like to take this time to thank each and every one of you that has worked long and hard hours to fight for my rights.

See ya'll at the protest!

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by: max @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 08:46:41 AM CST

Sure, you being condescending will help me get a grip. ;)

Btw, I'm on a fixed income due to my disabilities, but I still give to two orgainizations every month that work for on civil rights issues oustide of the No On 8 Campaign. And to that No On Prop 8 campaign I gave a monthly donation, and spent about 75-hours volunteering to the campaign -- starting back as early as when it was the "Decline to Sign" campaign.

I also donated to the Obama campaign, and locally to Stephen Whitburn's campaign for the 3rd City Council seat in San Diego. I put my money where my mouth is.

I'm also very much a key person for the California Transgender Leadership Summit that's coming to San Diego in March -- this is the largest annual conference of trans people and allies that strictly focuses on transgender advocacy and activism. This is a conference that teaches people how to be activists if they want to get involved, and teaches folk who are activists how to do what they do better.

And by the way, if you didn't notice this in the first paragraph that I have a fixed income, it also says I'm disabled. I have a VA disability rating of 100%, and my disabilies are considered service connected -- which means they were received or significantly aggrivated by my 20 years of service in the U.S. Navy. And, my disabilities make me unemployable -- and yet comparitively, I still do a lot for LGBT and trans-specific causes -- and one of the causes I worked on was the No On Prop 8 Campaign.

And yeah, I'm trans. No On Prop 8 wasn't a high priority dor me, but as a priority for my broader LGBT community, I did what I could because the LGBT community is my community. My best friend Vicki and her wife are among those 18,000 same-sex couples that married in the past few months, and I was Vicki's Maid Of Honor. Vicki is trans. And because I kept thinking of of Vicki and people like her, I would have even done more for the campaign if my disabilities didn't keep getting in the way of donating more time to the campaign.

I don't expect to hear, Max, that you will have put in as much money and as much time into a fully inclusive ENDA as I did to and for the No On Prop 8 campaign -- which again, the freedom to marry is not as high a priority to me as a fully inclusive ENDA. In the next few months, I'll be working on meeting with congresspeople in San Diego County to talk to them all about a fully inclusive ENDA, as I promised my friends at NCTE that I would.

Don't tell me I sit behind my computer all day and do nothing, Max. You're making assumptions about my behavior that aren't fact based, and don't take into account at all that I'm disabled and have difficulty working.  

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~~Autumn~~

As if there were safety in stupidity alone.
--Henry David Thoreau

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by: Autumn Sandeen @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 10:29:17 AM CST

[ Parent ]

You're welcome

and your assumption that those of us being rigorously honest with our organizations are whiners who don't work is, to say the least, revealing.

Yeah, you've held 'leadership offices', in which you've learned that you as the self-appointed leaders will make the decisions about how to spend our money without any accountability. No failure is so large that it invites self-examination, because questioning authority is 'bitching'.

Thanks for participating in the national protests even though no serious, paid, professional organizers were involved in the development of this idea. That shows open-minded willingness to try something different, despite your insults to those who question continuing to fund failure.

But wait, there's more!

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by: PhoenixRising @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 11:00:36 AM CST

[ Parent ]

No more money

The ads were a flop, generic and no outreach efforts to minorities. Orgs are basically fundraising machines very similar to corporations wanting to show a profit over last year.  I also don't like the exclusion of B's & T's with the Gay and Lesbian Center, being a bisexual myself.  The last three weeks picked up for NoOnProp8 but too late.  I gave $2500.00.  Not again.  I'm invited to high dollar fundraising cocktail parties and dinners, but those invites go in the trash.  That old "black tie" crap seems so old fashioned with all the grassroots energy being lifted up on the blogs.

Same-Sex Marriage is good for the economy.

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by: CharlesMerrill @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 08:48:14 AM CST

Send $$ to National Center for Gay & Lesbian Rights

That's where I'm sending my money to fight Prop 8 and other discriminatory measures...I agree that, like the Gay & Lesbian Center in LA, the National Center needs to update its name--as a bisexual person who prefers to identify as "queer" anyway, it is frustrating that more of the names of queer organizations don't actually include Bs, Ts or Qs.

That said, I was really impressed with the National Center's "Turn Anger into Action" response to the passage of these hateful initiatives, and their open letter which made clear that no one community (i.e. African-Americans, Latinos) should be singled out for supporting Prop 8. Any organization that is out in front on the race-baiting/gay-baiting that has happened in the aftermath of the election--which I'm sure is making the right dance with glee--has my support. I haven't seen anything comparable from the HRC.

But, I also totally agree that we need to work together now. Yes, the No on 8 campaign stunk in many ways, but I don't think it helps anyone in the queer community to keep attacking each other. I'm saving my righteous anger for the haters who got these initiatives going and will continue to do whatever they can to tear down our lives and families. Hating other queer folks doesn't help me feel any better.

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by: elizabethws @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 09:48:21 AM CST

[ Parent ]

oops, I meant the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force

Sorry--up part of the night with cranky 2-year-old.  

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by: elizabethws @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 09:50:43 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I will be making my ususal annual

contribution to GLBT civil rights organizations:
Lambda Legal
ACLU Gay and Lesbian Rights Project
NCLR

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by: Karen in Kalifornia @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 09:44:58 AM CST

Max:

I'll have to disagree with you. This strategy was ocnducted form the closet, and that is why we lost. This is something i wrote dec. 5.

Time. Energy. Money.

As a recently married gay man, I contributed a lot of each against Prop. 8. I'm sad that we failed to beat it. But I'm also angry-- and not just about political campaigns fueled by bigotry, conservative religion, and way too much tax-free money-- because I could see defeat coming with the inevitability of a slow-motion train wreck.

At the campaign kickoff, I asked Mark Leno personally if campaign leaders were going to do the liberal-tolerance-equality strategy again, pointing out that it has failed repeatedly. Or, were they going to show actual gay people, actual families, and actual lives. You know: reality. He said that focus groups indicated that everybody-make-nice and civil liberties were the way to go. This would move the undecided voters who were so crucial. I made the same point to HRC's Marty Rouse and several campaign leaders, and got the same response. The approach would be political rather than human, in every sense of both words.

What a concept! Let's ask straight people who are afraid of gay people about how to win gay rights, instead of asking gay people what has worked in their lives. You can see the result of focus group viewpoints. We have been focused over big-time.

Politics may move undecided voters, but the movement is only as valuable as the last person they spoke to. Human connections move hearts and minds, even minds that are made up. People who know gay people don't usually vote against them. But it's easy to vote against someone who is invisible, faceless, a menacing other, instead of friend or family, or even someone you just met on the street. And in No on 8, we were invisible. We saw the supportive, loving parents, but no gay daughter, no grandchildren. No on 8 was uninterested in a speakers' bureau to reach out to community groups and churches; I gave up asking. They wanted volunteers for phone banking and sign waving, not personal contact with real voters. At a training we were told NOT to use words like children, because Pro-8 people had appropriated the issue. Because we refused to claim it-- to claim reality-- it was used against us. Likewise, we can't talk about this ancient and deeply rooted anti-gay prejudice, either, because by calling attention to a reality in our lives, we might offend the very people who call us a threat to family, faith, and country. Newsflash! Our existence offends them.

This all may make sense to professional political people in their world and culture, but not in mine. It fails as a strategy because it embraces THE CLOSET, which is our real enemy. The closet is US. It is making ourselves invisible and unknown, rather than showing the simple fact and humanity of our lives. It is our consent to the lies, our silence in the face of naked prejudice. It is us not standing up for ourselves, and when we don't, who else will stand with us? I absolutely praise and thank our leaders for their efforts and sacrifices and dedication. But frankly, if our leaders don't know that we have to stand up for ourselves, as ourselves, then they shouldn't be our leaders. Because here's the result: we gay people were barely visible, and more people thought that the standard of living of California chickens was more important than the families of their fellow Americans.

Thirty years ago, I worked against the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gay teachers. A much smaller group of people, with far fewer resources, in a far less accepting time, succeeded against great odds. Maybe I'm romanticizing, but I remember it was because all we really had to show were ourselves and our lives. We said NO to the closet.

I know this fight is far from over. We will be back. However, if future campaign organizations want to continue this losing strategy of focus groups, phone banking, invisibility, and cute but irrelevant ads that look good on political resumes but change nothing, the rest of us need a parallel campaign that comes out of the closet and presents us as who we are.

If you expect me to stay in the closet, then don't, DON'T expect one minute of my time, one iota of my energy, or one dime of my money.

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by: Ben in Oakland @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 10:05:27 AM CST

Thanks for writing this

I volunteered for the no on 8 campaign and I came away with the same observations.

I sent off this email to the leadership of the no on 8 campaign after the election in response to a BS fundraising email I got from them.

With all due respect, I do not think that a strong coalition was built. I am not alone in this opinion, it has also been voiced by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, The LA Times, and on several prominent gay blogs. I think we missed a chance to do strong outreach and change public opinion.

As the leaders of the coalition against 8, you now have the opportunity to transparently discuss your mistakes and gear up for the next battle. You also have the opportunity to send email messages, retrenching your failed policy. I encourage you to enter into a dialog with the people who supported you. In the long run it will help move America forward towards civil rights for all.

I think that part of the reason we are seeing this huge response against 8 is that a lot of us trusted the leadership and discovered that if we wanted something done right we were going to have to do it ourselves. Personally I think that's a good thing because anytime people become more personally empowered to make a change I have hope for a robust democracy to re-emerge.

So, no I will not be sending more money or time to the leadership that focused grouped us into the situation we are in right now. But I'm grateful to them for lighting a fire under my butt.  

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by: 0tt0 @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 10:54:12 AM CST

[ Parent ]

No

I want to see what the California Supreme Court does first.

Then I'll make a decision after that. It may be that we need to donate to a legal cause. Or it may be that we'll need to go back to initiative and referendum in 2010. But right now, no, I'm not sending any money anywhere.

I didn't need to send $5 so a postcard could be sent to Thomas S. Monson. I sent him a two-page resignation letter instead. He'll never read the postcards or the letter, but it made me feel good to get my feelings down on paper.

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by: Mirele @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 11:00:39 AM CST

me too

i'm waiting until the cali sc rules before donating to any prop 8 repeal efforts.  in the mean time, i'm supporting my own state's equality organization, Equal Rights Washington.  we have a lot of work to do right here at home.

Lurleen on Twitter

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by: Lurleen @ Sun Nov 16, 2008 at 17:42:31 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Our movement can now grow up!

Which is great.

For many years, there was no logic to any attempts to scrutinize our organizations. We were broke, victimized and had no prospects of achieving any specific goal beyond decriminalizing homosexuality.

In the 5 years since reaching that longtime goal--which took 45 years of active, organized resistance in courts and legislatures--we've made enormous leaps. We have basic rights in 12 states, and gay marriage in 5, plus full legal equality in 2 states. That's a track record to be proud of.

However, it's time for the clique-based, professional-gays-only leadership that had no reason to be accountable for success or failure in the old world, to be subjected to market forces.

I'd rather give a specialized web-based group composed of Fritz and my wife, who sold him many ads back in the 80s, $5000 to design and carry out a campaign using tested, proven marketing techniques than give these time-worn clowns funding for another cycle of doing what they know.

But wait, there's more!

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by: PhoenixRising @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 11:10:47 AM CST

Wait, what? Where are you getting your numbers from?

In the 5 years since reaching that longtime goal--which took 45 years of active, organized resistance in courts and legislatures--we've made enormous leaps. We have basic rights in 12 states, and gay marriage in 5, plus full legal equality in 2 states. That's a track record to be proud of.

What's your five year mark of decriminalization from? How do 5 states have gay marriage when we just got to three with Connecticut and then lost California?

You have left me very confused.  

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by: echoecho @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 11:51:05 AM CST

[ Parent ]

No, five states offer 'gay marriage'.

Which is something like equality, but not marriage. Then in MA and CT we have marriage equality, which is not gay marriage, it's regular citizenship.

Five years have passed since Lawrence v. Texas.

This is your Current Events and History Post for today--my kid used a lot of craft spray on our signs and I have to get them unstuck in the next 12 minutes!

But wait, there's more!

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by: PhoenixRising @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 12:00:44 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Only two states

Allow same sex marriage.  Massachussets and Conneticut.  How do you come up with 5 ?

Same-Sex Marriage is good for the economy.

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by: CharlesMerrill @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 11:25:28 AM CST

No

We need to organize local campaigns.

In my community, there needs to be outreach and education for a large hispanic population.

My community also has a significant number of rich, white older voters.

The campaign should be tailored to these two groups.

I would like to see speakers at the senior centers here. I would like to see Spanish-language ads and outreach to families.

When you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will.

- Abraham Lincoln.

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by: Fritz @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 11:59:29 AM CST

Geez

Long time reader first time poster.

This is the question I've been asking myself. I did calling for the No on 8 campaign, and the whole thing just seemed... ineffective. But it was my first campaign - maybe they're all run like this, I thought. Maybe this is how collective action works.

I want an active movement for gay rights. I want a wesite, or better yet, a wiki, that monitors which states have gay marriage, which have civil unions, which have bigoted laws on the books.

I want strategies - I want to know what we're doing to try to get the bigoted laws off the books. I want to know what states we think the bigots will hit next, and what we're doing to get out ahead of them before they even get those amendments up to a public vote. I want to be able to do more than open my pocketbook. I discovered I like calling people and talking to them - let me call people! I would be willing to go door to door, if I had a buddy with me with 911 on speed-dial in case of emergencies. Money is hugely hugely important for these battles, but it can't be everything.

I hate this reactivity.

On the other hand:

It is always terribly easy to tear apart the 'losing team'. To point out what they did wrong, to armchair quaterback the whole thing. Because I can see part of the reason, perhaps, why they did what they did - I think they knew Obama was doing very well in polls. Voters who know 'their guy' is going to lose are less likely to turn out. California always comes in very late in the election game. And people who are disenchanted are less likely to vote than people who are enraged and fighting for a cause. The calling scripts directed us to get off the phone as politely and swiftly as possible if we hit a Yes voter - I think, not only because arguing with them wasted our time, but also because arguing with them made them more likely to vote.

Would a more direct ad campaign only have inspired the conservatives to GOTV even moreso?

I don't know the answers to these questions, and I don't know if my suppositions are correct. I do wish the No on 8 folks would step forward and have more transparency about these things. But that doesn't mean their strategy was fatally flawed, either.

I want a more open, more active organization to come out of this mess - whether it's HRC or Courage Campaign reborn, or a new organization come up from the ashes of this thing. That's who I want to give my money to.

And Lambda Legal, because Prop 8 is still crucial, and no matter how this battle got to the courts, it is still a crucial battle.

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by: echoecho @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 12:00:40 PM CST

Autumn, I am very glad

that you volunteered your time and your money to Prop 8.

With the positions that you have filled, I'm sure that you are well aware that volunteering and organizing are very different.

As for Trans inclusive issues, I, along with other community activists fought very hard for Trans inclusive issues on a local level and we won.

We didn't win the first time around but we did win the second time and we were thumped by our own community every step of the way.

The Prop 8 organizers did not do everything correctly but they didn't do everything wrong either.

It will take time to completely analyze all of the causes of the defeat and it will not do our fight any good to tear down organizations and rip each other to shreds.

I love the efforts of the new grass roots movement. It is inspiring and it does my old heart good to see the youth taking to the streets.

Many of them will be our new leaders and they will win some of those battles and sometimes they will fail..... I wish them luck. Sometimes WE are the worst enemy that we have.

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by: max @ Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 19:57:07 PM CST

A "Raving Activist" Point of View

Save your money.   From what I see, these LGBT organizations OFTEN seem like very expensive tea parties and social events.   YES - they have done some GREAT work here and there, and SOME progress has been made.  BUT, really.

Add up ALL of the money spent since 1970 for our civil rights.  ALL OF IT.   A Las-Vegas-gambling-addict wouldn't even bet on those odds.

Decades more of abuse? - OR - Stonewall.  Nationwide.  NOW!

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by: John Bisceglia @ Sun Nov 16, 2008 at 11:04:29 AM CST

Important local issues ignored

Here's an example from my community.

We have a very large immigrant worker population. A few years ago, I served on a jury and was horrified to discover that many of the Mexican immigrants in my area are closeted gay men who are victimized by organized blackmail schemes.

These gay men come here alone and send money back home to their families in Mexico. Their culture is very homophobic, so they don't go to gay bars and they don't use the Internet. Most of them cruise for sex in public parks and restrooms.

Mexican street gangs employ teenage boys to lure these guys into traps. They hang out at the cruising locations and then beat and rob them. They take their wallets and IDs.

Later, a female gang member goes to the man's home or work location to "return" the wallet. Then, she demands money to keep the man's secret. They usually blackmail the man until he flees to another state or goes back home to Mexico.

No one does anything about this. There is no one to advocate for these men. The police can only rarely get a victim to testify.

We have these "advocacy" groups in Washington and major state capitals that exist only to socialize with politicians and weathly elites. They don't do anything for those who really need help.

I'm tired of these groups that think all gay people are rich and white. We have a HUGE population of LGBT people in California who are living in the 1950s. They are beaten, robbed, blackmailed, and killed.

How much of our money goes to helping them? ZERO!

When you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will.

- Abraham Lincoln.

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by: Fritz @ Sun Nov 16, 2008 at 11:25:23 AM CST

[ Parent ]