It has been quite the week at my internship with Equality California. Perhaps most notably, on May 22nd, California celebrated the first ever Harvey Milk Day. Last year Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Harvey’s birthday, May 22nd, to be a state holiday to commemorate the life and accomplishments of the slain gay rights leader. For those of you who have not seen the movie “Milk” or simply do not know about Harvey Milk, he was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the United States as Supervisor from San Francisco. Known for his commitment to safe and productive neighborhoods in San Francisco, Milk successfully championed one of the first LGBT non-discrimination ordinances in the country in San Francisco. He also was successful at helping defeat Proposition 6 or the Briggs Initiative, which threatened to fire any out LGBT teachers in California public schools. Harvey Milk stressed the importance of being able to humanize the issue of LGBT rights in order to win the support of public opinion.
For our Harvey Milk Day celebrations, Equality California: Fresno had 23 coalition partners including Planned Parenthood, the Trevor Project, and Marriage Equality USA. Approximately 100 people came out to the event and participated in one of our numerous activities which included a canvass in a local Fresno neighborhood that voted “Yes on 8”. I was a pod leader, which meant that I was responsible for helping 3-5 other people be able to go out and talk about why marriage equality for same sex couples is important to them. At first this can be very intimidating if you are new to canvassing but overall the experience tends to be a very positive one. What I found to be very unique about canvassing for Equality California is that the way that we form conversations with voters is very different than a typical voter ID canvass that I have experienced with other organizations before. We keep an open-minded approach to every door that we knock on by first asking “Do you remember how you voted on Proposition 8?” If they say that they voted Yes on 8, then we try to ask what factors led them to support Proposition 8. For the most part, we hear a lot about tradition and religious factors that have contributed to their opposition to same sex marriage. The Saturday of the canvass was a gorgeous day so a lot of people were not home, however I knocked on 40+ doors and I talked to about a dozen voters. Approximately half voted for Prop 8 and half opposed it. I had one really amazing experience in which a family said they voted “Yes on 8” to only regret it later. The woman that I talked to said, “I don’t know why I did it, it just didn’t seem right after I voted”. It is stories like this that give me hope that we will win marriage back at the polls.
On Thursday, I am headed to Los Angeles for an Equality California Field training in which I will learn how to be a more effective activist in the LGBT community. I am really excited to meet people from all over California who feel just as passionate about LGBT equality as I do during the conference. That’s about all for now, oh and until I get the pictures up from Harvey Milk Day, check out this Youtube video via Equality California:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvfexvihri8&feature=player_embedded
So the canvassing was basically to gather information and not to change people's minds, is that correct?
ReplyDeleteI hope you are going to the black community there too; a lot voted "Yes" and have not been asked why. Good work and good luck.
ReplyDeleteHi Jtraby, the purpose of our canvasses are to have conversations with voters to try to change their hearts and minds on marriage equality. The first question that we ask is if they remember seeing this issue on the ballot in 2008. If they are willing, then we ask how they voted. If they voted Yes on 8, so opposed marriage equality, we ask them what issues come up for them in opposing marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Most of the times the issues that come up have to do with school and children, tradition, and religion. From there we ask questions that address their concerns such as: Do you know any gay people? How would your life be different if they were able to marry? Why did you get married? We always keep an open mind and listen to their concerns and feelings. From there, we rank their level of support from the beginning of the conversation and where they are at when we leave their door, so whether they are persuadable or not. Typically we are able to move people from opposed to undecided if they voted Yes on 8. In Fresno County, we have been experiencing a 25% persuadable rate which is really remarkable in an area that voted 70% for Yes on 8. We also have a lot of bilingual canvassers (typically Spanish) that are able to break through cultural and language barriers that are unique to the Latino community which is a powerful voting force in California.
ReplyDeleteHi billym! Thanks for your comments, I actually have not personally been working directly with the black community. Fresno has a large Hispanic and Hmong community so most of the outreach work that I have been doing involves those two populations. However, from the data that I have read, the issues of religion and tradition that seem to influence the Hispanic population seems to have an even greater impact on the black community. I do know that there has been a lot of work done in the field with reaching out to predominatly black neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteEquality California is also an extremely diverse organization both ethnically and culturally. As an organization we have been working on issues of racial justice in an effort to move forward and try to reach out to other minority populations that voted Yes on 8 to make them more affirmative of marriage equality for same sex couples.