It’s hard to image: on May 30, 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled that lesbians and gays had the fundamental constitutional right to marry. And marry they did! But on May 26, 2009, the same high court ruled to uphold Prop 8, the ballot initiative that stripped away that right – though the court left legally intact about 18,000 same sex marriages. The next day, on May 27, 2009, the new group American Foundation for Equal Rights announced they were challenging the constitutionality of Prop 8 in federal court. (See the case timeline here.) AFER won in District Court in August 2010 – and now the proponents of Prop 8 are seeking to have the ruling overturned because Judge Walker is gay. That case will be heard June 14 in San Francisco.
The federal case is now in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is waiting to hear from the California Supreme Court on whether the state court thinks the Prop 8 proponents should have standing to defend the initiative in federal court since the governor and attorney general refuse to do so. No one has any idea when the state court might respond.
Meanwhile AFER points out that Judge Walker said “that every moment that discrimination remains on the books, it cases grave harm to gay and lesbian Americans who are being treated as second-class citizens.” AFER’s Countdown clock registers 290 days since Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional.
Many LGBTs are getting inpatient, especially on the heels of a Gallup poll released Friday, May 20, saying: “For the first time in Gallup’s tracking of the issue, a majority of Americans (53%) believe same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages. The increase since last year came exclusively among political independents and Democrats. Republicans’ views did not change.”
For the next two weeks, Equality California and its coalition partners are holding town hall meetings to decide whether or not the LGBT community thinks an initiative to repeal Prop 8 should be put on the 2012 ballot. The first town hall was held in San Francisco on May 17. The next is Sunday, May 22 at 5:30 p.m. in the West Hollywood Auditorium
Here’s the list of times and places for the town hall meetings in the LA area:
West Hollywood: West Hollywood Auditorium, 647 San Vicente, West Hollywood 90069 Sunday, May 22, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Long Beach: Gay & Lesbian Community Center, 2017 E. Fourth St., Long Beach 90814 Monday, May 23, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Los Angeles: Church of the Epiphany, 2808 Altura St., Los Angeles, 90031 Thursday, June 02, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Also to take EQCA’s survey, please visit: www.eqca.org/Prop8survey
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
if folks want to see just how lame, inept and disorganized EQCA is right now, they should attend one of the town halls. i was at the SF edition a few nights ago, and lemme tell you, EQCA does not have its act together about the purpose of the town halls. one example of their laziness is the fact that they have not posted a report back to the community about the SF meeting. i have a report on the meeting at my blog:
http://tinyurl.com/4x7quvk and folks may also want to check out this post of mine, regarding the fact that the new ED at EQCA, roland palencia, didn’t donate to the no on 8 campaign in 2008 and has never donated to EQCA:
http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2011/05/eqca-boss-palencia-0-for-no-on-prop-8.html
and for a very different take, but still full of valid criticism, on the SF meeting last thursday, please check out this piece by patrick connors, who blogs as ‘uppity fag’:
http://uppityfag.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/eqcas-passive-aggressive-town-hall-meeting-in-san-francisco/
now we have two reports from community members who attended the SF town hall. we need to hear from EQCA about how they feel the meeting went.
You guys are going to jail for conspiracy on issue.
Karen:
There are several issues on which you ought to report.
First, I understand that some polling numbers were discussed at the last Town Hall. Could you please report on these polling results?
Second, how serious is this “survey” that EQCA is hyping and which you linked to? It doesn’t seem very likely that EQCA will make such a momentous decision based on the results of an internet survey. In fact, the entire discussion seems fake, as it is unlikely that EQCA would go ahead for 2012 when it doesn’t even have ballot language ready. Wasn’t the need for a lot of lead time a key argument for not going to the ballot in 2010? Well, it does not appear that EQCA actually did very much during the 2009-2010 timeframe. In fact, I believe they shut a couple of regional offices after donations went down during the recession.
For the record, I am against going to the ballot in 2012. But I don’t like seeing a phony public “conversation” and a fake “survey” on an issue that probably has already been decided. Rather than pass on EQCA’s hype, why don’t you pose some hard questions to them?
Thank you for your note. There were polling numbers – about which I asked a number of questions. There are still more to be asked as we go along.
I am taking this very seriously and am drilling down into some of what was said last night – which is why it’s going to take a while to post. For instance, I’m about to talk to Cary Davidson to get an explanation about why EQCA might have to pay hundreds of thousands in fines after an audit for late filing. The Yes on 8 may have to do the same, too – but we need the how much and why.
So yes, please check back here later. I’d hoped to post this morning – but I’m going deeper than a simple post about what happened.