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Rob Epstein: What Harvey Milk Tells Us About Proposition 8

2008-11-21T10:00:00Z

Thirty years ago on election night Harvey Milk gave an electrifying speech at the "No on Proposition 6" headquarters in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. The results were in: Proposition 6 was going down to defeat.

In 1978, Proposition 6 ( "the Briggs Initiative") was the California ballot measure aimed at preventing gay people and supporters from working as teachers in public schools. Harvey Milk was a San Francisco city council member who had been in office for a mere ten months. Through his role in this campaign he proved himself to be more than just an "elected gay official." He was a leader at the height of his powers. When introduced to the crowd that night by Sally Gearhart (another important figure in the fight against Proposition 6), the response to Harvey was thunderous. He proceeded to give one of the greatest speeches of his relatively short political career.

Although there are many parallels to be made between Proposition 6 (1978) and Proposition 8 (2008) there are also many differences. Unlike Proposition 8, Proposition 6 had a name, a face, and a personality as its figurehead in the person of State Senator John Briggs. Briggs came across as a seemingly opportunistic and somewhat ineffectual politician, but regardless of his baboonery, the issue that he and his supporters tapped into -- "gay teachers" -- was volatile enough to find large-scale support among the electorate. Only one month before the election it looked as if it would be a very close vote, with the majority of California voters in favor of its passage.

On the other side, we had Harvey Milk as our figurehead, a "community organizer" who understood the value and importance of a well-coordinated grass-roots campaign. As a coordinated master plan, Harvey debated Briggs in high school gyms and on TV and radio, while an army of well-trained volunteers went about "canvassing" door-to-door, speaking with people on the streets and in the shopping centers about the potential consequences of the "anti-gay" Briggs Initiative. Eventually, enough voters were convinced that the measure was both unnecessary and a possible violation of constitutional rights. Proposition 6 went down by a resounding 59 to 42 percent.

On election night Harvey delivered his galvanizing speech with gale-wind force:

...to the gay community all over this state, my message to you is, so far a lot of people joined us and rejected Proposition 6, and we owe them something. We owe them to continue the education campaign that took place. We must destroy the myths once and for all, shatter them. We must continue to speak out, and most importantly, most importantly, every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is you must tell your immediate family, you must tell your relatives, you must tell your friends, if indeed they are your friends, you must tell your neighbors, you must tell the people you work with, you must tell the people in the stores you shop in (thunderous applause), and once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. And once you do, you will feel so much better.

In light of the passage of Proposition 8, Harvey's message of thirty years ago remains as vital today as it was then. It is our responsibility to let our loved ones, co-workers, friends, and neighbors know who we are, so that those who vote in favor of discrimination have our names and faces in their minds eye when doing so.

Although Proposition 8 wasn't exactly a re-make of Proposition 6, it's the same disaster movie storyline pitch: any recognition of constitutional rights for gay and lesbian citizens will somehow destroy the natural order and as a result America's institutions -- be they schools or marriage--will crumble.

Harvey pitched a different storyline: an accommodating democratic society based on constitutional principles, including the separation of church and state, and equality for all its citizens will make our country stronger and freer. But Harvey was more than just a good pitchman. He had an innate sense of history, and as a result he made his mark on history. Three weeks after his Proposition 6 victory speech Harvey was killed, and we're still waiting for another leader of his ilk to emerge. While we may not be able to predict from where or when real leaders come, eventually they do. In the meantime, as we celebrate the election of a man whose own parents' interracial marriage would not have been legal in sixteen states prior to 1967, Harvey we're still waiting.

Rob Epstein is the director of the Oscar winning film The Times of Harvey Milk, and is this years' recipient of the International Documentary Association's Pioneer Award.

Andrew Woods: Charles James: Chevron's In-House Karl Rove?

2008-11-20T12:59:05Z

Since Scott Gilmore is doing a great job chronicling the day-to-day of the landmark human rights trial of Bowoto v. Chevron, I thought I would turn my attention to one of the masterminds behind Chevron's defense.

As this trial moves into the 4th week, one of the more interesting aspects of the Bowoto case has been the role played by Charles James, Chevron's General Counsel who is often found at counsel's table, sitting and watching. James is the highest-ranking African American in Chevron, serves on the company's management committee with CEO David O'Reilly, and is considered a disciple of Karl Rove-style legal and political tactics. A product of the current Bush Administration, he served as an assistant attorney general for antitrust under John Ashcroft. One of the best examples of the importance (or lack thereof) James places on Chevron's image is his recent hiring of William J. Haynes, former General Counsel at the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (gotta wonder if Dick Cheney is next on his "to hire" list). Haynes signed off on the infamous "torture memo" that permitted waterboarding. The irony is that Chevron now has a suspected human rights violator -- Haynes -- helping to run a legal department that is trying to beat back charges that Chevron is a human rights violator itself.

The Bowoto trial is an example of how Chevron faces the most high-profile human rights problems of any major oil company. Many believe it has to do with the fact that James, like Karl Rove, just doesn't seem to know how to finesse problems before they grow to such a point that they begin to create major risks for ownership. Some observers have opined that there is a clear parallel between James' insensitivity and clumsiness and Rove's divisive and aggressive tactics.

This lack of finesse may help explain why in the present case, Chevron finds itself on trial in San Francisco (of all places!) for helping the Nigerian military kill peaceful, apparently unarmed, protesters who had occupied an oil platform. It also helps explain why Chevron's environmental problems in Ecuador's rainforest have grown to the point where the company faces a $16.3 billion potential liability, according to an independent court-appointed expert. Chevron is also under attack for owning a pipeline in Burma that generates close to $1 billion annually for that country's brutal military regime.

James' response to these problems is simple -- he just bludgeons all of the company's opposition. He has repeatedly relied upon the same strategic playbook -- "deny everything, admit nothing, attack, attack, attack" -- each time Chevron is confronted with its human rights violations. In Ecuador, the court-appointed expert found 428 people had died from exposure to oil contamination and two of the company's lawyers are under criminal indictment for lying about the results of an earlier remediation. Yet to James and his group, everyone who challenges Chevron on human rights grounds is either a pirate, a liar, or a con man. (Larry Bowoto has been repeatedly described as a "pirate" throughout the case; Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer in the Ecuador environmental case, was called an "environmental con man" by Chevron earlier this year after winning the Goldman Award, the environmental movement's version of the Nobel Prize.)

So the question is: Is James acting in the best interests of Chevron's shareholders? The fact that this is even a serious question tells one how far Chevron has fallen in recent years. We now live in a world where globalization makes issues regarding human rights, the environment, and corporate responsibility directly related to a corporation's competitiveness. While Chevron is faced with increasing human rights problems, competitors BP and Shell have significant, comprehensive human rights standards in place. As oil companies are forced to negotiate exploration agreements with increasingly sophisticated governments, Chevron's reputation will necessarily affect its competitive standing -- since communities will look to partner with corporations that can generate the most profit while causing the least amount of environmental devastation. After all, given the recent mandate spelled out in the recent election results, with Democrats now in control of Washington and the country is hungering for a new energy policy, having Bush Administration retreads like James and Haynes run an oil company's legal department seems at best bizarre and at worst foolish.

In regard to the Ecuador case, James once told law students at Berkeley that Chevron will fight "until hell freezes over, and then skate on the ice". While this is a suspect stance for any lawyer to take in public, it is even more disturbing when viewed as an aspect of James' overall philosophy. His inability to head off legal disputes has cost the company millions in fees and has left it with huge potential financial and public relations liabilities.

Regardless of how the Bowoto trial turns out (and Chevron should win the legal case -- no matter what the venue, their resources alone should all but guarantee their victory), the very existence of this standoff just miles from the company's global headquarters must be seen as a huge PR disaster for Chevron. It remains to be seen if the leadership ultimately responsible to the shareholders is taking note of the way that Charles James has masterminded this case.

Abby L. Ferber: Prejudice Alive and Well in the 2008 Elections

2008-11-18T22:52:12Z

While the election has been trumpeted as a triumph over prejudice, those declarations are premature. In numerous states, prejudice and discrimination against lesbian and gay people was further institutionalized. Arizona, California and Florida passed bans on gay marriage, while Arkansas banned gay couples from adopting children.

Taken as a whole, these measures seek to further exclude lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people from our definitions of family. Yet a focus on facts has been sorely missing from the arguments against gay and lesbian marriage and adoptions. The national organization, Sociologists for Women in Society, produced a fact sheet on LGBT Parenting and Children (and another on same-sex marriage and civil unions), analyzing three decades worth of research by sociologists, psychologists, and other scholars. Dr. Kristen Joos, author of the fact sheet, concluded that "no evidence exists to demonstrate that lesbians and gays are unfit as parents or that their children are psychologically or physically harmed by having lesbian, Gay, bisexual, or transgender parents." Examining the research published in academic, peer-reviewed journals, there was no evidence found that LGBT parents are any less fit than heterosexual parents; their children grow up to be as well adjusted both psychologically and socially.

Of course people always want to know if the children of LGBT parents are more likely to grow up to become gay or lesbian themselves. The answer is no. However, the more important question is, why are we asking this question in the first place? The question assumes there is something wrong with LGBT people to begin with.

Children of LGBT parents are actually better off than peers raised by heterosexual parents on some measures: they tend to be more open-minded and socially responsible; girls have higher self-esteem and boys are less physically aggressive, and both aspire to a wider array of career goals, outside of traditionally gendered occupations. For example, girls are more likely to seek to become doctors and astronauts. (I think a case should be made for offering gay and lesbian couples incentives to marry and adopt children!)

Are there any negative consequences? The only negative consequences for children of LGBT parents are the product of discrimination. Their families face higher levels of stigma, prejudice, discrimination, and legal obstacles. LGBT couples not allowed to marry are deprived of over 1,000 federal rights that marriage confers, including hospital visitation, tax benefits, joint insurance policies and many more. The reality is that many of these couples have children; they are living together and loving each other as families do. Eliminating marriage rights will not make these families disappear. It will only make their lives and the lives of their children far more difficult and dangerous. If we actually look at the facts, we find that the only difficulties children of LGBT parents are more likely to face are those that result from prejudice and discrimination against their families. Ballot measures like proposition 8 in California, eliminating LGBT marriage rights, will only add to the obstacles these families face.

If we truly value our society's children, we must make the elimination of homophobic oppression a top priority. LGBT adolescents in the U.S. face tremendous discrimination and prejudice. Suicide is the number one cause of death for lesbian and gay youth across the country. Last month, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network released the results of the 2007 National School Climate Survey, the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the experiences of LGBT students. The survey found that nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT high school students experienced harassment at school based on their sexual orientation in just the past year, and 60% reported feeling unsafe at school. Their fears are not unfounded: 44% reported being physically harassed and 22% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year alone.

This climate of hostility limits all students, not just those who are LGBT. In 2005, almost two thirds of all middle school students claimed that homophobic bullying and harassment were major problems at their school. When it comes to safety and our children -- LGBT parents pose no risk. It is heterosexist prejudice, discrimination, harassment and abuse that pose the only real threat.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud Din: Kashmiris Vote For Survival

2008-11-18T17:54:13Z

Despite Kashmiri separatists' calls for a boycott of the Indian run state elections in Jammu and Kashmir this month, preliminary data from the first stage of the seven stage election process shows Kashmiris in many districts have come out to vote in high numbers. The Election Commission said 64 % voter turnout was recorded in ten assembly constituencies Monday: Bandipora 57%, Sonawari 46%, Gurez 74%, Leh 60%, Zanskar 60%, Nobra 66%, Kargil 60%, Poonch Haveli 73%, Mendhar 73% and Surankot 68%. District-wise, Bandipora witnessed 53% and Poonch 71 % turned out¹.

Such data seems to conflict with the images of popular protests this past summer where tens of thousands of demonstrators protested against Indian rule and the systematic human rights abuses endured by the Kashmiri population. India has already begun to claim the data as evidence of its high democratic values and its dedication to protecting those values in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

As the world watches the first stage of elections in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, international opinion seems to suggest that Kashmiris may desire Indian rule. Yet, this is a dangerous conclusion to make. The international community must not mistake Kashmiri participation in the current elections as legitimacy for Indian rule and Kashmiri acceptance of Indian policies in Kashmir. Rather, Kashmiris are voting for stable governance to handle day to day maintenance and needs of the valley, which remain unkempt. Roads need maintenance; trash needs to be picked up; businesses need to be reopened and assisted; and schools need funding.

Indeed some Kashmiris desire Indian rule, and there are the majority that don't, as evidenced by popular discontent expressed last August. Yet the following factors are true in any context: free and fair elections are difficult to achieve in a valley occupied by more than 500,000 Indian military and paramilitary forces, which are also reported to be posted at the gates of polling stations and inside the polling stations. Free and fair elections are difficult to achieve when undeclared curfews are enacted by state security forces. Free and fair elections cannot be held while the authorities have imposed section 144, preventing the assembly of four or more people.

In the weeks leading up to the present stage of elections, over a 100 Kashmiri political leaders, such as Yasin Malik and most recently Zaffar Akbar Bhaat, have been arrested and taken into custody to undisclosed locations so as to hinder mobilization for pro-freedom rallies. Youth protesters demonstrating for election boycotts have been beaten, and on Monday, human rights activists were arrested and beaten by security forces for trying to monitor the polling in Bandipora. If indeed India claims the elections to be free and democratic, then surely journalists and civil society leaders should be free to monitor the elections, especially given the fact that soldiers are free to walk in and out of the polling stations.

Interpreting the Kashmiri voter turnout as legitimizing Kashmiri aspirations for Indian rule actually marginalizes the atrocities past and ongoing which have claimed over 70,000 lives since 1989. Instead, Kashmiris are voting for the valley to keep its head above water. Kashmir desires, above all else, justice and accountability, and peace. The graves of the scores of unarmed protesters killed in August remain fresh in the mind of Kashmiris who hope to one day participate in a vote free from the surrounding guns of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. I will never forget what a Kashmiri woman I interviewed in 2003 told me when asked about whether Kashmiris wanted independence, Indian Rule, or Pakistani rule. She said none of the above. I asked again, "What do Kashmiris want?" She responded, "to survive."

¹http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=18_11_2008&ItemID=77&cat=1

Michael DeJong: A Green Opposition to a Colorless Proposition

2008-11-18T13:35:43Z

Most of us want what's best for the environment - green jobs, eco-sensitive housing, clean energy, mindful technology, lower or zero emissions, and thoughtful environmentally-conscious industry standards in the hopes of solving Global Warming and creating a healthy planet.

In an ever-growing collective effort, most of us have taken up the mantra "Think Globally, act locally." We feel good about ourselves because of the good that we're doing by recycling plastic, paper, aluminum, glass, scrap metal, fabric and electronics. We're demanding more from our elected officials, and whether "red" or "blue" every candidate was talking "green."

We're getting much savvier, and seeing past the industrial greenwashing around us - calling to task hypocritical polluting companies who've jumped onto the enviro-bandwagon to heighten their image (and profits) while not really doing anything to substantially change their toxic habits or products.

We're slowly but surely altering our behaviors to see towards a brighter, healthier future because we all want what's better for the planet and the individuals and creatures that walk, crawl, swim, hop and fly across its surface--for our and future generations.

The "green" movement was and still is a wonderful and distinctly authentic American development. For generations, authors, organizations, visionaries, activists and great thinkers like Rachael Carson (The Silent Spring), Henry David Thoreau (Maine Woods), Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth), John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, and institutions like the National Park Service, The Sierra Club, Clean Up America (remember the crying Native American!) and the Environmental Protection Agency collectively created what has now blossomed into today's green movement - saving the spotted owl has moved past being just a mere "tree-hugger" issue...because of the callousness we've shown our planet, particularly over the past 50 years, we are finally beginning to see that we reap what we sow, and to understand that our world is a very connected and fragile system. The old story of the flapping of a butterfly's wing on one side of the planet building into a monsoon on the other seems less metaphoric than it once did.

And as it becomes more and more mainstream, perhaps it's time to re-imagine our vision for our environment to include not just the air, water and soil, polar icecaps and polar bears, but our attitudes towards human inclusivity as well. If sustainability is the collective "green" goal, we're already in the mindset of "weaning" behaviors and attitudes to reach that greater collective goal. We're weaning ourselves from plastics. We're weaning ourselves from waste. We're hoping to wean ourselves from foreign energy dependencies. But we have rarely imagined weaning ourselves from our self-made separation of "us" and "them," when the truth of the matter is that we are all in this together--we breathe the same air, we drink the same water, we consume the same fruits of the earth, etc.

But, I have to admit that in the midst of all my joy, excitement and sense of renewed hope last Tuesday when we elected Barack Obama to be our 44th President, I was also cut off at the knees because what at one moment felt like unity was instantaneously smashed by the same electorate.

On May 15, 2008, the Supreme Court of California had overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage, declaring it un-Constitutional. But at the same moment Barack Obama was elected the 44th President, the nasty, mean-spirited, hateful Proposition 8 (the "Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act") was passed, and amended California's Constitution to limit the meaning of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. By overriding the Supreme Court decision to recognize same-sex marriage as a fundamental right, Proposition 8 exterminated those rights for same-sex couples. And because if it, California, now sadly has a revised Constitution that once only denied rights but now actually takes rights away. Instead of liberty and justice for all, it excludes. It treats first class tax payers as second-class citizens. Those in the minority will once again be "separate but equal." The same people who made history and elected Mr. Obama in California, while in the privacy of the same voting booth, opted to deny marriage equality and the over 1,000 rights state-sanctioned marriage tiautomatically grants.

As history tells us, both Rachael Carson and Henry David Thoreau both had significant relationships with individuals of the same sex. We still embrace their words and acknowledge them with gratitude as founders of an earth movement and not as gay and lesbian contributors. When they, like every other eco-activist, wrote their groundbreaking theses on the destruction of our perfect planet, they didn't do so calling for cleaner air and water for gay people - they raised their clarion call to ignite a flame under all people. Similarly, Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" didn't consider the sexual orientation or gender identity of those who are affected by climate change - he knows too well that a rising tide raises all boats; and Teresa Heinz Kerry's annual conference, "Women, Health & The Environment" is inclusive of all women and addresses their particular concerns as women, not as straight women, and the risks they are exposed to from eco-toxins.

When I take my reusable shopping bag to the grocery store, I don't think, "Great, one less plastic bag for gay men to have to contend with" and when my twin sister purchased her new highly energy efficient washer and dryer, she didn't say, "Great, more energy for straight people!" So perhaps "green" is where "red" and "blue" and "purple" can meet on the spectrum of human decency. With heartfelt "green" work by many - gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual or transgendered - in an attempt to make an environment that's livable for everyone, hopefully we'll create a political environment that's healthy, meaningful and inclusive for us all along the way.

Phil Bronstein: Prop. 8: Witch Hunt and Holy War Make Way for New Beginning?

2008-11-18T12:47:05Z

While Southern California burned over the weekend, the conflagration set off by Prop 8 also continued to flame up around the country. The Chronicle's story, which was careful after some grumbling last week to reference Bay City News' quote from the police on crowd estimates here, offered a good overview of marches around the country.

But reporters Kevin Fagan and John King noted about SF's march what blogs and other media seem to reinforce: a change in the wind pattern of the protest.

SF's demonstration was, the story said, "noisy but good-natured." "Speakers emphasized the importance of pushing affirmatively for full rights in marriage...rather than turning on groups because of a perceived lack of support." Several speakers in the article reinforce that notion. While passions and commitment continue to run gale force, accusations, finger-pointing, scapegoating, retaliation, victimization, schisms between minority communities, and the prospect for a holy war died down in favor of the future and a larger sense of purpose.

For a while, newspaper web sites like the Chron and LA Times seemed like they were providing targets on the backs of individuals and companies in their database presentation of contributors to the Prop 8 campaign. The news was pitted with stories about people quitting or losing their jobs because they'd given money and were being called out.

Some claimed this was true on both sides. Michelangelo Signorile, the writer and talk show host and a long-time believer in outing people, said on CNN that he'd gotten calls from people who opposed Prop 8 who said they'd been fired in retaliation for their positions. The Mormon Church was attacked in speeches and physically assailed by crowds. As the Chronicle also noted Sunday, the African American vote for Prop 8 was being inaccurately singled out. The owner of a small LA Mexican restaurant who donated $100 to Yes on 8 held a press conference at her eatery that almost turned into a riot. There was even a claim on Queerty that the whole thing was just a big promotional stunt for the film, Milk.

Things were getting a little ugly. A friend of mine who supports same sex marriage said some anti-8 protesters were "a well-intentioned mob," and the phrase "witch-hunt" has been used more than once. With angry mobs, you at least know what to expect. Well-intentioned mobs are a little harder to figure out. Gay rights activists countered that you have to be harsh when your civil rights are taken away.

But appeals for a less combative approach grew. Even the "Join The Impact" web site, which was the organizational and information outlet for the coordinated marches over the weekend, ended its to-do list with this:

"Please remain respectful of your neighbors and reach across the aisle to our opponents. This is an amazing opportunity to continue the conversation and drive change. Please keep promoting peace, respect and outreach."

Actor Oscar Nunez, who plays a gay character on The Office, suggested Prop 8 opponents do some community outreach. Locally, a number of commenters on an SFist story on boycotting Cinemark theaters because the CEO gave to Yes on 8 took the tone of benmullin333: "Maybe there should be attempts at educating those who were misguided enough to support Prop 8. If gay marriage rights are a righteous cause, it shouldn't require tactics of alienation and blacklisting." (joshb said he could do a boycott of theaters but "if Netflix gave to 8 I'd be f-ed."

Benjamin Wachs weighed in on the SFWeekly blog, The Snitch: "No on 8 activists: please, please, PLEASE don't turn this into a holy war...If getting mad is more important than getting married, then by all means pile on."

This view is hardly unanimous, but, what the hell, let's call it a trend.

I'm a big student of and believer in insurgency, an art form that isn't always so gentle. But in the spirit of this apparent Prop 8 mood shift, I'm prepared to say: Mayor Newsom, the past is the past.

Christine C. Quinn: Next Steps For LGBT Civil Rights

2008-11-18T11:37:36Z

Since Election Day, I, like many LGBT Americans and their allies, have felt torn in two. On November 4th I was overjoyed to see Barack Obama become President-elect of the United States, and incredibly proud that the LGBT community played a central role in his victory. I was full of optimism at the prospect of a real ally in the White House, a president who has mentioned and credited the LGBT community in every major political speech he has given since 2004.

But then I woke on November 5th, to discover that hope and change were not coming to all Americans. Amendment 2 in Florida, Proposition 102 in Arizona and Proposition 8 in California had all passed, denying civil rights to thousands of LGBT families.

And I found myself asking: How could our nation embrace a movement for change, while three of its states voted to reject the rights of an entire group of Americans? Could this be real? And what did this mean for the future of our LGBT community?

I've carried that last question with me for the past two weeks. And on Wednesday and Saturday I got my answer, when I participated in two rallies that responded to this injustice.

Neither event was organized by established, well-funded institutions. They were fueled by modern day grassroots efforts. Thousands came together through word of mouth, text messages from a friend, or internet organizing. They were joined together as a community by a desire for justice and equality.

On Saturday, when I took the stage at a rally outside City Hall, the crowd stretched so far that you couldn't see the end. It took my breath away. The number and dedication of those gathered rivaled any demonstration I've seen in recent history.

I started to look at the faces in the crowd. It almost moved me to tears when I saw the looks in their eyes -- their smiles, their energy and optimism. They were not defeated; they were empowered, fueled by the possibility and the wonder of equality.

Of course people are angry -- I myself am angry. But what is significant today is that our community has taken an anger that might have turned to bitterness, and molded it instead into strength and action. We need to take this strength to our state capitals, and tell them that we are full citizens and deserve to have full and equal rights under the law.

The LGBT community's future is one of immeasurable possibility. It's bright and bold, strong and hopeful, and as limitless as freedom itself. Our community knows that our country is supposed to be the land of the free, where one can engage in the pursuit of happiness. On Saturday we once again demonstrated that we are committed to making it so!

Michael Rogers: Taking on an $8 billion company and winning in four days

2008-11-18T10:26:33Z

I'm tired.

I've been involved in the struggle for gay equality since 1986 and I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of the conflict in what has become a civil war between fair and just people who want nothing more than equality and the religious zealots who seek to control us.

As a faithful soldier in the war, I decided to take action when I saw that a franchisee of Subway, the sandwich shop chain, donated $2,500 to Yes on 8, I knew it was time to pick up a weapon of the war and go after what the enemy (and yes, supporters of Prop 8 are my enemies) depends on most, money.

"Boycott schmoycot." I'm tired and don't have the energy to begin a traditional national boycott. All that work. All that education. I'm tired and it's enough. So, can one guy go after an international food chain with 30,000 outlets and win, quickly? In the words of Sarah Palin, "You bet'cha."

From my site, BlogActive.com:

I was reading through the Human Rights Campaign's list of companies that gave to Yes on 8, the California referendum that removed marriage equality from the state's constitution. When I saw a franchisee of an international company gave $2,500 to opponents of equality, I immediately knew I would require someone at the company's world HQ to address this. Or, I would publicly.

So, after a few discussions, I informed the company's spokesperson that they had until today to take the following three actions:

1) Repudiate the franchisee's gift
2) Make a gift in the same amount to an organization fighting for true equality
3) Immediately add sexual orientation and gender identity to the corporation's non-discrimination policy.

Their choice was simple: Address the demands or or you're pretty much allowing automatic and immediate approval of Yes on 99 (the National Boycott Subway BlogActive Referendum). BoycottSubway.com was purchased...I gave them until yesterday at 3pm.

I was told that such demands with such a short deadline were too harsh. "Harsh," I'll tell you about "harsh." This is a civil war waged upon free and just people by those who seek to control them. In 1776 the punishment for such treatment was not a boycott, the objections came at the end of a bayonet. Now that was harsh. Thank goodness times have changed. Plus a bloody war requires real activity and, well, I'm tired.

Unlike McCain's so-called "surge," the surge of LGBT activism in the wake of the passage of California's Proposition 8 is actually responsible for something; masses that are ticked off gays and lesbians (and our supporters) are taking to the streets. This 'Stonewall 3.0,' as it is being dubbed (see: ACT-UP for version 2.0), coupled with the reach of the web, means we can be so exhausted that we can unleash power by a whole new means: keyboards and web connections. This is good, because I'm tired.

"It'll never work, they have 30,000 stores all over the world," one friend told me, "Way too big a company to move that quickly."

"Watch me," I replied, hoping it would be quick, because I'm tired.

International food chain responds to blogger's demands, franchisee retracts gift, job protections added:

In a conversation with Rogers today, Subway Director of Corporate Communications Michele DiNello responded to the three demands.

LETTER SENT TO FRANCHISEES WORLDWIDE, GIFT REFUNDED

Explaining the company's position the letter continued, "You should also be aware that your franchise agreement prohibits your use of the SUBWAY trademark as part of your business or corporate name. Further, it states that you agree to '...not use the Trademark in a manner that degrades, diminishes, or detracts from the goodwill of the business associated with the Trademark' and 'to promptly change the manner of such use if requested to do so by us.'"

The franchisee, explained DiNello, has called Yes on 8 and asked for a refund of the gift.

DiNello also addressed my requirement that sexual orientation and gender identity to the company's non-discrimination policies:

"We are changing the discrimination policy language and that includes anything we add through headquarters human resources, not just in the field," said DiNello. "The company used the exact language you gave us," referring to BlogActive's request to add both 'sexual orientation and gender identity.'"

This is a textbook example of how a company should react when they realize that one of its operating units has done something wrong. What was outrageous behavior by one franchisee has resulted in a letter to owners of 30,000 stores and a corporate policy change for the better. And I didn't have to leave my desk chair; a good thing because I'm tired.

With over 30,000 outlets operating in more than 85 countries, Subway is the second largest food chain worldwide, raking second only to McDonald's. Yes, a giant corporation -- an $8 Billion a year corporation -- can be brought to the side of fairness quickly and efficiently.

We have a handle -- a handle on a spigot of money. Mess with the gays and watch the 'pink wrath' slowly twist the spigot until they're at the table begging for forgiveness. At Subway they were smart, the spigot is fully open. I like that, I didn't want to help turn it off, I'm tired.

Madeline, we miss you:

Al Meyerhoff: It's Not Over Til It's Over

2008-11-17T21:48:38Z

Out of the courthouse, back to the streets. That seems to be the view of thousands of members of the California gay and lesbian community seeking to secure the right to marriage. They are mistaken. Actually, civil rights history may simply be repeating itself.

As in several other states, in barely passing Proposition 8, California's voters have undone the California Supreme Court decision invalidating the California statute allowing civil unions but denying marriage because that distinction violated gay citizens' rights to equality and privacy under the California Constitution. But by doing, the electorate may well now have violated parallel guarantees contained in the United States Constitution. We have been here before.

In 1964, in the midst of a racial divide now perhaps hard to fathom after the election of Barack Obama, California's voters overwhelming passed proposition 14. Like Prop 8, that measure amended the California Constitution to invalidate the state's recent laws prohibiting race discrimination in housing. In the famed case of Reitman vs. Mulkey, first the California and then the US Supreme Court struck down the initiative as unconstitutional. They invoked well settled constitutional doctrine perhaps best stated decades earlier by Justice Robert Jackson: "the very purpose of the Bill of Rights is to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities... Fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote, they depend on no elections."

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other public officials have now stated that after passage of Proposition 8, they must now follow "the will of the people." However, it is in the best tradition of the Founding Fathers to protect against laws intended only to suppress inalienable rights held by all Americans -- gay or straight . They come, after all, not from the state or the electorate; as Jefferson said, "we are endowed" with them "by the Creator."

In its In Re Marriage decision, the California Supreme Court's cited prior decisions striking down laws against interracial marriage on the grounds that under the US Constitution "marriage, so integral to an individual's liberty... may not be abrogated by the legislature or the electorate." (Without such decisions, we would have no Barack Obama). However, the state supreme court did not reach the US Constitutional question since our own Constitution guaranteed equality and privacy rights. By amending the California Constitution with Proposition 8, however, the federal question is now squarely presented -- both in the state and then eventually in the US Supreme Court. Like its California counterpart, the US Constitution protects the individual against discrimination in exercising fundamental rights including privacy -- what Justice Brandeis once called "the right to be left alone" -- from intrusion by government. Being gay does not make one a lesser citizen. Proposition 8 should now be struck down.

Several years ago, the people of Colorado passed a mean-spirited ballot measure amending their state constitution to prohibit government officials from adopting laws against gay discrimination. The Colorado and then US Supreme Court's tossed it out in Romer vs. Evans because "the disadvantage is born of animus against the category of persons affected." So too was Proposition 8 which should suffer a similar fate. Because at its core, our Constitution protects the right to be different, the right to be free. That's called liberty.

Al Meyerhoff is a civil rights lawyer in Los Angeles.

Diane Dimond: The Rapist In The Freezer

2008-11-17T16:01:44Z

It's probably safe to say there are serial rapists roaming free in America and it's our own justice system's fault.

Pretty provocative statement, right? Well, it is meant to be.

Recent reports from the National Institute of Justice, Human Rights Watch and others confirm many hundreds of thousands of rape victim's worst nightmares. Their DNA rape kits, collected in the hours after their painful and humiliating assaults, were never even tested. The kits have been ignored and still sit on freezer shelves in crime labs all across America. They wait for a technician to conduct the tests that will reveal a criminal's biological identity.

To be fair, some of the cases represented by the more than 400,000 backlog rape kits have been solved through confessions, eye-witness testimony or some other investigative means. But if labs went ahead and processed those kits they might very well be able to connect other unsolved rapes to the same criminal.

Rape is often a serial crime. One rapist can be responsible for dozens of attacks. In one often quoted study forty-one known serial rapists were found responsible for 837 rapes and over 400 attempted rapes.

But back to those kits. A majority of the untested are orphaned tests. They've remained on ice, depriving detectives of the most important clue. And in the most maddening development, a great number of them are approaching expired status. That is to say, the statute of limitations soon runs out on them and the kit's results won't be admissible in court.

Victims in most states will never know if their evidence was tested. They'll be left to assume the silence from police means their kit simply did not yield any helpful information. What awful payback for their painful determination to go to the hospital and submit to the long and very invasive testing procedure. Victims usually go in wearing what they had on during the attack and leave in a hospital gown because their clothes are supposed to be scoured for evidence. It is all part of the rape kit.

So, why has this been allowed to happen? The answer is that there is no good answer! There seems to be plenty of federal money available, so much so that many states report they haven't even spent all of last year's allotment. See how frustrating all this is?

In 2004, the President signed The Debbie Smith Act which appropriated at least 151 million dollars a year to a nationwide DNA rape kit backlog program. The namesake, a Virginia police officer's wife, who had been kidnapped from her kitchen in 1989, dragged into the woods and raped as her husband napped upstairs. Her attacker left Debbie by saying, "Remember, I know where you live and I will come back and kill you if you tell anyone." Debbie Smith fought back, submitting to the testing, believing it would help catch her rapist. It took six years before her kit was analyzed. When the results were finally run through a database and the perp discovered Debbie realized she could have felt safe years earlier. Her attacker was already in prison serving time for kidnapping and robbing two other women.

I've done a lot of research on this issue, trying hard to understand how we got to this place. Over the last four years Congress has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for these backlog DNA tests, to identify more criminals and get them off the street. I could quote many more statistics and reasons why states say they haven't gotten the testing done -- excuses that range from bureaucratic problems to not enough qualified DNA technicians -- but that's not the point. To me, if there's even one rape kit left ignored on a freezer shelf that's one too many. There is no excuse except indifference. That's just not acceptable.

If it were your daughter, your wife, your sister, your mother -- and yes even your son, husband, brother or father (about 10% are male victims) -- who was awaiting such an important test result wouldn't you expect better from the justice system?

As I sit here writing this I am alone in my home office. The sun is setting and my husband is at work. I've had to pause to go make sure all my doors and windows are locked. I suddenly realize how many of us teeter on the edge of feeling safe. When we're the victims of some awful calamity we find peace in the knowledge that someday the perpetrator will be found and justice will prevail.

Not so for all those victims still waiting for their rape kits to be tested. And consider this: Every year some 200,000 Americans report they have been raped. And rape is considered the number one most under-reported crime.

Diane Dimond's website is: www.DianeDimond.net. She can be contacted at Diane@DianeDimond.net

Johann Hari: Are There Just too Many People in the World?

2008-11-15T12:17:32Z

This is a post I don't want to write. Its subject is ugly; it makes me instinctively recoil. I have chastised people who bring it up at environmentalist meetings. The people who talk about it obsessively have often been callous about human life, and consistently proved wrong throughout history. And yet... there is a grain of insight in what they say.

The subject is overpopulation. Is our planet over-stuffed with human beings? Are we breeding to excess? These questions are increasingly poking into public debate, and from odd directions. Phillip Mountbatten -- husband of the British monarch Elizabeth Windsor -- said in a documentary screened this week: "The food prices are going up, and everyone thinks it's to do with not enough food, but it's really [that there are] too many people. It's a little embarrassing for everybody, nobody knows how to handle it." He is not alone. A strange range of people have voiced the same sentiments over the past few months, from the Dalai Lama to Hu Jintao, from Conservative mayor Boris Johnson to Democratic Governor Bill Richardson.

They start by listing the sums, which are indeed startling. Every year, world population grows by 75 million people -- equivalent to another Britain and Ireland whooshing fully-populated from the oceans. At the turn of the 18th century, there were 600 million people on earth. At the turn of this century, there were 6.6 billion. By the time I am in my sixties, there will be more than nine billion -- at which point there will be more people alive simultaneously than in the first 17 centuries after Christ combined.

The overpopulation lobby say this will inevitably leave more and more people chasing after a diminishing amount of resources on an ecologically-ravaged planet. At their most pessimistic, they say human beings will, in the long sweep of planetary history, look like a big-brained version of a locust cloud. They eat everything in sight and multiply fifty-fold -- until they have consumed everything, when they turn in desperation on each other, munch off their siblings' heads, and then fall out of the sky dead.

They say with a frown that this global swarming is driving global warming. How can you be prepared to cut back on your car emissions and your plane emissions but not on your baby emissions? Can you really celebrate the pitter-patter of tiny carbon-footprints?

Yet this subject seems to leech out all the dark toxins of environmentalism -- a movement I believe is the most urgent and important in the world. There has always been an element of green thinking that viewed humans as a parasitic infestation, wrecking the Eden of planet earth. The philosopher John Gray calls our species "homo rapiens." The founder of Earth First!, Dave Foreman, called us "Humanpox" and wrote: "The Aids epidemic, rather than being a scourge, is a welcome development in the inevitable reduction of human population... If [it] didn't exist, radical environmentalists would have to invent [it]."

If environmentalism sounds -- or is -- misanthropic, we will lose the argument. Most human beings will never think the world would be better off without us. Nobody thinks they are the surplus human being who should not have been born. These strident arguments hand a huge gift to the anti-greens, who always said we were anti-human beneath the surface.

It also looks like displacement. The places where population is growing fastest -- sub-Saharan Africa, rural China and Bangladesh -- have virtually no carbon emissions, and pitiful food consumption rates. The gap is so huge that to be responsible for as many gas emissions as one British person, a Cambodian woman would need to have 262 children. Can we really sit in our nice homes, with a fridge-full of food we will mostly chuck away and an SUV in the drive, and complain that she is the problem?

Once this gut-reaction has kicked in, I then think of the horrible history of overpopulation predictions. Most famously, the 18th century demographer Thomas Malthus said mass starvation was inevitable because population increases geometrically while food production grows arithmetically. He didn't anticipate the coming of the Industrial Revolution. His successors in the 1960s, like Paul Ehrich and the Club of Rome, similarly didn't see the Green Revolution that was galloping around the corner of history.

So it is tempting to say now that the overpopulation argument will smack into some new technological development. It's not quite true to say there is a diminishing amount of resources, because the genius of human beings is to find new ways to use what is there. Two centuries ago, nobody could have conceived that the sun's rays or the waves in the ocean were a resource to be used -- but solar and tidal power make it so.

And yet, and yet... why do my own arguments leave me echoing with doubt? A dark voice in my head says: you would accept that, to pluck an absurd number, 100 billion people would be too many. You don't think human genius is infinitely expansive; there is a limit to what it can solve. So isn't the question just where you draw the line? If 100 billion is too much, why not nine billion?

Hmm. You should always take on the best arguments of your opponents, not the worst. There are good people -- a world away from the British royals or the human-hating fringes -- who are sincerely concerned about population levels: people like Professors Chris Rapley and John Guillebaud. They argue that although the swelling billions are not now emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases, they will see that we are doing it and will (totally understandably) want to join in the carbon bonfire.

But if this is a problem, is there a solution that isn't abhorrent? Some people seem to reach instinctively for authoritarian answers. The government of China has bragged that its "greatest contribution" to the fight against global warming has been its policy of punishing, imprisoning or sterilising women who have more than one child. Some environmentalists -- a small minority -- eye this idea jealously.

There is a far better way -- and it is something we should be pursuing anyway. It is called feminism. Where women have control over their own bodies -- through contraception, abortion and general independence -- they choose not to be perpetually pregnant. The UN Fund For Population Activities has calculated that 350 million women in the poorest countries didn't want their last child, but didn't have the means to prevent it. We should be helping them by building a global anti-Vatican, distributing the pill and the words of Mary Wollstonecraft.

So after studying the evidence, I am left in a position I didn't expect. Yes, the argument about overpopulation is distasteful, often discussed inappropriately, and far from being a panacea -- solution -- but it can't be dismissed entirely. It will be easier for 6 billion people to cope on a heaving, boiling planet than for nine or 10 billion -- and we will only get there by freeing women to make their own reproductive choices. To achieve this green goal, it's necessary to mix some oestrogen into the environmentalist palette.

Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper. To read more of his articles, click here or here.

Terrance Heath: First, You Get Mad

2008-11-14T17:39:34Z

Wow. It's kind of unbelievable, really. You take something away from people, and they get angry. Take away hard won rights, and equal protection for those they love, and people get really angry.

In the week since, California has seen an outpouring of demonstrations ranging from quiet vigils to noisy street protests against Proposition 8, including rallies outside churches and the Mormon temple in Westwood as well as boycotts of some businesses that contributed to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Many of those activities have been organized not by political professionals and established leaders in the gay community, but by young activists working independently on Facebook and MySpace.

The grass-roots activism is a tribute to political organizing in the digital age, in which it is possible to mobilize thousands of people with a few clicks of a mouse. It has generated national attention -- and set up a series of Saturday demonstrations that organizers hope will attract tens of thousands of people to city halls throughout California.

But the demonstrations also have raised questions about whether the in-your-face approach will alienate voters, who may be asked one day to approve gay marriage. Twice in the last eight years, voters have rejected it.

"I think the No on 8 forces have devolved into mob justice," said Jeff Flint, a campaign strategist for the Yes side.

Mob justice? Please. Man, you haven't seen mob justice. If anybody got mobbed, it was the couples who saw their marriages voted -- and their civil right to marry each other -- voted out of existence. If that doesn't make you angry, there's probably something wrong with you.

In the week-and-a-have since proposition 8 was defeated, I've been taken to task for saying that people had the right to be angry after prop. 8 passed. I've read blog posts advising that me that "anger loses." (And, no disrespect to the blogger who wrote that post, but if one more person tells me "We all won," I might just explode. We did not "all win," some of us had very painful losses, even in the middle of all celebrating.) I've heard premature "calls for healing." I even did a double take when I saw a sign on the bus declaring "Anger is false power," but then realized it was a poster for anger management counseling.

Maybe anger management is necessary sometimes, but this time? Fuck it. There are times when anger is a natural, justified, and even powerful reaction.

Where would gay people be without anger? The event that launched the modern gay rights movement was a riot that started when the police raided the Stonewall Inn on the wrong night, queens weren't having it and fought back. Where would we be without that bunch of pissed off queens and dykes, right?

When Dan White got a slap on the wrist for assassinating Harvey Milk and George Muscone, gays rioted again, showing at least that they weren't going to lie down and take it.

And the when anger at the Reagan administration's lack of action on the AIDS crisis was channeled into ACT-UP, whose demonstrations and direct action brought attention to the epidemic and government action that wasn't forthcoming until people acted up.

And remember what we're talking about here, and what people are so upset about, are not riots. We're talking about demonstrations. Loud, but (so far) lawful demonstrations, where passions have gotten out of hand sometimes, but we're not talking roving bands of marauding, angry queers.

Anger is the right response, and a healthy response, when it rises from a denial of humanity, an assault on dignity. or enforced injustice. In those situations it's a natural right.

When, people get angry, they fail to remember their "place." Calls to move instantly into self-examination and to adopt a "healing" attitude overnight literally while still feeling the sting of the above is to deny the right to feel anger over injustice and a reminder that it's not your "place."

Now that California voters have outlawed same-sex marriage, an LDS Church leader called Wednesday for members to heal any rifts caused by the emotional campaign by treating each other with "civility, with respect and with love."

"We hope that every one would treat each that way no matter which side of this issue they were on," said Elder L. Whitney Clayton, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Presidency of the Seventy.

...The LDS Church's campaign to pass Proposition 8 was its most vigorous since the 1970s, when it joined the effort to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment.

Clayton said the church never considered Proposition 8 to be a political issue.

Somehow anger means that you are wrong, not that you've been wronged. And shutting it off means those who have wronged you don't have to face any kind of accountability.

Meanwhile, know this: You can stoke the factional lusts of the Great Unwashed. You can harness your vast financial resources to tear down the separation of church and state, and thereby purchase legitimization from your fellow anti-reason theocrats in other cults and sects. You can continue to control an entire state as the stale, stagnant, dreary mini-theocracy that you would gladly see the rest of the country emulate. You can continue to torture your own sons and daughters who had the dumb luck to be born gay in a Mormon family. You can enjoy the last few gasps of fleeting "successes" of today -- until you finally do the world a favor and die off, leaving your children to apologize to your grandchildren for your sins.

But there is one thing you cannot do: You cannot force me to "heal." The perpetrator of a harm has no standing to demand that his victim heal according to the evildoer's timetable. To suggest otherwise simply shows your disingenuousness.

I will choose the day when I "heal." But rest assured that today is not that day. Today, I hit back.

Might, after all, makes right. It's a lesson I learned as a child, when I was hit and then dared to cry. A call to instantaneous "healing," to excise a natural response of the human heart to hurt, is also a call to accept that hurt and even places the one who inflicts the hurt in the "victim" position. (The batterer always says to the battered, "look what you made me do.") It is a call, sometimes even a demand to quietly accept injustice. ("Stop or I'll give you something to cry about.)

Anger -- at an injustice done or pain inflicted -- is a privilege.

I've notice something. No one seems to seems to question whether the angry white men that swept Newt Gingrich and the Republican majority into power in 1994 were justified in their anger. It's assumed that whatever they're angry about they have a right to be angry about.

But not so for the so called "angry black women." Their anger is somehow less "real" and less justified. Perhaps that that's because being angry is a privilege in this culture. Anger, if you are a minority, is dangerous. If you are a woman, or a person of color, gay, etc., your movements must be calm, your voice must be modulated, and your anger must ever show.

Joy is permitted. You may sing, dance, and celebrate in your joy. It is a performance, sometimes a command performance, demanded of you even in the midst of despair. Suffering is permitted. It, too, is familiar and non-threatening. It can even be reaffirming to those looking upon it; reaffirming their power and privilege. Sadness is permitted. You are allowed to mourn, and to moan, keen, and cry in your mourning. Fear is permitted. Your fear -- wide-eyed screaming of stunned silence -- is familiar, and recognizable.

You are allowed all of the above, especially in response to another's more "real" anger, but not your own anger. Anger implies entitlement -- to material goods, to power and privilege, or a certain kind of treatment. Anger implies a right to expect something, and is a justifiable response to not receiving one's due. And you aren't due that which you'd have a right to be angry about having been denied.

Stonewall happened because people got angry. When Dan White got a light sentence for Harvey Milk's murder, people got angry. ACT-UP and and the awareness and action it helped bring about happened because people got angry. Stonewall, an the movement it inspired, happened because people decided they'd had enough, and got angry.

People get angry when they're denied the basic human dignity they have a right to, when they citizenship and their humanity itself is denied. They get angry, then they organize and do something about it.

First, you get mad. You can't just stop there, because anger by itself -- undirected and unchanneled -- gets nowhere, focuses on the wrong targets, like people who are actually on your side.

Geoffrey, a student at UCLA and regular Rod 2.0 reader, joined the massive protest outside the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood. Geoffrey was called the n-word at least twice.

It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU NIGGER, one man shouted at men. If your people want to call me a FAGGOT, I will call you a nigger. Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the temple...me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a young WeHo clone said after last night the niggers better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.

Los Angeles resident and Rod 2.0 reader A. Ronald says he and his boyfriend, who are both black, were carrying NO ON PROP 8 signs and still subjected to racial abuse.

Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, "Black people did this, I hope you people are happy!" A young lesbian couple with mohawks and Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were "very disappointed with black people" and "how could we" after the Obama victory. This was stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it didn't matter because "most black people hated gays" and he was "wrong" to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever heard. I guess he never thought we were gay.

Anger unfocused, undisciplined, and undirected is destructive to cooperation and community. It alienates allies and potential allies. It is no longer "righteous anger" or justifiable anger, but a furious imitation of the worst traits of those who inflicted the harm; the real source of your anger. It is the abused imitating the abuser, and in the process continuing the cycle that spirals down to a place where you become what you started out to fight against. In that sense, it transforms you and your world, but in all the wrong ways.

Sometimes anger is healthy and necessary fuel for the work ahead. But don't just "take it to the streets." Join a movement, or start one, and make an impact. Amplify your voice by joining with others who share your experience and anger, at a lifetime of being told "you can there, but you can't sit here."

You can't because it's not your world. It's their world, and you just live in it.

Growing up gay in a largely straight world, and being told that you can have your legal contracts for your relationship if you're lucky, or live with domestic partnerships if you're really lucky, is a bit like growing up in a big, old house. You're allowed to live there - in fact, you were born there and grew up there - but certain rooms are off-limits. "You can't go in there," the adults say, as soon as you learn to walk. "Or there," they remind you as you get older. And you wonder why. But you're a good kid and don't want to make a ruckus, and it's your home too and your family, and they seem very insistent. After a while, they allow you to go up to the second floor and even third floor. There are rules there: don't touch that vase, don't put your feet on that couch, don't spill anything on that rug. But you can still hang out there if you really want to.

But there's one room at the very top of the house that has always been forbidden, and the more lee-way you are given elsewhere, the more stringently that rule is enforced. In the end, they say, "You can go anywhere and do anything - apart from that room." And you accept this, because they seem so intent on it. And you love them. But you keep wondering: why that room? What is up there? What am I not allowed to experience or to see?

And one day, you get up your courage and you wait till the adults are out and you gingerly make your way to that room you have never been in before.

And you go in, and look around, with some awe and burning curiosity. And you look in the cupboards and the drawers and under the chairs, and finally you find, in one dusty old desk, what they never wanted you to find.

You find the legal papers, the deed, that proves that they own the house. And you don't. However long you live, whatever you do, however you conduct yourself, this house will never be yours. You can live in it - with their permission, and under their authority. It is your home, because where else were you born and where else would you live - but only to rent, never to own. It is your family, but you are always kept one critical step away from being fully part of it. There is one fine line you will never be allowed to cross.

Take it to the doorsteps of those who actually did the harm.

Carrying signs reading "Love not H8" and "Did you cast a ballot or a stone?", a large crowd of gay-marriage supporters gathered outside a Mormon temple to protest the church's endorsement of a same-sex marriage ban in California.

The rally Wednesday night outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple came hours after gay couples exchanged vows for the first time in Connecticut amid cheers and tears of joy.

The milestone did not ease the sting of a major loss for gay-marriage supporters last week. Gay activists planned protests across the country over the vote that took away their right to wed in California.

In the Upper West Side of Manhattan, demonstrators chanted "Shame on you!" outside the temple. Leaders of the Mormon church had encouraged members to support passage of California's Proposition 8, a referendum banning same-sex marriage.

"I'm fed up and disgusted with religious institutions taking political stances and calling them moral when it's nothing but politics," said Dennis Williams, 36. "Meanwhile they enjoy tax-free status while trying to deny me rights that should be mine at the state and federal level."

Church spokesman Michael Otterson said that while citizens have the right to protest, he was "puzzled" and "disturbed" by the gathering since the majority of California's voters had approved the amendment.

Remember they're "disturbed" because they've always and only ever expected you to simply "take it." Remember the injustice you and others have endured for the sake of their comfort. Remember that you do not owe them their "comfort." Remember that their "comfort" is not your responsibility. Remember that they do not have the right to be "comfortable" at your expense.

Take it to those who approved of the injustice done, and wanted it done.

In Orange County, police officials and protest organizers estimated that about 250 to 300 gay-rights advocates fanned out along sidewalks leading to Saddleback Church in Lake Forest.

The protesters were angered by the megachurch's support of Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment approved by voters Tuesday that bans same-sex marriages and overturns the state Supreme Court decision in May legalizing such unions.

Human Rights Campaign volunteer Ed Todeschini accused the church of helping propagate what he called misinformation about the Supreme Court ruling, including that gay marriage would have to be taught to kindergartners.

..."They told such obvious lies, they used their lies to deceive the public," Todeschini said of the church, which gained national attention in August when its pastor, Rick Warren, brought Obama and McCain together to discuss their religious faith. The two candidates embraced during what was otherwise an often-contentious presidential campaign.

Todeschini said Sunday's rally was peaceful, with demonstrators waving placards with slogans including "Equality for all" and "Shame on you."

In Oakland, where the highway patrol rerouted traffic, protest organizers said they hoped to tone down the anger that has characterized some previous protests.

"Our intent is not to disturb churchgoers," organizer Tim DeBenedictis said in a statement. "Our goal is to mend fences and build bridges so that all Californians can achieve marriage equality under the law."

Watch more MySpace videos on AOL Video

Take it to those who enabled the injustice.

In the 10 days since Californians passed Proposition 8, a wave of impromptu pro-gay marriage rallies has exploded into boycotts of businesses whose owners and employees supported the marriage ban, plans for simultaneous protest rallies nationwide and talk of an initiative to overturn the ban in 2010.

While leaders of the No on 8 campaign say the grass-roots activities underscore the deep resentment gays feel in losing the right to marry, backers of Proposition 8 say they have become the target of an ugly, anti-democratic witch hunt. They say printing the names of people who donated to the yes cause and circulating "blacklists" on the Web unfairly penalize small donors who believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage.

"We're in the midst of a social change. Remember the riots, the dogs, the fire hoses when they tried to integrate the public school system. It was tumultuous. That's what happens when you go through social changes, and there's going to be quite a bit more tumult,'' predicted Assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco, a leader in the gay marriage movement.

...Already, high-profile Sacramento theater director Scott Eckern, who donated to the Yes on 8 campaign, resigned his job of 25 years after opponents threatened to boycott the theater. A host of businesses, ranging from restaurants to car dealers, have been targeted by boycotts after their owners' or employees' names appeared on pro-8 donor lists. And in workplaces around the state, employers and employees are watching their backs.

Proponents of Proposition 8 have labeled the activities "mob justice" and decried the donor boycotts as "McCarthyism." The measure had passed 52-48 percent.

"People have the right to protest, but when you go over the line deciding to send out blacklists and boycotts because you lost, that is wrong; that is intolerable,'' said Frank Schubert, manager of the pro-Proposition 8 campaign. "It's a political mob as bad as McCarthy was."

Remember that the mob justice happened on election day, when your civil rights, your full citizenship, and your membership in the human family was literally put to an "up or down" majority vote. Remember who incited that mob. Remember that you have as much right to your anger and its lawful expression as they have to their opionion. Even if doing so makes them "uncomfortable."

Although Margie is usually a spry woman, today she was breathless, and distraught and appeared fragile, not an easy task for a woman of her height. She stood supported between her daughters and read a prepared speech - most of which had already been released.

She praised the restaurant as a beacon of diversity, people from all places and where everyone doesn't have to agree, where they can get along even with differing views. She credited her aunt for being sympathetic to the plight of the "gay individual" before there was support and how the restaurant became a safe haven for "that community". She told of visiting sick people and providing "a healing place".

She explained that she had been a member of the Mormon Church all her life and that she had responded to their request with a personal donation. She shared that El Coyote had contributed to many gay interests and charities.

Margie told of the 89 employees whose families relied on their job. She expressed how customers were part of the Coyote family. She lamented that this situation could harm a place with such diversity and harmony and joy and mutual respect and diversity of viewpoints.

Find out who they are. Call out their names. Don't let them stay "in the closet."

Remember that their "faith" is no more an excuse for perpetuating injustice or complicity in it than it has ever been at any moment in history, when the same was applied to strip people of their rights, their dignity, and their humanity. Remember that those who perpetuate and are complicit in injustice against you are not your friends.

...A gentleman by the same of Sam, who said he was an ex-member of the Mormon Church, asked if she was willing to donate to NO on 8.

She started crying.

A representative of the restaurant stepped in and stated that El Coyote was going to donate to Lambda Legal and the Gay and Lesbian Center and Sam said, I asked HER what SHE was going to do.

Marjorie said: "I will not."

At which point the place went insane.

One of the (daughters?) started yelling at everyone telling them (and I quote) "The church just tells you when to donate, it doesn't tell you how to vote. It very, very rarely tells you how to vote." (SHUT UP! I KNOW! X2) "Marjorie is your friend-" at which point someone prominently yelled: "SHE IS NOT MY FRIEND. FRIENDS DON'T HELP TAKE THE RIGHTS AWAY OF OTHER FRIENDS AND THEN BLAME IT ON THEIR CHURCH!"

Once the room calmed down, Marjorie was asked again if SHE would do anything to counteract what she had done and she said: "No." at which point someone yelled "This is bullshit" and another yelled "BOYCOTT EL COYOTE" and Marjorie was swiftly escorted out the back entrance as people dispersed saying "She just made this even worse" and a man started walking through the restaurant telling customers that "MARJORIE VOTED YES ON PROP 8 AND YOUR MONEY IS DOING THE SAME THING BY HER GIVING HER EARNINGS TO THE MORMON CHURCH!"

Remember who says they are your friends, and remember whether they stood with you or not.

It was a landside and it crushed us, as California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas passed anti-gay ballot initiatives. It was a bittersweet night.

We learned three lessons.

First, progressive straight people do not, will not, see the moral equality of gay people. Except for the efforts of the ACLU, the rights of gay people are rarely championed by progressives. The moral sanctity of their marriage is inexplicably undermined by gay marriage. In the forty years since Stonewall we have achieved only a hollow, virtual equality. Like Sarah Palin, we too can be thrown under the bus.

Remember that if you can be thrown under the bus, then you are not -- and perhaps never really were -- on the bus. Then decide if you want to be on that bus, and if it's worth the price of the ticket.

Remember that we used to live in a country where civil rights weren't decided by majority vote. Remember that we used to live in a country whose founding documents cite "inallienable rights." Remember that we're may not be living in that country anymore, and even if your rights were not up for a vote this time around, they are almost certain on someone's hit list.

You may not be gay, but you may be "next."

Tell your stories, and empower others to tell theirs, if only because the indignity of having to make the case for your humanity can touch someone else's and spark them to action.

Thousands of gay-marriage supporters plan to take to the streets Saturday to protest gay-marriage bans in California, Arizona and Florida.

Protesters are focusing on California, where the state Supreme Court declared same-sex marriages legal in May before voters tossed them out Nov. 4.

..."This narrow loss has awakened Godzilla," says Fred Karger of Los Angeles, who runs the website Californians Against Hate (http://californiansagainsthate.com). "I think this loss in California ... is the greatest thing that could have happened" because it spurred activism in the gay-marriage movement.

His site highlights contributors to Proposition 8 and lets users search public records for names.

...Bryant Tan, 28, a San Francisco philanthropist, attended a few No on 8 fundraisers before the election but wasn't very active. When he learned about the protests through Facebook after the measure passed, he decided to join. "I've seen so many people -- gay, straight ... people of all kinds of backgrounds -- really get activated" by its passage, he says.

Fire uncontrolled, only destroys. Controlled and contained, it provides light in the darkness and warmth in the cold. Focused, as in the light and heat of a laser, it can be constructive and even healing. It can burn away scars, cauterize wounds, and cut out cancers. But first you need fire. You need light and heat.

First, you get angry. Then you focus it. You get organized. You take action. You repeat those three steps as many times as necessary, until the scars, the wound, the cancer is gone.

Then, you may "heal."

Gay Marriage Supporters Plan Proposition 8 Protests For Saturday

2008-11-14T16:28:15Z

From USA Today:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Thousands of gay-marriage supporters plan to take to the streets Saturday to protest gay-marriage bans in California, Arizona and Florida.

Protesters are focusing on California, where the state Supreme Court declared same-sex marriages legal in May before voters tossed them out Nov. 4.

California's Proposition 8, which passed 52.2% to 47.8%, "eliminates (the) right of same-sex couples to marry."

Proponents of same-sex marriage say its passage has only energized the gay rights movement. Activists are using a grass-roots network of websites, e-mails and text messages to coordinate protests in about 300 cities -- from Fayetteville, Ark., to Omaha.

Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic says he will be covering the protests tomorrow.

Tomorrow, a virally-generated national day of protest across America is taking shape to protest the attack on the core civil rights of a small minority in California. It's a protest to demand equal treatment under the law for gay couples. It's a radical demand for a traditional institution and also a protest against those who seek to impose religious restrictions on civil law. It is a defense of both religious freedom and the freedom of those whom many (but not all) religions condemn.

The Dish will devote Saturday to covering the protests. Please send me stories, anecdotes, photographs, music, Youtubes, and graphics that reflect what's going on around the country. As on election day, we'll try and let you speak via this blog to the wider world, and convey a sense from the ground up of how people are feeling and arguing and acting.