What had been expected for the past few months is now official: the measure to repeal Prop 8 in 2010 failed to collect the nearly 700,000 signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.
“This is a heartbreaking moment,” John Henning, Executive Director of Love Honor Cherish, part of the Restore Equality 2010 coalition, said in a press release. “Despite the dogged efforts of hundreds of volunteers across California, we did not get the signatures we needed within the 150-day window set by the state.”
“Our signature collection effort may have fallen short, but we stand tall as being the only statewide campaign that fought for repealing Proposition 8 in 2010,” Sean Bohac, Chair of the Restore Equality 2010 Statewide Advisory Panel, said in a statement reported by the Sacramento Bee.
Both Restore Equality 2010 and Love Honor Cherish are now expected to join with Equality California and other LGBT groups in an all-out effort to repeal Prop 8 in 2012, a presidential year when more young voters are expected to turn out. Generally off-year elections bring out older voters who have not favored same sex marriage.
“Regrettably, Prop 8 will remain as a stain on our constitution until at least 2012, and perhaps later,” said Henning, who also encouraged other activists to get involved and unify around 2012.
“This signature campaign was the right thing to do in the wake of Prop 8,” Love Honor Cherish board member Lester Aponte said in the statement. “We were determined to act affirmatively to achieve equality and we will continue to do that until Prop 8 has been finally repealed. We had hundreds of thousands of conversations with California voters about the right to marry and we know that we have moved hearts and minds. In the process, we have set the foundation for a future repeal effort and brought hope to thousands whose hearts were broken by the passage of Prop 8.”
UPDATE FROM JOHN HENNING:
“We could have repealed Prop 8 this November. And we can repeal it in 2012. Let’s all think about what we can do, as individuals, to make that happen. Is it walking neighborhoods where people voted for Prop 8? Planning awareness events in the LGBT community? Donating money?
Love Honor Cherish was there during the Prop 8 campaign, it was there when the time came to repeal it, and it will be there when it is finally repealed. We aren’t going to rest until the yearning for equality in every gay and lesbian person is answered.
We’re going to continue to meet, and now we will shift our attention to unifying the LGBT community behind a 2012 campaign. Our experience over the last year should prove invaluable to that effort.”
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Dear Readers
that seems to have its own strange xenophobic aspects. Very, very few things in life are seen, done or taken as absolutes and yet the gay/lesbian movement seems to think that everyone must be fully, absolutely, supportive of their desires or be branded homophobic. Why can’t I be tolerant / indifferent to gays and lesbians and simply not agree that they should somehow be called married?
I am a married straight white male who does not support your view point and I want to take a minute of your time and tell you why. The answer is somewhat of a two part story, having to do first with both my own views and secondly with your actions following the passage of Prop 8 a few years ago. Ultimately, the confluence, if you will, of those two have hardened my view and attitude towards the movement.
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Traditionally, I see no particular need to call same sex unions of any sort a marriage because it is not. It is a partnership of same sex individuals and personally, I don’t really care. I work with a number of gay / lesbian folk and it is just not an issue, ever. The movement now to legitimize same sex unions as a marriage comes solely from the political power you have realized by organizing and unifying and you’re more than welcome to have that viewpoint and desire. I just don’t think two guys or two gals committed to each other is a marriage in the traditional sense of the word. Call it a union, call it whatever, but trying to get everyone else to call it what it is not, a marriage as we have always known the word to mean, is not do-able. Let me stop here and say that, legal quandaries such as “divorce” or “parent visitation rights” aside, (that’s technical legal stuff I don’t care about per se,) I have no problem with letting a same sex couple have all the various legal rights married folks do (inheritance, medical, benefits, etc etc..). It’s just not a marriage. Period. Though homosexuality has been around as long as man, we have never called the resulting unions marriage. Not now, not during the Civil War, not during George Washington’s times. They didn’t at Jamestown either. The fact that you want to call yourselves married because you are together does not does not mean that your community, a minority in number by any means, has the right to re-define the concept and meaning of the word marriage for society as a whole.
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Honestly.
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This leads into my second tangent, your actions since the Prop 8 passage. Let me put it bluntly: who in the hell do you think you are to scour your opponent’s contributors list and then publicly terrorize and intimidate them? In doing so you violated their American right to free speech (“free” meaning people can say what they want, even if you don’t agree). In many cases you caused people to lose jobs and businesses to be permanently impacted by your denying them the right of free speech as a means of punishment and intimidation. A very, very ignorant and stupid move. People like myself didn’t give a dime to the Prop 8 campaign and never will. But we saw what you did to others and we understood inherently that the intimidation and reprisal for exercising our right to vote was wrong. For that we never support you. Some things, some errors can be undone by the virtue of a sincere apology or the realization of the bigger good of the person who commits the initial offense. The drive to legitimize same sex unions to the point of recognizing them as marriages is a movement. You will never be able to adequately apologize as a movement and we can still work side by side with gays and lesbians and easily, effortlessly separate our feelings and likes for them and our relationship with them from the “Movement”. The two are not self-identifying as being one in the same and in my mind and, I believe, the mind of many others never will be. I truly believe that you sealed your fate for years to come in the actions of those who terrorized and intimidated others following the election and, not withstanding that, will probably never get society as a whole to call your unions “married” simply because you would feel better about it.
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So there you have it.
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I am also troubled by the way the gay/lesbian community seems to identify fidelity for those who are not gay or lesbian. To put it simply, it seems to me to be an “all or nothing” viewpoint / standard (as demonstrated by the response to Prop
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That is, in fact, the reality of the situation.
Dear Chuck -
First of all, thank you for visiting.
As you might imagine, I disagree with your two points – but totally support your right to have and share them. Let me address the second point specifically. During the campaign to pass Prop 8, supporters of the measure tried to blackmail No on 8 donors and started this whole scouring the lists thing: see more about it here: http://www.calitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7267
Additionally – your point about “those who terrorize and intimidate others following the election” does not comport with the facts that ACTUAL hate CRIMES against lesbians and gays went up after Prop 8 passed – according to the GOVERNMENT statistics. Here’s more on that: from this post: http://lgbtpov.frontiersla.com/2010/01/scotus-camera-ruling-continues-history-of-antigay-discrimination/
“After reading the Prop 8 proponent William Tam’s request to withdraw from the case fearing harassment by gays, I fumed that he and the Prop 8 defendants were elevating a graffiti sign to the level of the kind of real hate crimes that were perpetrated on LGBT people after the passage of Prop 8.
Ours are not just personal fears and allegations –but reported in actual government reports. In LA County, for instance, hate crimes generally dropped 4% but they increased against LGBT people, prompted in part by Prop 8. According to the LA County Commission on Human Relations, there were 134 sexual-orientation hate crimes reported in 2008, up from 111 in 2007 – and were more likely to be violent than hate crimes motivated by race or religion.
In Santa Clara County, violent crimes against gays and lesbians accounted for more than half of the hate crimes last year – a huge leap from the 15% reported in 2007, the San Jose Mercury News reported last March.
Deputy District Attorney Jay Boyarsky said:
“My belief from having done this work for many years is that surges in types of hate incidents are linked to the headlines and controversies of the day. Marriage equality and Proposition 8 have been in the news, and we have seen an increase in gay-bashing.”
Please visit the post where you will see a photo of a church sign that says, “God Is Good, Gays Are Bad, Read Your Bible, Vote Yes on Prop 8″ – now you might take that as the church’s right to sermonize against gays. And WE might take that as intimidation.
Karen O.
Karen, great response, though I’ll eat my hat if you get a response from the person who posted that comment — it’s best to be willfully ignorant of the discrimination a minority group (“the Other”) faces every day.
Thanks. I almost through in the whole spitting/ using the “n” word toward John Lewis and calling Barney Frank a “fag” thing for the Tea Party crowd – as in it’s ongoing – but I was running long….
Hey there!
Time to eat some hat !! And frankly jccr, I’d add a bit of humble pie. Nothing sounds worse than the conceit of the enlightened as they pass judgment on those who disagree with their or views or beliefs.
Let’s get something straight, lest you read the wrong thing into my comments. You are absolutely entitled to hold the views you have, absolutely. Having said that, you and your minority (as you choose to self-identify) are nothing special. That’s right. Nothing special. Americans, just like rest of us. You’re a subset of a larger group and like all the other subsets, you have problems, issues, and all the other complexities that life visits upon us.
Your idea that I’m somehow “willfully ignorant” of violence and discrimination isn’t just stupid and beneath the context of the previous conversation, it’s a pattern that seems to pervade the arguments of the gay community whenever someone asks serious questions / has disagreements with their primary viewpoints. What’s willfully ignorant is your (and in turn Karen’s) unwillingness to address with any substantiality the issues I raised. Look at your comments:
“Karen, great response, though I’ll eat my hat if you get a response from the person who posted that comment — it’s best to be willfully ignorant of the discrimination a minority group (”the Other”) faces every day.”
And here’s Karen’s reply to you:
Thanks. I almost through in the whole spitting/ using the “n” word toward John Lewis and calling Barney Frank a “fag” thing for the Tea Party crowd – as in its ongoing – but I was running long…
And here’s the last paragraph of my post (I capitalized the part I want you to read in particular):
that seems to have its own strange xenophobic aspects. Very, very few things in life are seen, done or taken as absolutes ..AND YET THE GAY/LESBIAN MOVEMENT SEEMS TO THINK THAT EVERYONE MUST BE FULLY, ABSOLUTELY, SUPPORTIVE OF THEIR DESIRES OR BE BRANDED HOMOPHOBIC… Why can’t I be tolerant / indifferent to gays and lesbians and simply not agree that they should somehow be called married?
I am also troubled by the way the gay/lesbian community seems to identify fidelity for those who are not gay or lesbian. To put it simply, it seems to me to be an “all or nothing” viewpoint / standard (as demonstrated by the response to Prop
Hmmmm… would a shoe be fitting anywhere nearby? Would you happen to be the one wearing it?
Why yes, I think so!
Did I mention ANYWHERE in my original post that I would advocate, encourage or condone violence or discrimination? No. But the inherent presumption of the conversation is that if I’m not openly, totally raising / acknowledging violence and discrimination against gays I’m simplistic and probably homophobic. Really stupid. Simply put, average, normal Americans that are perfectly comfortable with gay/lesbian unions and legal rights just don’t see two guys or two girls as married.
I also think Karen’s comments about John Lewis being called a nigger by the crowd are willfully ignorant in that she seems to use them as some sort of positive accolade to her argument like some sort of “ Wow! I could have really zapped him with that!” What exactly does that have to do with the idea that I’m not willing to let two guys be called a married couple? Violence against you or another minority group legitimizes the need to call yourselves married? It will all stop once your checkbooks say ..Mr Bill Smith and Mrs Ted Smith?
Unfortunately, I have to leave unexpectedly and cannot finish this to the extent I’d like to. But you are more that welcome to re-read my original post and actually respond to the ideas and issues mentioned as opposed to viewing me as willfully ignorant and lecturing me about violence against minorities. I am not obligated to endorse every one of your views and desires simply because you are gay and I am not. Take care.
Martyrdom competition aside…
Chuck Boyer, you are a f**king loser. Where was your campaign to change the legal term to something more acceptable to you and your fellow bigots if you don’t want same-sex couples calling marriage marriage?
“visitation rights” might be a technicality to you, but it’s not to those of us who have children or want them.
Now, where the hell is the new site for signature gathering? It’s been 2 days, why hasn’t the HTML been changed yet?
Why are we having these long conversations with morons who know what they’re saying is wrong and continue to say it anyway? Get to work, people!
WTF? Where did I say that you “endorsed” violence against the gay community?? And where did I say that you’re somehow not allowed to oppose gay marriage, Einstein? Get over yourself, you’re not that important, I couldn’t give a sh*t about your “views”. Both me and Karen were merely addressing your claim that the Yes on 8 campaign was targeted by “Teh Gayz”, when there’s irrefutable evidence that’s not at all true. Adieus.
Hi back again
And now it really begins – a discussion becomes involved, shall we say, and the responses go from intellectual to what? Foul mouthed? Anger? Vulgar?
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I’d take the time to address your charges, but honestly, what’s the point? We’re not discussing different points of view, you’re basically trying to intimidate through written words. This so totally and absolutely goes back to the last paragraph of my first post, which I also pasted and mentioned in my second post. But you didn’t read that – or wait a minute, did you? You’re just outraged gay folk and therefore you can scream and yell and threaten, as I’m sure you do when in public.
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You can or cannot chose to accept the very real and stark fact that many people agree with gay unions, legal rights etc….but just don’t see you as “married” and are not willing to do so just ‘cause you want it. Again, the totality of support that the gay community wants to demand for one to be seen as having fidelity to the gay view point, or whatever you want to call it (or conversely, not to be seen as homophobic) is just ridiculously stupid. Rant and rave, it aint gonna change. I mean as I write this and I think of all the other issues in America, I can’t think of another group that behaves in such an all or nothing manner. You just don’t seem to get it
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I understand fighting for a cause. But the methods you chose to use are self-defeating. Beyond the written anger and frustration, in calmer times, (such as the exchange between Karen and jcrr) is the conceit of “being in the know”. Get out in the world folks, you are your own worst enemy. Look at this string. I took the time to write because I thought this was a good forum to discuss things. Look at what I got. Why would I ever have a good point of view about your issues after this exchange?
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So I’m outta here. This string will die a benign, inglorious death, able to be dredged out of some server ten years from now, bit of no real value unless you want to post this all over the web as some sort of call to action, which seems unlikely.
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Remember one thing above all else – YOU already support all the issues. It’s my support and vote you need.
Wow, so you accuse the gay community of intimidation and harrassment and that’s NOT vulgar behavior?? OK, this “conversation” is completely over.
I’ve never been more happy to see you proven wrong on this issue.