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New York, 5:55 AM
Sun Nov 29
12 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/12/09
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08/12/09
Look, mid-year election turnout is always quite low. Those that do vote are the same ones who voted yes on Prop. 8 in the first place. The legalization of gay marriage is heavily dependent on getting a population to vote who normally does not vote. It would be a Sisyphean task to try to pass a repeal or a new constitutional amendment in California during a mid-year cycle.
Although I care deeply and personally about this issue, I'm also ok with fighting the good fight in 2012 when we're that much more likely to succeed than to suffer another defeat in 2010. Besides, it's not like the federal government would recognize our marriage...
08/13/09
I'm sorry, but having seen the results of the best thinking of these people last fall, I'm not prone to trust their judgment. I have the e-mail that tells how they gathered their data, but it sort of blows my mind that they never took one simple step: they never asked their membership what they felt about the effort. I've been getting e-mails from them all year, and not once did they ask, "What do you think? Should we move in 2010 or 2012?" Instead, they make this top-down, authoritarian announcement from on high, and actually promote it to news outlets as if someone had anointed them the decision-makers for all gay people and straight supporters in California.
It's the same paternalistic, "we know best" approach that they took last fall, except they didn't know best, and we got our ass kicked. Instead of learning from that and developing some humility, they seem to have become that much more entrenched in their attitude.
When I watched "Milk", I cried in frustration, not only from my grief at having lost this wonderful man, but because he showed us thirty years ago that we could take on the forces of homophobia and intolerance and win, by running a passionate, well-organized grassroots effort. Courage Campaign has been doing this, and I don't know why Equality California wouldn't want to.
08/13/09
08/12/09
08/12/09
08/12/09
I went to one of the LGBT meetings in Oceanside where a friend of mine was getting honored for some work she did at school promoting tolerance, and the whole thing was a joke. If you ran a business like they run their society, you'd end up broke.
08/12/09
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08/12/09
07/27/09
http://socialistworker.org/2009/07/23/we-wont-wait-for-equality
07/27/09
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07/27/09
The second reason is that politically our time and effort is best placed on ensuring that whatever shape national healthcare takes it will be LGBT friendly. We will get exactly one chance to do this right as a community and if we screw it up, it will take a SCOTUS decision or an act of congress to change it.
Picking ones battles wisely isn't being chicken and its not being inactive. Its being smart.
07/27/09
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07/27/09
But really, the underlying reason could be sublime. It's the sunshine beating down on those West Coast brain pans, producing a sort of political torpor. Why bother with politics right now when there's an excellent outside set coming in?
07/27/09
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07/27/09
Yeah, but it drives the anti-gay turnout more effectively. The fact is that national opinion hasn't shifted enough for a 2010 push to be anything but another demoralizing, wasted effort. Bottom line: the issue needs more public support.
07/27/09
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