How we finally won

Excellent article from Chris Geidner on how changes in strategy allowed our side to win this year.

Among the key changes were a shift away from talk of "rights" to a focus on committed relationships; a decision to address "values" directly as being learned at home; and an attempt to give voters "permission" to change their minds, according to elements of the research shared with BuzzFeed....

The six key findings highlighted in the November 2011 document were:

• Commitment trumps rights, a point made in prior research by Freedom to Marry as well: “Leading with commitment will show the middle that gay people want to join the institution of marriage, not change it.”
• Kids move voters: “In our past qualitative research, we found that underlying these concerns about children are deeply emotional fears about loss of parental control. These fears were also evident in the poll data.”
• The home is our turf; schools are their turf: “When compared directly to other possible responses to attacks around children, parents teaching core values ranks highest in persuasiveness.”
• On kids — turn down the heat: “One effective way to do that is to remind those in the middle of something they already believe to be true — that 'kids will be kids,' and in reality, they are much more interested in other things than they are in whether gay couples are allowed to marry.”
• Give people permission to change their minds about why gay couple[s] marry: “Using a messenger who could describe changing his own opinion on why gay couples want to marry modeled this positive evolution on the very issue that is most crucial to gaining support.”
• Religion is a hurdle, not a wall: “[E]ven among those groups in the middle who were more concerned about religion, overwhelming majorities said ‘It is not for me to judge.’ … [I]t is crucial to include reaffirmation of religious liberty protections as a significant part of supporters’ message framework.”

Read the whole thing.

FIghting the lies

Alvin McEwan has written a great guide to take down The Lies of NOM.

The truth of the matter is marriage is not "under attack." It has never been "under attack."

But what is under attack is truth, integrity, and basic fairness for the hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples and especially their children who seem to be nothing more than chess pieces in NOM's game of exploitation and manipulation, as evidenced by the following talking point:

NOM - "Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose, they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us."

Truth - Allowing gays and lesbians to marry does not "redefine marriage" for the entire country because they are not forcing heterosexuals to engage in gay marriage. It's 100% false. And the gay community don't have a right to live as they choose, per the currently unequal laws of this nation in terms of employment, housing, etc.

Check out the rest of his points.

Why he changed his mind

Jeff Angelo, a former Republican State Senator in iowa wrote a great op-ed in the Des Moines Register.I've quoted nearly the whole thing because it's so good.

[T]here came a point when I could no longer ignore how much this attitude hurt the people I know. Because this issue is not about rhetoric; this issue is about people and their freedom to choose a spouse.

Our constitution exists to protect the rights of individuals, and does so by limiting the government's power to control the lives and properties of citizens. A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, instead of limiting government control, would limit the ability of a select group of citizens to enter into civil marriage, therefore violating the very purpose of our constitution.

When we start allowing constitutional amendments that limit individual control, and give that control over to the government, we open ourselves up to more limitations on our individual freedom. It's easy to feel so passionately about an issue that you don't look at it objectively, but what happens when the individual freedom we're discussing is gun control or universal health care? We need to set aside the rhetoric and look at the slope on which we're starting to slide.

This debate centers on a devaluation of the lives of select group of people. At its worst we are being asked to believe that our gay friends and neighbors are involved in a nefarious agenda, the outcome of which is supposedly the unraveling of society itself. It's tempting to place the blame for all society's ills at one doorstep; indeed, that has been the plight of minorities throughout history. But a villain like that only exists in movies. In reality, the forces we face are all the same: getting a good job, supporting our families and making our communities better places to live.

The stability of marriage and the sanctity of personal liberty are the foundations of conservative values, and we should be glad those values are spreading and being embraced in so many different walks of life. They are universal and fundamental.

There is no reason to think heterosexual marriage is threatened by gays and lesbians getting married. There will be the same number of heterosexual marriages, divorces and children born. Churches can choose not to marry same-sex couples, and churches that do have the religious freedom to perform those ceremonies.

Whether or not you agree with gay marriage, we're all joined by our love of liberty. Free citizens are allowed to disagree and live their lives as they choose without fear of government reprisal as long as life and property are not threatened.

The tenor of this debate does not serve the people Iowa well, and is not in keeping with an Iowa culture known nationwide for displaying respect and generosity of spirit. Each day, Iowans worship with, work with, live with, and love people who are gay. Together we make a great state, facing the same problems and, hopefully, the same bright future.

No more excuses

Op/Ed from the Sacramento Bee (H/T JCF)

I never thought I'd become a full-fledged supporter of same-sex marriage, especially growing up in a socially conservative Catholic family of Mexican descent.

From an early age, I had homophobia drilled into my head at church, at school and at home. ...

The most stubborn forms of discrimination are those taught to us by people we love.... As we get older, we become sophisticated in obscuring our biases with lyrical justifications or purposeful ignorance. You know what I mean?...

"There are those who sincerely believe that homosexuality is inconsistent with their religion – and the First Amendment guarantees their freedom of belief," wrote David Boies, one of the lead attorneys seeking to make gay marriage legal. "However, the same First Amendment, as well as the Due Process and equal Protection clauses, preclude the enshrinement of their religious-based disapproval in state law."

..."But a slogan is not a substitute for constitutional analysis," Boies wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "Law is about justice, not bumper stickers."

The old arguments simply don't hold up anymore.

So on Tuesday, when state Attorney General Kamala Harris asked a federal appeals court to allow gay couples to marry while Prop. 8 is sorted out, it was like another blow against intolerance.
...

It's past time for the law to outlast the lies.

Voices of Faith Speak Out: Enough God to go around?

Commentary from the Guardian (UK). Backstory: the Church of England, cousin to the American Episcopalians, is having a hard time dealing with same sex partnerships, which are called "civil partnerships" in the UK. It wants to prevent other faith groups from celebrating them.

[T]he religious liberty defence has a patronising and hollow ring to it when Quakers and Reform Jews are asking precisely for the liberty to register and bless civil partnerships in their own places of worship. They do not need Anglican or Roman Catholic bishops to "save them from themselves" – especially since both our churches have a shameful history of persecuting these very same faith groups.

So why does the liberty to introduce God into civil partnership ceremonies devalue marriage? It would appear that there just isn't enough of God to go around. One cannot, apparently, honour and bless one pattern of living a faithful and committed life, without somehow devaluing another. It is the theological equivalent of printing too much money.

Western Christianity has been here before. ...When the religious life in the Church of England, pulverised at the Reformation, came back into its corporate life in the middle of the 19th century, many Victorian Anglicans saw it precisely in the same way: as a rival to marriage because it offered another sanctified, or blessed, way of Christian living. It introduced an element of "competition" into a spiritual monopoly.

The revival of the religious life in Anglicanism, and the honoured place it now has, goes to show how we can as a church change our mind and rectify our mistakes. It also goes to show that there really is enough of God to go around; that different ways of faithful living do not compete with each other but add to the enrichment of the whole. Gay and lesbian people of faith actually want God's blessing at an important time of public commitment. So much for aggressive secularism.

Stability, love, faithfulness, commitment: these are the things in human relating that matter and the things the Church of England should be doing its best not to disparage or demonise but to foster and celebrate – in short, to bless. There really is enough of God to go around.

Should the stay be lifted?

From the LA TImes:

Although the federal courts expedited their handling of the lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, the issues are far from resolved. And now that the California Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in, the case could be delayed for another year or more.

Enough already. Gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to wed while the case works its way through the system....

Every day that the case drags on, gay and lesbian couples who would like to marry are being deprived of their civil rights. That's not our wording; the federal trial judge decided that issue, at least for now. The denial of constitutional rights, even temporarily, is a deplorable situation that must meet high legal standards to be allowed to continue. In our view, those conditions have not been met.
....
Right now, same-sex couples are being deprived of their constitutional right to marry, and every indication is that unless the stay is lifted, they'll have to keep waiting for more than a year. That is real harm, and there is no valid reason to allow it to continue.

New LGBT advocacy site: Equality Matters

Equality matters is a new "communications war room for gay equality" from Media Matters featuring heavy hitters like Kerry Eleveld (Washington DC correspondent for the Advocate) and Richard Soccarides (former Clinton advisor and LGBT activist)


They also have a blog, which is frequently updated and keeping track of the media. Particularly the "free pass" given anti-gay talking heads by main stream venues like the WaPo. There's also commentary:

The key issue President Obama and other policymakers face now is gay marriage. In the civil rights community, it has become a litmus test of sorts on whether one supports full equality. …While some policymakers still exist in both parties who think that support for marriage equality is too much to ask, positions on this issue are changing rapidly as the culture of the country progresses. ….Supporting full equal rights is no longer out of the political mainstream, nor should we let our elected officials fail to seize this moment in history to embrace the dignity of each and every human being. Anyone who misses the opportunity will undoubtedly find themselves on the wrong side of history.

I've added them to the advocacy links on the sidebar. Putthem in your reader--you want to keep up with them.

Whose religious freedom? (Cartoon)

NOM is coming to a California city near you!

The National Organization for Marriage has a bus tour in California to support Carly Fiorina and oppose marriage equality.

So far they are being mostly outnumbered by pro-equality counter-protesters. THey are a little shy about showing up if they think the equality folks are out in force.

More about the tour at the pro-equality NOM Tour Tracker

Don't you think you should let them know what you think?

Friday, October 1:

9:30 AM – Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz) - Santa Cruz Mission Park [GoogleMaps]
11:15 AM – Hollister (San Benito) - Veteran's Memorial Building [GoogleMaps]
12:30 PM – Salinas (Monterey) - Central Park [GoogleMaps]
1:30 PM – Soledad (Monterey) - Gabilan Park [GoogleMaps]
3:15 PM – Paso Robles (San Luis Obispo) - Paso Robles City Park [GoogleMaps]
5:00 PM – Santa Maria (San Luis Obispo) - Preiskar Park [GoogleMaps]

Saturday, October 2:

8:00 AM – Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara) - Mission Historical Park [GoogleMaps]
9:30 AM – Camarillo (Ventura) - Nueva Vida [GoogleMaps]
2:30 PM – Dana Point (Orange) - Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel [GoogleMaps]
4:30 PM – Huntington Beach (Orange) - Huntington Beach Parking Area [GoogleMaps]

Sunday, October 3 - Rest Day!

Monday, October 4:

10:00 AM – Santa Ana (Orange) - 4th & Spurgeon [GoogleMaps]
11:45 AM – Oceanside (San Diego) - Capistrano Park [GoogleMaps]
1:00 PM – Escondido (San Diego) - Grape Park [GoogleMaps]
7:00 PM – RALLY – San Diego (San Diego) - Comunidad Christiana NAM [Google Maps]

Tuesday, October 5:

11:45 AM – El Centro (Imperial) - Stark Field [GoogleMaps]

4:30 PM – San Bernardino (San Bernardino) - Secombe Lake Park [GoogleMaps]

6:00 PM – RALLY – East LA (Los Angeles) - TBA

Wednesday, October 6:

10:00 AM – Riverside (Riverside) - Fairmount Park [GoogleMaps]

12:00 PM – Los Angeles (Los Angeles) - Olvera Street [GoogleMaps]

NOM exposed; New Website

Tired of the lies and vitriol from Maggie Gallagher and the NOMmers? The Courage Campaign and the HRC have put all the facts about NOM in one convenient website: NOMexposed.org. Now you can find out the facts about their massive, anti-gay money laundering operation.

Newsweek reviewed the site and its effort to expose the facts.

The Courage Campaign and the HRC say they will continue in the coming months and years to expose NOM and its donors so that religious communities will be aware that their fundraising may not necessarily be directed to poor and struggling families during the recession but to political campaigns to fight gay marriage. The site highlights a recent news report on how the Knights of Columbus has donated about $1.4 million to NOM, versus channeling that money to initiatives for the poor. The NOM Project also details specific legal challenges to NOM by state so that local activists can educate voters. For example, according to the site “NOM provided more than $1.8 million of the $3 million spent by opponents of marriage equality to pass Question 1—but it illegally failed to disclose where the money came from. Public disclosure laws create transparency by informing voters who is behind a campaign effort. Maine’s law does this by requiring that any funds raised to support or oppose a ballot question be made public.”

The conservative argument for marriage equality

From Andrew Sullivan:

[I]t is conservative not to eject people from the fabric and tradition of their own families; it is conservative to support emotional and financial stability which the daily discipline of marriage fosters; it is conservative not to balkanize citizens into groups based on identity; it is conservative to discourage gay men and women from marrying straight men and women on false pretenses and then ending up in divorce; it is conservative to include everyone into the social institutions that stabilize society; it is conservative to promote mutual responsibility and care-giving to avoid too much dependence on government; it is conservative not to trample states rights and amend the federal constitution when such things are grotesquely unnecessary; it is conservative to adjust to social change by adapting existing institutions, like civil marriage, than inventing totally new and untested ones, like civil unions.

Go Away till 2012: a cynical liberal leader.

Kerry Eldveld of the Advocate alooks at the Obama Administration's recent pushback against the left. (Emphasis mine)

....marriage equality — a subject the administration would clearly harpoon if it could.

I get the distinct feeling that the White House hopes it can simply duck the marriage question straight through 2012, and I’d also bet dollars to doughnuts it won’t be able to. What became clear to me while interviewing attendees of the August 6 meeting was that while the friendly audience may have cut the administration some slack on legislative items like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Defense of Marriage Act, the one place advocates unapologetically stood their ground was on marriage equality.....

Make no mistake, this is an issue that the president’s chief advisers have misjudged from day one. They underestimated how angry people were that candidate Barack Obama wasn’t more vocal in his opposition to Proposition 8; they dismissed the devastation felt by millions of queers who poured their hearts into electing Obama only to watch Prop. 8 proponent Rick Warren give the invocation at the inauguration; they remained silent in 2009 as gay Mainers fought to preserve their right to love, marry, and build a life with their partner; and then David Axelrod reassured the nation two weeks ago that the president still opposes granting the freedom to marry to all Americans.....

Read the whole thing.

Then, in a New Republic Op/Ed on the CBS news site, Richard Just draws an unflattering comparison:

In the fall of 1912, as his campaign for president entered its final stage, Woodrow Wilson was speaking in Brooklyn when he was asked for his opinion on women’s suffrage. ... he responded by insisting that it was "not a question that is dealt with by the national government at all." The woman who had asked the question was apparently displeased by this blatant dodge. "I am speaking to you as an American, Mr. Wilson," she retorted......

An evasive stance on a controversial civil rights issue from a liberal president; an insistence that the issue is primarily local, rather than national, in character; a complete failure of sincerity, nerve, and will: If these things sound familiar in 2010, it is because Barack Obama is taking exactly the same approach on gay marriage.

Obama has said that he wants to restore American moral leadership in the world. But how can he claim the mantle of moral leadership when we are being outpaced by so many countries and so many foreign leaders on one of the central civil rights issues of our time?

....Obama's stance seems to be a way of conveying to the country that he knows a lot of people still aren’t completely comfortable admitting gays and lesbians as full participants in American life, and that this is OK because he isn’t either. It is about the most cynical gesture you can imagine from an allegedly liberal leader-and we deserve better. I am speaking to you as an American, Mr. Obama.

Be sure to read that one too.

NOM's assault on the family (video Sunday)

Rob Tisinai's latest:

Prop8 fallout: Conservatives risk the wrong side of history

From Fox News (!) commentator Margaret Hoover:

As a conservative Republican representing the next generation of attitudes towards gays and lesbians, I encouraged the readers of FoxNews.com last January to take a careful look at the arguments and evidence in the Prop 8 trial, Perry v. Schwarzenegger....The trial assembled a thorough record of evidence that Prop 8 unreasonably discriminates against gays and lesbians, relegating them to second-class citizenship....

Surprisingly, the defense’s two lone witnesses also offered compelling reasons [in] favor of marriage equality. ...The trial testimony ... demonstrates that the defense could muster no sound line of reasoning for the laws to discriminate against gays and lesbians....

Now, with a decision handed down that social conservatives despise, a judge whose sterling reputation as a conservative for twenty years on the federal bench is under attack....The irony of this case is that Judge Walker is not a liberal activist judge but one whose career has proven him to be a tempered judge, true to the Reagan-Bush conservative jurisprudence that he was nominated to represent on the bench.

Conservatives cannot deny that our Founders intended the judiciary as an equal and independent branch of government purposed to ensure the protection of every citizen’s rights. ...

The aforementioned arguments against Judge Walker’s Perry v. Schwarzenegger decision risk undermining legitimate conservative gripes about the judiciary and putting conservatism once again, on the wrong side of the latest chapter in American civil rights.

Read the whole thing. Some people get it.

Meanwhile, Russ Douthat and others try to balance their religious views, and Andrew Sullivan takes Douthat to task. Elsewhere, Sullivan writes,

There was and is something about these words - engaged, married, husband - even though they may contain a mountain of different experiences, that made us a family. I think conservatives should favor the unification and mutual love and support of families. And that means they must by definition favor the mutual love and support of the gay people in them.

This is not about creating something new. It is about making a home for people who have been here all the time for centuries. It is about making the human family whole.

And Glenn Greenwald:

Churches, synagogues and mosques are free -- as they should be -- to sanction only those marriages which their religious dogma recognizes. Parents are completely free to teach their children that certain marriages are superior and others immoral. And columnists like Douthat are free to argue that the relationships they want to have are not just best for themselves but are, as an objective matter, morally and theologically superior.

They just can't misuse secular law to institutionalize those views or coerce others who don't accept them into having their legal rights restricted based on them. But if they're as right as they claim they are, they shouldn't need to coerce others into acceptance through legal discrimination. Their arguments should prevail on their own. The fact that they believe they will lose the debate without that legal coercion speaks volumes about how confident they actually are in the rightness and persuasiveness of their views.

Freedom to Marry campaign (video Sunday)

Ban Same Sex Marriage (video Sunday)

See more about money in last Monday's post.

The film, 8, The Mormon Proposition, opens today (video)

From the NY Times review:

The documentary is really two films roughly stitched together. The first two-thirds tells the history of Proposition 8; the final third is a wrenching exploration of the effects on gay Mormons of the church’s strict taboo on homosexuality. We meet gay teenagers who were exiled from their families and are told about a rash of suicides at Brigham Young University. The reason Utah’s suicide rate is the highest of any state, the movie suggests, is the Mormon church’s absolute rejection of homosexuality, which one church elder calls “contrary to God’s plan.” Chris Buttars, a proudly homophobic Utah state senator, compared male coupling to bestiality. The movie shows the depth of religion-based loathing of homosexuality, like that of abortion, to be primal.

In the meantime the struggle to repeal Proposition 8 is under way.

Mormons promoting equality

A lot of Mormons were upset at the support of their church for Prop8 and other anti-equality measures.

Mother Jones magazine features a profile of Fred Karger, who has investigated the link between the LDS and the hate-filled National Organization for Marriage (PDF of the profile here). Karger founded Californians Against Hate, and the Mormongate website.

But as with all churches not all members agree with the actions of the institution. A number of Mormon sites have sprung up Seeking Forgiveness, or advocating for equality (Mormons for Marriage). The latest one called Proposition Healing seeks to connect faithful Mormons with GLBT people to try to bridge the gap with communication. Many Mormons don't actually know GLBT people. It's all part of the conversation to reach the middle and change hearts and minds.

And it's another reason we must all come out and be ourselves.

Are they bigots?

The Right Wing is up in arms over a (straight) Washington Post reporter who calls those opposed to marriage equality "bigots". His response:

Unlike with most activists, I don't really see the direct impact on their lives, or on the lives of the people who agree with them, of the cause they oppose. Antitax protesters are threatened by higher taxes. Anti-health-care-bill protesters fear their coverage will get worse. Anti-meat-eating protesters believe animals are being murdered and the environment is being made worse....

But who's threatened by legal same-sex marriage? Whose life is made worse? If there was science suggesting that children raised by same-sex parents are worse off than children raised by traditional families, that would be one thing, but I haven't seen it. We've watched legal same-sex marriage in several European countries and several states, and it hasn't ushered in some decline in the quality of life, or marriage, for those who don't participate in it.

That's what I don't understand. That's my bias, for now. I'll happily entertain arguments for the contrary.

Faith in America: ending religion-based bias

This group, Faith in America, is very interesting. It exists to challenge religion-based bias. Recently, they hired former Obama advisor Steve Hildebrand. In an interview with LGBTPOV, he says,

Every time we try to get a voter who opposes marriage to switch their support our way, most use their religion or their fear that gay marriage will be taught to their children in schools. The opposition to teaching children in schools is most often based on their religious views. That has led me to believe that reducing religion-based bigotry towards gay people will help us win these important battles. Until we get beyond religion, we will continue to struggle.

The programs and dialogue developed by Faith in America are compelling. We will not change every mind. This is a war we have to win before we can win each of the battles.