Changing Hearts and Minds

What a historic day it was in California and for the nation yesterday! Federal Judge Vaughn Walker ruled in favor of two same sex couples who wanted to get married in California but were denied.  The trial known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger is the first same sex marriage federal trial.  In his ruling, Judge Walker stated that Proposition 8 "does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples."  The decision effectively struck down California's infamous ban on same sex marriage, Proposition 8.  As expected, the decision was immediately appealed by those supporting Proposition 8 and a stay on the ruling was granted.  What this means is that, Judge Walker ruled that Prop. 8 violates the 14th Amendment of due process and equal protection under the law. Despite the ruling, as of right now, no same sex marriages are being performed until the 9th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals can hear the appeal from the Yes on 8 side.  Until then, we can not depend on the timeline of the courts and that they will necessary rule in our favor.  We must continue to change hearts and minds through having conversations with voters about why marriage for same sex couples is the right thing to do.  But without a doubt, yesterday's ruling will go down in the history books as one of the most significant civil rights cases in the history of the United States.   On a personal note, Judge Walker's decision was a reaffirmation of the work that I am doing at Equality California.  We can not become complacent and think that the fight is over, we must still do the work to go back to the ballot box in 2012 in the case that the court does not go in our favor in the future.  Above is a video of a speech that I gave at a rally after the decision was announced at Fresno City Hall.  Approximately 300 people showed up touting "No on Prop 8" and "You can't vote on love" signs. 

What's wrong with Civil Unions?

First off, let me start this entry by apologizing for being Missing in Action for the past couple of weeks.  I had to fly home for a week to take care of my family during a very difficult time.  After living a long life, I regret to tell everyone that my grandfather past away in his sleep at the age of 92.  He was placed on hospice care earlier this month after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and suffering from a failing heart.  To me, my grandfather exemplified the American dream of hard work; determination and not letting setbacks in life keep you down.  He was the product of Lithuanian immigrants who escaped the Bolshevik Revolution in Eastern Europe.  His father died the day that he was born from a global flu epidemic and his mother died when he was only 5 years old.  Homeless, my grandfather was adopted by another Lithuanian couple in Rumford, Maine, a small mill town in the Western part of the state.

 

While home for the funeral, I had an opportunity to catch up with some friends and family who are all LGBT supportive and agree with the work that I am doing.  As many of you know, Maine’s marriage equality law was rejected at the ballot box last November.  This loss was devastating for those in the LGBT community, including for my own family. My mom asked me, “what’s wrong with attaining civil unions first if they include all of the same rights that marriage includes and then go for marriage later on?” Surely, this question has been posed to many in the LGBT community including myself many times before. There are many arguments that we have heard numerous times before including the deficiencies of “separate but equal” that Brown v. Topeka Board of Education highlighted, and then there are the 1,000+ federal benefits that civil unions do not include, and the list continues.  However, for me, the struggle for marriage equality means more than guaranteeing the right of same sex couples to the plethora of protections that marriage provides, it is also about how we as a society treat and respect one another regardless of what we are. 

While writing this post, I continue to think of my grandfather and all of the social change that he witnessed in his lifetime.  My biological grandmother died in 1980 and my grandfather remarried in 1983 at the age of 65.  Certainly, it wasn’t the goal of my grandfather (and who I consider my grandmother) to reproduce and create a new family during their ‘golden years’.  They choose to get married to unite two families who had been devastated by the loss of their respective husband and wife.  Their marriage added onto my family branch and created a loving and secure relationship dynamic that lasted until my new grandmother died of cancer in 2001. Marriage offered them the political and social recognition that they desired and that they knew would protect them through life’s challenges and struggles.

I don’t mean to sound so egalitarian, but have we really come to a point in our society where we think it is ok to treat our brothers and sisters, our neighbors and other members of our community different just because of who they are?  Without a doubt, the road to full equality is never easy.  It takes determination, endurance, focus, and a clear vision of a better society in order to create one. I think that the words of former President John F Kennedy are correct when he said that “We don’t go to the moon because it’s easy, we go because it’s hard.”  Indeed nobody thought that sending people to the moon was a feasible and realistic goal back then but because of a little bit of determination and hard work we were able to realize as a nation what it means to break through the glass ceiling. 

The work that we are doing here at Equality California is not only educating members of the community about why marriage for same sex couples is the right thing; it’s also about sharing our stories and experiences as either members or allies of the LGBT community.  As a result, support for marriage equality in California is currently at 51% and growing.  We are disarming our opponents by introducing them to our families and talking to community members about why they or somebody they know should be able to get married. As my grandfather taught me, without hard work and determination nothing in life is possible.  These same lessons can be applied to the LGBT community in its struggle for full equality in society.  Thank you for everything that you taught me and my community Grampy!   

Prop 8 trial!

Hey everyone!  

So if you are a political junkie like me, you probably have heard that the US district court of Northern California is hearing a case that is asking the court to invalidate Proposition 8 and legalize same sex marriage effectively.  The trial has been extremely high profile in the legal and academic circles across the country, mainly because of the composition of the legal team. Ted Olsen and David Boies are the leading lawyers fighting Proposition 8 in the court.  Olsen and Boies were on opposing sides in the infamous 2000 Bush v. Gore recount.  Olsen, was a former Solicitor General under George H.W. Bush.  Either way, the ruling from this court is expected to go to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals and eventually the US Supreme Court.  

Check out this video clip that was in the local Fresno ABC news: http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/politics&id=7500614

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Power Summit and the Mary Salas Campaign in San Diego!

Above is EQCA Team San Diego!

Me with EQCA organizers Jennie from Sacramento and Toni from San Diego

More EQCA interns and organizers!

What a week!  As I said in my last post, I was headed to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Annual Power Summit in Los Angeles.  The summit was truly amazing and challenged all who attended to become better activists and leaders in the LGBT equality movement.  The first workshop that I attended trained us to have strong conversations to voters in order to explore their hesitation to support marriage for same sex couples.  What I have learned is that the most powerful tool in helping influence a person’s opinion of marriage equality is to tell your own personal story as to why this human rights issue is important to you.  So I guess I will share to you how I became to work on this civil rights struggle.  As a gay man I want my parents to be able to enjoy being able to see me marry the person that I love.  I’m fighting for this no just for my rights, but for my parents’ rights as well.  It is my hope that my story is something that many parents can identify with and I hope it makes them think how they would feel if their child was not allowed to marry the person they love. 

 

After this training, we had the opportunity to put what we used to work.  We canvassed the neighborhood of Maywood, which is in East Los Angeles.  We canvassed for 3 hours and I had the opportunity to talk to 6 voters, all who supported marriage equality.  While this may seem really nice, I was a little disappointed that I was not able to talk to any Yes on 8 supporter and try to move them from opposed to supportive. Overall the canvass was really inspirational and gave me hope that the work that we are doing is really changing the hearts and minds of whole communities who have in the past been unsupportive of marriage equality.  The other part of the power summit focused on fundraising and how to make strong asks of people that we know and need to help invest financially in our campaign to win marriage back.  We have grown up in a culture that frowns upon asking for help and money.  However, once we are able to get over this initial fear of asking for help we tend to have a strong response from those around us.   Another tool that I learned is to personalize the money ask as much as possible by making the donation amounts significant.  For example, the first ask that I make is for $173 which symbolizes the number of days that marriage equality was legal in the Golden state, then I use $80 which is how old Harvey Milk would have been if he was still alive today, I then move on to $51 for the percent that we need to win marriage back in 2012.  This method has proven to be extremely successful for me and is something that I will definitely continue with future fundraising and money asks that I do for this campaign and more.

 

I also had the opportunity to meet a lot of amazing and inspiring people who not just work Equality California but for other LGBT rights groups across California including The Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Courage Campaign, and Marriage Equality USA.  In total there were over 250 people who attended the conference.  I had the opportunity to meet an amazing Stanford grad named Laura who co-founded an organization based out of San Francisco called the National Marriage Boycott.  The goal of the organization is to rally straight allies together to boycott the institution of marriage until all people can get married no matter who they are.  To learn more about her organization visit marriageboycott.ning.com. 

 

Following the Power Summit, Equality California sent me to work in San Diego leading up to the primary to support Democrat Mary Salas who was in a tough race for the State Senate.  A fierce supporter of the LGBT community, Salas was facing an anti-gay politician for the Democratic nomination for the Senate.  It was a long day checking the polls in the various precincts and knocking on doors reminding people to vote.  After the close of the polls, we all headed to a small Italian restaurant in Chula Vista, CA (just 7 miles from the American-Mexican border).  The feeling in the room was tense as we awaited the election returns.  Unfortunately, the vote was going to be too close to call and we would not learn the results until the next morning.  I then stayed overnight at my friend JP’s house in San Diego and the next morning when we woke up we learned that Mary Salas had won the election!  It felt amazing to see all of Equality California’s hard work pay off. 

 

After working the election and attending the Power Summit, I was exhausted and needed a few days to relax and spend time with my family and friends in LA.  I hung out in Hollywood and some of my favorite places on the West side and in Santa Monica.

I have learned so much and am realizing how lucky I am to have been given this opportunity to work for California’s largest LGBT rights organizations.  I look forward to the rest of the summer and everything else that I will learn!   

Harvey Milk Day!

It has been quite the week at my internship with Equality California.  Perhaps most notably, on May 22^nd, California celebrated the first ever Harvey Milk Day.  Last year Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Harvey’s birthday, May 22^nd, 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

10 days till Departure!

Hey Everyone, thanks for stopping by my blog!  Throughout this upcoming summer, I will post pictures, updates, and journal entries from my adventures at my internship with Equality California.  With less than 10 days until I depart Clark and my home in Maine, I am both excited and nervous to begin my internship and life in California.  

With the support of Career Services, Professor Kristen Williams from the Political Science Department, and Professor Sarah Buie from the Department of Visual and Performing Arts and Head of the Difficult Dialogues Program at Clark, I am about to embark on a life changing experience where I will be able to apply the knowledge that I have learned as an undergraduate on the human level.  

As an Intern for EQCA, I am looking forward to having dialogues with voters throughout Fresno County in order to help change hearts and minds on the issue of marriage equality for same sex couples.  Furthermore, I will be researching what persuasive messaging is necessary in order to shift the debate in a district that voted 65% for Proposition 8, which rescinded the right of same sex couples to marry in California.

My research thesis is:  A person's opinion of same sex marriage is correlated to their knowledge of people who are gay.  As people begin to know more same sex couples and why marriage equality is important to them, they will likely become politically supportive of their freedom to marry. 

As Harvey Milk once said, "they won't vote against us if they only knew one of us".  It is my hope that through my internship I will be able to uncover the stories of LGBT people in the deep-rooted Republican Central Valley of California.  Through this process, I want to help broaden people's perceptions on same sex marriage.