Love Honor Cherish has officially submitted ballot language for a repeal of Prop 8 in 2010. The language still has to wind its way through the official process before signature gathering can commence.
But while Equality California opposes the measure, preferring to wait until 2012, Geoff Kors is still trying to ensure that he reigns supreme in the California LGBT land.
We helped Love Honor Cherish draft the language they have submitted, by spending hours with them on the phone for discussion and feedback. We didn’t approve the final version, as we aren’t involved in the effort to file this language, but we wanted the language to be as good as possible. Submitted language should always be shown to key stakeholders, and different options should be tested.
Good luck with that Geoff. The LGBT community still has some serious soul searching to define who exactly our leaders really are, because I’m not sure if Geoff Kors really has the authority and respect of the community at this point. And while elected leaders are pivotal to broad progressive goals, they cannot be the leaders on a ballot fight.
At any rate, congrats to Love Honor Cherish on this. Whether this actually has the institutional strength to get on the ballot is an open question, but no matter what happens, it must be the priority of every member of the LGBT community, and our progressive allies, to fight like hell once we get a measure on the ballot.
The head of Love Honor Cherish was quoted in the Sacramento Bee this morning as saying that the fact they can’t “guarantee victory” is no reason not to submit a Repeal Prop 8 ballot initiative in 2010.
He’s missing the key point. The reason not to submit a ballot initiative is because we will otherewise be wasting millions of dollars, not to mention thousands of hours of human resources, on a 2010 campaign where the odds are totally stacked against us.
If we couldn’t prevail in 2008, with the large Democratic turnout, our chances in an “off-year” election where conservatives dominate (i.e., Schwarzenegger, Deukmejian, Wilson, etc.) are clearly slim.
Isn’t it better to save our resources for an all-out effort in 2012? Again, what Vince Lombardi said about football is also true of politics, especially ballot initiatives: “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing!”
Perception is reality, no?
LHC are exactly the wrong organization to be the public face of the marriage equality movement, let alone the broader LGBT community in California.
Time and time again, in public forum, LHC disses communities of color, bemoaning the fact that we won’t “fall in line” behind their leadership. They demonize anyone who disagrees with them, and they are pretty much the reason no POC groups want to work with this 2010 “coalition.” I’m still livid about John Henning’s direct comparison of the marriage equality movement to Rosa Parks and the marriage activists very publicly asking the question, “Do we need people of color to win?” Yes you do.
This 2010 effort is repeating all the mistakes they bemoaned with the No on 8 campaign. Where is the transparency? Why did they bend the rules for the election of the “interim administrative group” to recruit more tokens, er, I mean, people of color to this statewide body? They’re even trying to amend the Davis Plan to remove the requirement that POC be involved, because they can’t find any. Where is the coalition building?
I could go on all day. Instead, I challenge anyone who wants to be the “self proclaimed” leader of the LGBT movement to have the coalition building skills to bring disparate communities together, and have the foresight and vision to build the multi-racial, multi-issue governing coalition to win back not only marriage, but improve the lives of California’s working families. The win-back marriage tunnel vision has got to end.