By now, most of us have seen the despicable ad unleashed in several key states this week in response to our two historic victories in Iowa and Vermont.

It was commissioned by the National Organization for Marriage (but only if you’re straight) whose website reveals some of their misleading tactics, thoroughly dissected on Pam’s this morning. 

What strikes me most is their desperation.  Turning themselves into victims is the only weapon the anti-LGBT industry has left.  Yes on 8’s Frank Schubert himself has said that attacking LGBT folks directly doesn’t work anymore.  We can be thankful for that, but must we must learn to effectively respond with the truth to this new tactic.     

To succeed, opponents of the freedom to marry must convince moderates that loving, married same-sex couples somehow pose them a risk.  They must stir up enough fear and doubt that otherwise fair-minded people will err on the side of discrimination. 

They claim this is not just about marriage.  They’re right. 

As their ad implies, they want to hurt LGBT people any which way they can.  This is part of a much larger anti-LGBT agenda to dismantle existing rights.

Tuesday, there will be a hearing on a suit in federal court against SB 777, a law sponsored by Equality California and authored by Senator Sheila Kuehl, requiring basic nondiscrimination protections for LGBT students in California public schools.  EQCA has joined with other civil rights groups to fight this unfair attack on youth. This has nothing to do with “redefining marriage” but the usual suspects are all over it.”

It’s easy to laugh at this ad with its hokey special effects and its saccharine melodramatics. One of the suggestions on its accompanying website was that people fight against marriage equality by eating at fast-food chain El Pollo Loco!  Yet they cry foul when Prop 8 opponents vote with their dollars. It’s indeed easy to laugh, but these extremists are not to be dismissed.  

The Yes on 8 campaign subjected the LGBT community to untold trauma, as we were forced to watch our neighbors and fellow Californians turn on us, stripping us of our rights and dignity. 

Opponents of the freedom to marry say they don’t want their children to learn about same-sex couples, yet they’re spending millions of dollars to broadcast this garbage in homes all across the country.  

Likewise, ads like this one create a toxic environment, and send homophobic and transphobic messages to our nation’s youth.  In recent years we’ve seen an increase in anti-LGBT hate crimes, and just yesterday we saw the suicide by hanging of an eleven-year-old-boy who had been relentlessly bullied and taunted at school—just because other students perceived him as gay.  

This isn’t just about marriage.  This is about our very lives.  

—Geoff Kors, Equality California

Reposted from the California Ripple Effect.

(Someday this won’t be an issue, but until then, it’s good to see stats like this. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Based on Monday’s post about the Capitol Resource Institute’s attacks on EQCA legislation, Alice Kessler, our legislative advocate, pointed out to me something else about the anti-LGBT extremist lobby’s legislative score card.

If you compare theirs to ours, you’ll notice that both rate the legislators based on their performance on key votes. EQCA only endorses candidates who score 100% on our scorecard, which means they support the entire LGBT community 100% of the time—they go all the way on the freedom to marry and trans inclusivity.

Even though we refuse to compromise, we’ve still managed to get 100% scores for 61 legislators on our last scorecard. The Capitol Resource Institute only gave 18 legislators a 100% score.

Obviously one side is doing better. This is testament to the work EQCA has done in the legislature making sure that our issues are front and center, that senators and assemblymembers get the facts about how their votes will affect their LGBT constituents, and that LGBT supportive candidates get elected to office and keep their seats.

This is why we rate legislators and endorse LGBT-supportive candidates, to help educate voters and empower them to vote for equality, every time. Go to www.eqca.org/legislation to learn more about this year’s legislative package.

In other good news, Curren Price won the Democratic primary in my district Tuesday, taking this EQCA-endorsed, LGBT ally another step to office.

–Reposted from the California Ripple Effect

Now Announcing… Capitol Resource Institute versus EQCA!!

Arch-conservative anti-LGBT lobbyist Capitol Resource Institute is all in a tizzy over EQCA-sponsored legislation. Their Legislative Scorecard is much like EQCA’s own guide.

But it’s an uncanny mirror image in terms of values and priorities, scoffing at the real needs of our community and describing LGBT people in offensive, retrograde terminology.

Their framing is really quite breathtaking in its bald defamation.

Wanna go for a spin?

Now Announcing… Capitol Resource Institute versus EQCA!!

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Laird’s Civil Rights Act of 2007 which expands existing nondiscrimination protections to include LGBT people: “Changes over 50 areas of state law to grant privileged status to homosexuals.”
• Leno’s groundbreaking marriage bill, AB 43, which made California’s the first legislature in the country to grant the freedom to marry: “Legalizes homosexual marriage. Bypasses the people's decision in 2000, via Prop 22, to preserve marriage between one man and one woman.”
• Levine’s AB 394, which prohibits discrimination and provides resources for education about LGBT people: “monitoring of student attitudes on sexual orientations.”
• Leno’s Harvey Milk Day Bill: “A resident of the infamous Castro district in San Francisco, Milk was one of the first homosexual elected officials in America, and is considered a martyr for the homosexual cause.”
• Migden’s Senior healthcare bill which helps address some of the unique concerns facing LGBT seniors: “establishes a special class of patients based on sexual choices.”
• And the granddaddy of them all, Safe Schools legislation, the target of a pending federal lawsuit, the alleged ban on “Mommy and Daddy” in public schools, Kuehl’s SB 777, which actually is a relatively minor clarification of existing laws:”normalizes homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality in public and private schools. Bans all teaching and activities that ‘promote a discriminatory bias against’ these lifestyles. Likely to impact textbooks, instructional aids, restroom use, gender-specific sports teams, and more.”

I get it, LGBT people are SICK, and public schools should let them know it. In fact, schools have no obligation to protect students from discrimination or bullying. Maybe teachers should take the first swing? Sheesh…

What this all begins to show is that for our detractors, it’s NOT just about marriage, and marriage is not where they’ll stop. They want to round it out by taking away jobs, civil rights, proper healthcare, safe schools, you name it. Know thy enemy.

Marriage is such a hot topic right now that these other sorts of bread and butter issues often get left out of the discussion. EQCA’s legislation isn’t about wheeling and dealing at the Capitol, but about problems facing real LGBT Californians.

The guide also includes some bizarre objections to sensible legislation protecting youth, saying that a ban on cell phone use by teen drivers “Suggests that the state sees itself as better equipped than parents to make family decisions” and that a bill to prevent minors from going to cancer-causing tanning salons “displaces their parents with a ‘nanny government’.”

Wingnuts. I’d love ‘em if they weren’t so dangerous.

–Reposted from The Ripple Effect