The Mad Professah Lectures: EQCA Supports 2012; Courage Campaign 2010

Thursday, August 13, 2009

EQCA Supports 2012; Courage Campaign 2010

As expected, in a detailed plan with accompanying press conference, Equality California came out in favor of targeting November 2012 to repeal Proposition 8 by an affirmative marriage equality ballot measure.

The Courage Campaign reiterated their support for continuing to aim for November 2010, citing their success in raising well over $100,000 by today's August 13th goal.

Interestingly, Marc Solomon (EQCA's Marriage Director) sat down with Unite The Fight blogger Phillip Minot and gave them an exclusive interview in which he strongly cites the Prepare to Prevail statement as influential in making EQCA's decision. An excerpt:

"When I first got out here, I thought, 'Of course we’re going back in 2010. We can’t wait.' And I heard people say, 'Well are you sure? Does that make sense?" From funders and more."

Marc paused. "And then I really started listening. I listened carefully. I think the people need to listen carefully to the POC LGBT groups who feel they are being steamrolled. I think they felt steamrolled when we first came out for 2010.

"There’s this feeling that when it’s convenient, that people will listen to what [the POC groups] have to say and when it’s not, they won’t. I think we all have to think about that. Think about what these communities went through after Prop 8 passed and the blaming of POC communities. I think it’s important that people listen to that perspective, that they're thinking 'Our communities got blamed for Prop 8.' And after, people said a lot of work will happen, and now the work hasn’t happened and we’re saying we’re going right back to the ballot. That’s an important perspective to keep into account."

Marc rebuffed the claim that those who support 2012 are wanting to "wait."

"We all want to win back marriage as quickly as humanly possible. The question is, 'Can we get it done by 2010 or not?'"

Marc then addressed the philosophy of returning to the ballot each election year until we win.

"We [EQCA] don’t believe we can go back to the ballot in [2010 and 2012] - it’s one or the other. If we lose, it will be very hard to go back to the ballot before 2014, 2016 or 2018. The thought of spending 150 million dollars three election cycles in a row is totally unrealistic.

"If you keep going back to the ballot over and over, you appear to the movable middle, to the people you need to persuade, as a zealot. Regular people will say, 'Oh my god, they’re back again. Haven’t we already decided this?' And we say, 'We’re fighting. We’re fighting to win.' But we have to think about who needs to come our way and who we need to move."

If people are curious about what they can do to win marriage back NOW there's a Joint EQCA-JRC-VFE Canvass this Saturday from 10am-3pm in South Los Angeles. We'll be talking to real voters door-to-door about marriage equality. Join us!