So the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that the revolution will NOT be telvised. Attorney General candidate Ted Lieu (a miliatary prosecutor himself) has a few choice words for them:

“The goal of the American civil justice system is to seek justice. The Supreme Court’s decision to censor the public broadcast of the historic trial to reverse California’s Proposition 8 amounts to a fear of too much justice. Our courts are not star chambers, where testimony and rulings are made in secret and hidden from the public.  

“The Court majority’s rationale that broadcasting this trial will result in “irreparable harm” has no basis in fact.  The Court states that witnesses may suffer harm because they are concerned about possible “harassment” if the public actually found out what they will say under oath. Under that rationale, the Court should seal the transcript of this entire proceeding, not allow any non-witness to attend the proceeding, and block newspapers from reporting on this trial.  

…

I served on active duty in the armed forces because I believe America is the best country in the world. Members of our armed forces have given their blood to defend our democracy and our constitutional liberties, including freedom of the press, which is perhaps the greatest check on governmental overreach. The Court’s overreach in censoring the broadcast of this trial is something you would expect from the Supreme Court of Iran, not the Supreme Court of the United States.”  

The Sacramento Bee will host a live webcast discussion with legal experts about the implications of the California Supreme Court’s ruling on Prop. 8, on minority rights, the First Amendment, equal protection and even religious freedom.  It promises to be a good discussion, and it starts at noon.

But considering that the Court has, for now, given up on its ability to protect the civil rights of the minority in the face of mob rule, the logical arguments must also incorporate the emotional ones, and what must be now taken into account are the personal stories, highlighted here by state lawmakers.

Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, confided in a Capitol press conference that her daughter is lesbian.

“This is a decision that affects all Californians in a very personal way,” Skinner said of the ruling on Proposition 8.

“It impacts my family in saying that somehow my daughter’s love for the woman who is her partner is not as valid as the love others have for the opposite sex.”

Skinner appeared at a news conference with the Legislature’s four openly gay members, all Democrats – Sen. Mark Leno, San Francisco; Sen. Christine Kehoe, San Diego; Assemblyman John Perez, Los Angeles; and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, San Francisco.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican, spoke briefly at the event, noting that he has one daughter who is lesbian and the other “straight.”

“They don’t have the same rights today,” Sanders said.

I want to add my voice to that personalization by highlighting this section of an LA Times piece on some of the 18,000 married couples, now granted separate rights than their fellow gays and lesbians.

Julie Nice, a University of San Francisco law professor specializing in constitutional and sexuality law, sees the emergence of the legally married gay class as yet another inconsistency in the nation’s laws governing same-sex marriage.

“This kind of chaotic patchwork is not sustainable,” Nice said of laws recognizing the right of gays to marry in five states, granting recognition to legal marriages conducted elsewhere in a few others and now California’s validation of the pre-Proposition 8 marriages while denying the status to other gays […]

Several gay couples were in attendance as West Hollywood officials sought to chart a path forward in the fight for same-sex marriage rights after the high court’s decision. Although Mark Katz, 58, and Robert Goodman, 48, continue to be recognized in the state as legally married, they deemed the ruling “tragic.”

“This is as if we were freed slaves living in a slave state,” said Goodman, a career counselor. “We were able to keep our marriage, but none of our brothers will be able to marry.”

Mark Katz is my cousin.  The rhetorical bomb-throwing must run in the family.  But they are wonderful people, with an adopted son, and while yesterday’s ruling secured some of their civil rights, they are not satisfied with being put on a kind of island, where their friends and fellow citizens must live under a separate system.

The legal ramifications of this are truly troubling, and ought to be examined thoroughly.  But my first thought turns to my cousin.  And those familial connections, and the new connections forged through organizing, will eventually be how these rights are achieved for everyone.

To me one of the clearest targets for the Prop. H8 boycotts and protests is Cinemark.  Their CEO Alan Stock gave $9,999 to tear apart my family; that’s my ticket money recycled to attack me.

One facebook group has popped up to boycott the movie Milk at any Cinemark Theater.  Another is calling for a boycott of all Cinemark films, and a national picket on January 15, the opening day of Sundance, where Cinemark’s Park City theater will be under protest by lgbt allies.

Now they’re worried.  How do we know?  They sent out the house gay to make nice!

Bill Shimmin is a corporate Vice President of Cinemark (for “food and drink” hilariously enough).  His PR firm wrote this letter begging the gays to be nice.  Check it out:

Here’s the appeal-to-emotion intro:

As a gay man and as a vice president at Cinemark Theatres (whose CEO, Alan Stock, has been singled out in blogs for his $9,999 pro-Prop 8 donation), this controversy has weighed heavily on me.

Two years ago, I was hired by Alan Stock, and my life partner and I relocated to Plano, Tex., from the San Francisco bay area.  Moving to Plano and effectively leaving behind our cherished Domestic Partnership document, signed by California’s Secretary of State, took much consideration. As did the prospect of leaving the progressive Bay Area for life in a “red state.”

Here’s the money quote for why Cinemark isn’t bad guys, other than funding H8:

However, I quickly discovered – and the past two years have confirmed – that Cinemark Theatres is committed to treating its team members, customers, and colleagues with dignity and respect.

During my job interviews, I discovered that Cinemark has an LGBT liaison for community outreach; Cinemark provides domestic partner benefits for California team members; Cinemark hosts the annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival; and Cinemark works with the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce as well as the Collin County Gay & Lesbian Alliance to arrange advance screenings for movies of interest to the LGBT community.

So yeah…they have a liaison to sell tickets to the gay…they only provide domestic partner benefits when compelled by (California) law…and they work with events and groups to sell tickets to the gays.

Well, gosh, Bill when you put it that way, the need to boycott cinemark becomes even more apparent: gays seem like a major part of their business plan.  Meaning Cinemark is vulnerable to losing their business, and it is all the more offensive when their head ticket-taker skims off some of the pink ticket for his homophobic pet projects.

So please let’s keep the pressure up.  It is important that businesses and businessmen know that attacks on the lgbt community are bad business.  Please make sure that Alan Stock (972) 665-1000 [email protected]  knows that his shareholders’ profits are diving because he decided to strip some customers of their civil rights.

Here is some linky goodness:

• Alan Keyes, who kind of plays the Washington Generals to Barack Obama’s Harlem Globetrotters, has filed suit in Superior Court in Sacramento to stop California from awarding its electoral votes to Obama because he doesn’t fulfill the necessary citizenship requirements.  Discussion item: Keyes used to have a talk show on MSNBC.

• Assemblyman Mike Davis has filed as a candidate in the special election to replace State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is now an LA County Supervisor.  Assemblyman Curren Price is also rumored to be seeking the seat, but he hasn’t filed yet.

• One of the most interesting news items from this weekend’s Join The Impact rallies was the coming out of comedian Wanda Sykes at an event in Las Vegas.  Sykes, who was married to her partner last month, had this to say:

“Everybody that knows me personally they know I’m gay,” she continued. “But that’s the way people should be able to live their lives.”

The motivation behind the revelation: the Nov. 4 passage of a same-sex marriage ban in California that has taken the nation by storm.

Sykes said the ban (also known as California’s Proposition 8) made her feel like she was “attacked.”

“Now, I gotta get in their face,” she said. “I’m proud to be a woman. I’m proud to be a black woman, and I’m proud to be gay.”

• President-Elect Obama is raising money for the victims of the SoCal Fires on his website. The BarackObama.com landing page is now a message that links back to the Governor’s California Volunteers Page.

• Jackie Speier remembers her Jonestown nightmare. It is 30 years ago today that Congressman Leo Ryan was killed in Guyana.

• In the close races yet to be decided in California, the news remains not so great.  Hannah-Beth Jackson and Alyson Huber are now behind by more than the .5% needed for a partial recount.  Charlie Brown is within 622 votes of Tom McClintock but there aren’t a lot of ballots left in his stronghold of Nevada County. Interestingly, both Brown and McClintock showed up for the freshman orientation.

Another nasty trend is emerging from the homophobes behind the Yes on 8 campaign.

Apparently shocked by the national uprising in support of full equality under the law for gay/lesbian families, leaders of the Prop. H8 campaign have rolled out a new tactic: threatening the Supreme Court.

Andrew Pugno, their attorney  turned up their dangerous rhetoric this weekend:

 What could get opponents of same-sex marriage in the street, however, would be the state Supreme Court tossing out the vote, he said. San Francisco city officials, joined by the city of Los Angeles and Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties, have petitioned the court to do just that.

“I think you’ll have a revolution on your hands at that point,” Pugno said.

His partner in H8 crime, Frank Schubert, the Republican lobbyist who managed the campaign, went str8 to the Karl Rove playbook and equated civil rights activism with the “T” word:

But Prop 8 supporter Frank Schubert said, “Cowardly acts are intended to terrorize people they mean to frighten and to intimidate the people who supported proposition 8 and those who have stood up for traditional marriage. This is the very definition of terrorism and that’s what’s occurring in California today.”

And uber-Repbulican nutjob Jon Fleishcman takes it one step further:

Writing in Sacramento’s Capitol Weekly, Jon Fleischman, former executive director of the state Republican Party, growled: “If the court overturns 8, I think you will be able to count the days before a very organized and well-funded recall of the justices voting to do that will begin. Given the passion on this issue, and the financial resources available, a recall of these justices would be on the ballot lickety-split, and then the justices who didn’t believe in the primacy of the voters can understand what it feels like to feel their wrath. … Remember Rose Bird?”

Now there’s a nifty bit of intimidation masquerading as a defense of popular sovereignty.

They’re freaking out.  Good.  It’s clear that the backlash to the vote has energized and strengthened the gay/lesbian rights movement in a nearly unprecedented way…and tarred the image of the Mormon Church and of anti-marriage activists.

Let’s recall that is was the Yes on 8 folks who invented the camapaign tactic of intimidating and demonizing No on 8 donors.

Clearly the people voting with their feet-and with their pocketbooks and picket signs-have had an impact.  

Despite this, the lgbt community gatekeepers, who were so ineffective during the campaign], are criticizing the protest and boycott movement.   But given this description of the online and offline activists who have been leading this movement, I don’t expect the gay gatekeepers to be too successful:

“They are not connected to the supposed leaders. All they know is that their rights have been taken away and that the majority has successfully curtailed the freedoms of the minority.”

My response, of course, is what else are we supposed to do?  Let hateful attacks go unanswered?  Count on the Supremes to save our bacon?

That’s why I will personally be boycotting Cinemark H8 theaters this Holiday Season…and leading a picket on Jan. 15 at their Park City screen that will be hosting Sundance.  Will you join me? (While Blogger decides if I’m a spammer, you can join the movement to boycott Cinemark on Facebook.)  

People are still filing out of what I imagine to be very congested spaces and rallies across the country, but I thought I’d go around the Web and find some reports.

AP:

Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities coast to coast Saturday to protest the California vote that banned gay marriage there and urge supporters not to quit the fight for the right to wed.

Many cast it as a civil rights issue.

Crowds gathered near public buildings in small communities and major cities including New York, San Francisco and Chicago to vent their frustrations, celebrate gay relationships and renew calls for change.

“Civil marriages are a civil right, and we’re going to keep fighting until we get the rights we deserve as American citizens,” Karen Amico said in Philadelphia, holding up a sign reading “Don’t Spread H8”.

“We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly,” said Heather Baker a special education teacher from Boston who addressed the crowd at Boston’s City Hall Plaza. “We need equal rights across the country.”

Here’s a diary on the NYC event from Daily Kos diarist bria:

Democracy is not a one-shot deal.  People can’t just vote every 4 years (or 2, or more often) and think that the work is done.  We still need to make our voices heard, to hold our elected officials responsible, to advocate for the causes we believe in.  Very rarely do we see a direct and immediate change from any act of public assembly or civil disobedience, but each of us is still one.  And the more of us there are, the harder we are to ignore.

Greater public awareness + greater media coverage = greater political awareness = a better shot at change that matters.

Great pictures in that one.

Daily Kos diarist jpmassar from San Francisco:

It was a beautiful sunny morning as thousands of people converged on Civic Center Square (just across the street from where Obama rallied the Bay Area twice, more than a year ago now).

One of the most stirring speeches was given by an African American Baptist preacher, a man who was introduced as having been taught by Martin Luther King.  His ringing oratory, as evinced by the title of this diary, brought the crowd to its highest pitch of enthusiasm; I could imagine being at a rally in the 60’s and hearing King exhort his  followers for civil rights.  (Sorry, I did not get his name).

Apparently Mark Leno and Carole Migden spoke at the SF rally.

The LA Times:

In Los Angeles, protesters clustered shoulder to shoulder near City Hall before setting off on a downtown march, chanting and carrying rainbow-colored flags and signs bearing messages such as “No More Mr. Nice Gay” and “No on Hate.” […]

The Los Angeles Police Department estimated that 40,000 people would attend the march, which officials expected to be peaceful.

Across the state, the rallies took on a carnival-like atmosphere in heat-wave conditions.

The Houston Press, Houston, TX:

Hundreds of people gathered on the steps of Houston City Hall this afternoon to protest the passing of Proposition 8, California’s constitutional amendment taking away the right to marry for same-sex couples. Along with the passing of other anti-gay measures across the nation, Prop. 8 made November 4 a day of mixed emotions for many of the progressives in attendance, who say they went to bed ecstatic about the election of Barack Obama but woke up the next morning to find out not everything had changed for the better.

San Diego U-T:

SAN DIEGO – A crowd estimated at 10,000 by police and 15,000 by organizers marched downtown Saturday to protest the passage of Proposition 8, with one arrest of a counter-protester reported during the otherwise peaceful event.

A man identified by police as a member of the anti-illegal immigration group San Diego Minutemen was arrested about 12:30 p.m. at Sixth Avenue and Ash Street following a fight, said San Diego police Capt. C.J. Ball.

500 in Santa Cruz.  “Several hundred” in Portland.  And more in Indianapolis.  And St. Paul, MN.  200 in Fargo, ND.  And Greensboro, NC.

Today feels like a movement.  Can’t wait to see the on-site reports.

The numerous issues inside the No on 8 campaign, and their disappointing mismanagement, has finally bubbled up into the traditional media (we were talking about it a week ago).  The SacBee writes about the trouble at the top:

Key staff members – including the campaign manager – were replaced in the final weeks as polls turned dramatically against the No side. Their replacements say they found an effort that was too timid, slow to react, without a radio campaign or a strategy to reach out to African Americans, a group that ultimately supported the measure by more than 2 to 1.

Gay marriage supporters are looking to the courts to overturn the decision. But if another political campaign is waged, said Dennis Mangers, co-chairman of the No on 8 Northern California Committee, “we’ll have to do better.”

No on 8 campaign manager Steve Smith was shoved aside three weeks before Election Day, after he was slow to counter TV ads in which the measure’s supporters claimed that same-sex marriage would be promoted in schools if the measure failed.

And Smith was replaced by a committee – half the consultant class in Sacramento went through the revolving door of that campaign.  And they set about to answer unchallenged ads from the Yes campaign and get on radio.  But the message remained somewhat timid, and the campaign didn’t put much effort into minority outreach or field operations.  Late volunteers were told to go out on a street corner and wave signs.

What’s remarkable is that the best activism and creativity I’ve seen from the LGBT community in years has come in the immediate AFTERMATH of this vote.  The talent was out there, but wasn’t channeled during the campaign.  Activists are using wiki-based technology to set up a national day of action on November 15 called The Impact.  A comedy troup in LA used the Yes campaign’s own words to “advocate” for prohibiting divorce.  And Utah lawmakers are turning the tables on the Mormon church by using their alleged tolerance to make major advances for gay rights in the Beehive State:

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have said they do not object to rights for same-sex couples, as long as those rights do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family.

Now, gay-rights activists and at least five Utah legislators are asking the Church to demonstrate its conviction.

The group Equality Utah says the Church made the invitation, and they’re accepting it. “The LDS Church says it does not oppose same-sex couples receiving such rights as hospitalization and medical care, fair housing rights or probate rights,” said Mike Thompson, executive director of Equality Utah.

These actions are useful to the future of marriage equality nationwide, and could be the backbone of a smarter, more grassroots movement.  Why were they not tapped at all for the No on 8 campaign?

Yesterday, Connecticut granted marriage equality to all its citizens, offering a glimmer of hope.  I am convinced that justice will eventually prevail.  But you have to treat the campaign like a campaign, and use the assets at your disposal.