After compiling disappointing results from door-to-door surveys, a coalition of California LGBT groups now says 2010 would be too early to put another measure on the ballot asking voters to reinstate the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry.
“Going back to the ballot … in 2010 would be rushed and risky,” read a joint statement issued Monday by three gay-rights groups and signed by more than two dozen other groups and individuals. “We should proceed with a costly, demanding, and high-stakes electoral campaign of this sort only when we are confident we can win.”
The statement was issued by Jordan/Rustin Coalition, HONOR PAC, and API Equality-LA – groups that represent diverse racial and ethnic communities.
“We have much work to do before we proceed to the ballot,” says the statement which invites others to sign on as a way of creating “a solid battle plan for equality.”
The statement, entitled “Prepare to Prevail” is available here from the Jordan/Rustin Coalition website.
“We want to win. And winning a political campaign requires ample preparation,” said Luis Lopez, President of HONOR PAC, a political action coalition for Latino LGBT people, according to Xinhua. “For now, though, with little movement among voters on this issue and key components not yet in place for 2010, we need to take stock and focus on building our capacity.”
Cal. LGBT groups disagree as some say wait until 2012 for another marriage vote [contd.]
The decision to delay a new campaign for marriage equality by those groups reopens the still-simmering disputes among the state’s LGBTQ activists, some of whom are eager to move ahead with a 2010 initiative on marriage equality.
According to LA Times:
“There is a majority of the community … that favors going forward in 2010,” said John Henning, executive director of the pro-same-sex-marriage group Love Honor Cherish. “The fact that some favor waiting should mean only one thing: They can wait, if they need to wait, but we are going to go ahead.”
Henning said his group along with a coalition of others is exploring introducing ballot language that could be filed with the secretary of state's office in the fall.
Chris Good points out in a Saturday post on Marc Ambinder’s Atlantic blog that LGBTQ advocacy in California has become even more fractured following passage of Prop 8:
The passage of Prop. 8 has given rise to new grassroots activity in California, with new groups, even, having been formed in its wake. Now, there are more voices, and it's a more complicated task to reach consensus on the launch of a political fight. Some are raring to go; others are more cautious. Many younger activists were shocked by Prop. 8's passage, and there's a good deal of dissatisfaction with how that campaign went.
The gay rights movement in California includes national-level groups like Human Rights Campaign and the ACLU, state-wide advocates like Courage Campaign and Equality California, and local groups, some with race/ethnic specific focuses.
Those smaller groups could be important to passing a new ballot measure, given that, according to exit polling, African Americans and Hispanics voted in favor of Prop. 8, by 70 percent and 53 percent, respectively. The LGBT minority in California will have to reach out to other minority groups that opposed them in 2008, and race/ethnic-specific groups are looking to do some of that legwork.
As a result, no single entity or oligarchy is in charge of the gay rights movement in California. Conference calls and discussions between groups now focus on how a decision will eventually be made on whether or not to put gay marriage on the ballot--a framework for making the call.
Although the groups that spearheaded the unsuccessful campaign against Proposition 8 have not signed onto the statement, two of them – Equality California and LA Gay and Lesbian Center – indicated to LA Times they may be willing to wait for a new initiative.
Marc Solomon, the newly-hired marriage director for Equality California, explained to Los Angeles Times, “We initially said we believe 2010 was the right time to go back to the ballot.” But he added: “We’ve also made it very clear we will only move forward if we have a clear road map to victory…. The last thing we want to do is go back to the ballot and lose.”
Update: In a statement released this afternoon, Solomon writes that his group hasn’t yet decided on a date for a new ballot measure.
He writes:
Throughout the state, our community has been having lively discussions and debate about when and how to return to the ballot. Equality California has joined Marriage Equality USA and a number of other coalition partners on the Get Engaged Tour, which solicits grassroots feedback on what the next initiative campaign should look like and when it should take place. The results of the Get Engaged Tour are being compiled by ME USA and will be shared with community leaders at the July 25 Community Leadership Summit in San Bernardino.
The results of the Get Engaged Tour are being compiled by ME USA and will be shared with community leaders at the July 25 Community Leadership Summit in San Bernardino.
Those results will also include recommendation solicited by EqCA from several professional political consultants, according to Solomon.
The LA Gay and Lesbian Center led the anti-Prop 8 campaign along with EqCA, but did not sign Monday’s statement. Nonetheless, Center spokesman Jim Key expressed to LA Times concern that a 2010 campaign would be too soon. He told the Times that a 2010 campaign might tap the same donors that service organizations rely on to fund HIV care, services for homeless youths, and other programs at a time when, because of the economy, those programs are needed the most.
As the British newspaper Independent points out in a Saturday story, Soloman was hired by Equality California after the group and its partners “ran a lackluster campaign, had an uninspiring slogan (‘No on 8 – unfair and wrong’) and failed to strike a chord with voters”.
The Independent points out that the vote for Prop. 8 prompted Equality California to reorganize:
[T]he result prompted Equality California, the organization now spearheading the drive for gay marriage rights, to get its house in order. Marc Solomon, the lobbyist who brought same-sex weddings to Massachusetts, has taken the director's chair. Members are currently debating whether to ask Californians to vote again on gay marriage at the 2010 mid-term elections, or to keep their powder dry for a tilt in 2012.
Soloman told the Atlantic’s Good before Monday’s statement was released that the reorganized Equality California has 18 field staffers who organizing door-to-door canvasses out of nine field offices around the state. Canvassers attempt to both determine if public attitudes toward same-sex marriage has changed, and to lay the groundwork for changing the minds of voters who voted for Prop 8 last November.
Good reported this weekend:
“We are putting in place everything that we can to mobilize our own members and others,” said Rick Jacobs, founder and director of Courage Campaign, whose members voted by 82.5 percent in June to put a measure on the ballot in 2010.
Courage Campaign has 41 teams of volunteer canvassers working in 22 counties, Jacobs said.
Although there are reports of successful results from the canvassing (including this Daily Kos post), a broader look at the results helped prompt the advocacy groups to delay an initiative, LA Times reports:
Ron Buckmire, president of the Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, one of the groups that signed the statement issued Monday, said the need for more time was made clear to him this weekend when his group went door to door to talk to voters about same-sex marriage in South Los Angeles.
“It was a huge success. We had 70 volunteers, working for five hours, knocked on 1,200 doors,” he said.
After all that, they identified only 50 voters who moved in their direction.
"We have to move 300,000 voters," he said. "Do the math."
The Altantic’s Good concludes:
Gay rights groups seem to have a good handle on the task ahead of them. They know who voted for Prop. 8 in 2008, and they know where to direct their field efforts.
The task before them is apparent; it's just a question of whether the time is right--whether they think they can win, and whether a minority community that fought for its rights and lost, crushingly, is ready to take up the hard fight again two years later.
If a gay marriage initiative is put on the ballot, whether in 2010, 2012, or beyond, it will be uncharted territory for gay rights groups in the state: an initiative supporting gay marriage has never been put in the ballot in California, and, despite the plethora of gay marriage bans passed in states across the US, no ballot measure constitutionally legalizing gay marriage has ever passed.
Source: Gay-rights coalition urges measured pace on same-sex marriage amendment - Los Angeles Times