We win. Again.

If you follow LGBT news at all, you've probably heard that Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional today. Again. I'd like to be excited, drive up to West Hollywood, wave a rainbow flag and celebrate with the rest of the gayborhood. But I'm a bit less than thrilled because this is the third time we've "won" in court and only one of those times actually led to same-sex couples getting married. All this really means is that we're one step closer to the real win. I know, court cases take a really long time and I need to get used to that.

But for those LGBT people who actually might like to get married, they're being told yet again, wait just a little bit longer. The lawyers have to talk this over just a bit more. Be patient, it'll happen eventually.

In short:

:-/

Maggie Gallagher on gay teen suicides

Maggie Gallagher of NOM has written about the idea that anti-same-sex marriage groups like hers are responsible for all the gay suicides that have been happening lately. She seems to slightly misunderstand the charge: it's not that gay marriage prevents teen suicides, it's that homophobia is what causes them--and no matter how you try to state it, NOM is of the opinion that same-sex relationships are not as good as opposite-sex ones--NOM is part of that homophobia that gay and perceived-to-be-gay teens are surrounded by. There's a nice, reasonable response to her column from The Bilerico Project where they admit that people like NOM aren't directly responsible for gay suicides, but also explain that they are, in fact, part of the problem.

Toward the end of that post, they say:

If Maggie Gallagher is actually concerned with queer youth as she says she is, perhaps she could donate to the Ali Forney Center to help some teens find a place to stay so that they don't have to get caught up in the violence that she knows so much about. Of course she won't, because she's a clown who doesn't really care about much other than advancing her agenda.

So I posted this on NOM's blog:

Maggie, call this blogger's bluff!

http://www.bilerico.com/2010/10/who_cares_about_queer_youth_not_maggie_gallagher.php

Donate to the Ali Forney Center or the Trevor Project, or even just publically state your support for anti-bullying laws.

As you say, "These kids need help, real help." So do something that will actually give them that support.

Think she'll do it?

NOM is on the road to protect (some people's) marriage!

I don't know if you've been following the NOM Blog recently but the National Organization for (Hetero-Only) Marriage is going on a National Tour! (And by national, I mean just the eastern US -- I know, I was hoping they'd actually come to California, instead of spending lots of money on our politics). Their recent blog post basically covers three things:

• People were very excited about "protecting marriage" and NOM had great turnout at their rallies.
  
• Gay marriage bloggers are jealous, and they're a bunch of liars. But no, we won't bother linking to any of those blogs because you might be exposed to some intelligent ideas that we don't really want you to hear because you don't need to see those lies for yourself, you can trust NOM. (I mean, if you're going to accuse bloggers of lying, you ought to at least link to their blog so that your readers can see for themselves, and the accused have a chance to defend themselves. Right?)
  
• There were some protesters at the NOM rallies but they were silly and ineffective. No mention of what the protesters' signs said (though you can see a few pictures on their flickr page) or the fact they were from an actual established group, rather than just a bunch of randoms.

It's almost as though one of NOM's main goals on this tour is to draw the attention of gay marriage supporters -- to bring out protesters who are still angry about their right to marry being taken away. All it takes is one or two people angry enough to shout over NOM's rallies, or with signs that imply NOM is bigoted or hateful, and all of a sudden, they'll be the victims. The poor, tiny, grassroots, average Americans, just trying to stand up for tradition and common sense against the big bad oppressive super-powerful atheist family-hating gay lobby.

Here on the internet, we call them trolls. The first evidence I saw of this, was this tweet from a couple of days ago: "Brian: On our way to Albany. Car just swerved to cut us off and gave hand gesture. Got tolerance? #nom". So I want to reiterate what I said on twitter: As a supporter of marriage equality, you should get out there and make your voice heard. Make signs, carry rainbow umbrellas, draw attention to the issue from all over the place, talk to your friends and family about why marriage is important for you or the same-sex couples in your life. But please, PLEASE don't do anything that will help NOM and other anti-gay-marriage groups to play the victim. They thrive on that, so let's not give them any more assistance than they already get. You know, "Don't feed the troll."

Of course, maybe I'm overreacting. As my friend Jonathan said, "@tbreisacher Maybe it wasnt even a marriage equality believer. Maybe the nom car driver is a shitty driver..."

Apparently, yes, they are.

In my last post, I told you about a comment I left on the blog for the anti-same-sex-marriage group NOM. It seemed that NOM had deleted it, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. So I posted another comment, which I thought was fair and unoffensive and such. I took a screenshot in case NOM took it down again, and sure enough, when I checked tonight, it was gone.



If NOM doesn't want certain comments on their blog, they certainly have the right to delete or censor any comment they like. But it would be nice if they had a clear set of criteria for what is allowed. Even something as simple as "We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason" would be great, but as far as I can tell, they don't have a policy like that, or any other policy, posted anywhere.

I want to make sure I'm being clear here. It seems like every time something like this catches people's attention, someone mentions the First Amendment, claiming that their Constitutional right to free speech is being violated. This is not a First Amendment issue. I was posting on their blog, which they own, and they have the right to absolutely control the content on it. I just think it would be nice if they explained their rationale. Don't you think?

Is NOM censoring comments on their blog?

Several weeks ago, while the Prop 8 trial was underway, someone posted a comment on the blog of the National Organization for [opposite-sex only] Marriage and it almost immediately disappeared without warning or explanation. He posted another comment expressing disagreement with NOM's position, took a screenshot to prove it, and sure enough, it was gone within a few minutes. (If anyone has the link to that blog post, that would be great. I don't remember whose blog it was but maybe someone can find it.) There was a some outrage on Twitter and a few other blogs, but nothing huge, because everyone was more worried about the trial. At some later point, I posted a comment disagreeing with NOM so I believed they had stopped taking down pro-SSM comments.

Today, they posted an entry about a Catholic charity in Washington, D.C. which has decided not to offer benefits to any of their employee's spouses, after same-sex marriage became legal in that city today. As a charity, they receive a lot of money from the city each year, so the city told them if they're going to offer benefits to opposite-sex married couples, they should do the same for same-sex married couples. Since that goes against the teachings of the Catholic church, they decided not to offer benefits to anyone's spouse. It was a very difficult decision for them, and this is an issue that same-sex marriage supporters should consider. Even if you believe that same-sex marriage should be legal, no matter what, you should realize that it can have unintended consequences like this, and be careful that you're not advocating anything that would force charities into uncomfortable positions like this, if possible.

But NOM picked the following title: "Church Forced by DC Government's SSM Law to Drop Future Spousal Benefits" As another commenter before me pointed out, that's not just misleading, it's an outright lie. In fact, the very first sentence of the blog post itself (from the Washington Post article I linked to above) is: "The church faced two options with the approval of the new law." So, yes they were put into a very difficult position. Yes, they were forced to make a choice. Yes, perhaps the DC City Council should have considered the charity's complaints more carefully before passing this law. But no, sorry, the government didn't force the church to drop future spousal benefits. That is just not true.

I posted a comment saying something to the effect of "Look, there's a real debate to be had here. But if your post title says the church was forced by the government to do something, and the very first line of the text says they had two options, then how are we going to have that debate?" When I looked at the entry again, my comment was gone. I don't want to accuse NOM of censoring comments, especially because there are several other dissenting comments on that entry which have not been deleted. But it does seem suspicious. I went ahead and posted another comment saying more or less the same thing. So far it is still there but I'm excited to see if it gets taken down again. If my first comment was indeed removed, I'm curious how they decide which ones to leave up and which ones to remove.

P.S. I have to give NOM credit for using the term "SSM" instead of "gay marriage" or "homosexual marriage." As you might have seen in a recent poll about DADT, people feel a lot differently about "gays and lesbians" than they do about "homosexuals" so thanks NOM! I appreciate you using a term that is less likely to stir up emotions. That is a big step in the right direction and I very much appreciate it!

Prop 8 trial transcripts available!

I'm excited to tell you, my loyal readers, that full, official transcripts from the Prop 8 trial, which is currently underway, are available! If, like me, you were excited to watch the videos posted online each night, and disappointed when the Supreme Court of California disallowed the posting of those videos, this is a great way to read exactly what's happening in the courtroom. Several people who are present in the courtroom have been reporting on the proceedings, via blogs or Twitter, but now we can actually get the full transcripts and read them for ourselves. There will also be a video re-enactment posted any day now, based on these transcripts.

Here is the link to the transcripts. Thanks to Karen Ocamb for posting it on her blog, LGBT POV!

I'm only a little way through the first day so far, but I'll leave you with a quote from Ted Olson, attorney for the plaintiffs (which are the people opposed to Prop 8 which means they're in favor of same-sex marriage -- I know it can be confusing!) in his opening statements:

We wouldn't need a Constitution if we left everything to the political process, but if we left everything to the political process, the majority would always prevail, which is a great thing about democracy, but it's not so good if you are a minority or if you're a disfavored minority or you're new or you're different. And that's what happens here.

Prop 8 and violence against GLBT people

As with any major event, there's been a lot of traffic on Twitter this week because of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, better known as the Proposition 8 case. The supporters of Prop 8 (that's the people who are against same-sex marriage) asked the court not to broadcast the proceedings, or even make them available on YouTube, because they feared it would create a "media circus" (though I'm not sure the mainstream media spending more time on this issue is really a bad thing) and more importantly, that their witnesses might be intimidated or threatened by people who recognized them from the video of the court's proceedings. Most people seem to believe this is only an excuse, and that the real reason they don't want cameras is that they don't want the general public to hear the arguments for SSM expressed eloquently and carefully by the very intelligent team representing the plaintiffs and the pro-SSM witnesses they've called to the stand.

However--and this is what a lot of the people on the pro-gay side don't seem to want to admit--supporters of Prop 8 were intimidated and harassed right after Prop 8 passed. I remember seeing pictures of a Mormon church in Los Angeles being vandalized, and thinking that whoever did that, acting out of anger and desperation, was setting us way back. There were huge crowds of people in the streets that Wednesday night, and while I'm sure the huge majority of them were peaceful, there were lots of acts of violence and harassment not just against the people who put prop 8 on the ballot and ran its campaign, but against the individual citizens that voted for it. If that's what happens to individual voters, imagine what could happen to someone trying to defend Prop 8 in federal court.

My point is not to encourage groups like Protect Marriage to continue playing the victim (they do plenty of that without my help). And I hope it goes without saying that I don't mean to encourage anyone to commit acts of violence, vandalism, harassment, etc. against anyone. But it's conceivable that some witnesses really did have legitimate fears about cameras in the courtroom.

The reason I bring this up is that there's a very popular trend on Twitter tonight of posting videos like this describing hate crimes that have been committed against gay people. I guess the implication is that laws like Prop 8 encourage hate crimes, or at least encourage the kind of thinking that occasionally leads some people to commit hate crimes. I tweeted "Not liking all the RTing of this video http://bit.ly/6hI1oh Do people think homophobia / hate crime will disappear if we strike down #prop8?" To expand on that a little, if this case eventually goes in our favor, we'll never hear the end of it from the anti-gay-marriage crowd about "activist judges" who are "overriding the will of the people" and so on. Eventually, we would like broad societal recognition that gay relationships are equal to straight ones, not just government recognition. I worry that when we're posting these videos, people will say that we're equating everyone who is for Prop 8 with anyone who's ever killed a gay person. If we ever want people like Protect Marriage and NOM to accept gay marriage, we need to stop thinking of them as the enemy and start thinking of them as someone who is wrong but well-intentioned. That means not implying they're responsible for the occurrence of hate crimes.

Twitter user @california411 then said to me: "@tbreisacher No read the SCOTUS ruling- the US Supreme court is protecting the perpetrators of violence towards GLBT's" thus confirming my worry. You might say that attitudes like those of the Prop 8 supporters are related to the attitudes that lead to hate crimes. But that hardly means that SCOTUS was directly protecting the perpetrators of violence.

Someone named @nutrioso reacted to the videos more or less exactly the way I expected the anti-gay-marriage side would react: "Hmmm...looks like the lefties are displaying their penchant for civil discourse by swamping Twitter with irrelevant propaganda. #prop8" Basically, no one made it clear, at least not to this person, what the connection was between hate crimes and Prop 8.

I guess the point I'm really making here is that if you're going to post something about the GLBT community being victimized, in a Prop 8 discussion, it would be wise to show the connection between that victimization and Prop 8, as clearly and carefully as you can. And remember, the "other side" is not your enemy -- they are just someone who doesn't yet understand why marriage is so important to GLBT people. In the event that we have to fight this issue (or another GLBT issue -- yes folks, gay people do care about things other than getting married!) at the ballot box, we need every vote we can get. Out of the millions who voted to take marriage rights away from us, most of them did so with very good intentions and were simply misguided. Let's help those who are willing to listen to see our side of the story.

USC Ally Discussion: Pro-Gay Marriage and Anti-Homophobia Intervention Strategies

I went to this event today. Here's the full description:

Ally Discussion: Pro-Gay Marriage and Anti-Homophobia Intervention Strategies
Featuring Jade Agua, Assistant Director for Asian Pacific American Student Services and Rev. Jim Burklo, Associate Dean for Religious Life
12- 1 pm
WPH 403
On the day the California Supreme court begins to hear arguments about Propostion 8, USC Allies will learn intervention strategies on how to combat homophobia and also advocate for marriage equality. Some topics to be discussed how to use religion in favor of gay marriage and how to start these conversations with our friends and family.

Basically we just talked about the different anti-gay arguments that tend to come up a lot, particularly those that were used during the prop 8 campaign, and the best ways to combat them. I took some notes along the way, so I just wanted to post some scattered thoughts and good quotes.

• The first thing Jim talked about was how his own homophobia was cured over the course of about 20 minutes, as a result of a close friend coming out to him. It's important to represent ourselves and the gay community as real people so that people can't think of us as "those people up in the Castro"--we're just people like everyone else. Later on, someone mentioned that people associate homosexual couples with sex. They see gay families as an environment where innocent children are surrounded by sex all the time. Seems to me, the solution is probably to make gays seem like ordinary people.
  
• When he was growing up, gay rights was a nonissue, in the sense that it wasn't something people thought about or talked about at all. Sometime soon, it will be a nonissue, in that nearly everyone will just agree that same-sex marriage is okay.
• He believes that the people and the churches will lead this movement. (Obviously not all churches, but some of the more "progressive" ones.) Then the law will follow. This goes against the feeling I had recently, "There's no point in us fighting much more right now. It's the court's move at this point." That was largely an excuse I made to myself anyway, because I was sick of doing campaign work.
• Jim moved on to talking about the Bible. The type of same-sex relationships we're talking about (committed, monogamous) are never mentioned in the Bible. Jesus himself didn't mention homosexuality at all. He does, however, have something to say about divorce. In any case, progressive Christians are not required to believe everything the Bible says.
• Jim and Jade did a little role-play, Jade playing a yes-on-8 voter who is uncomfortable going against the Catholic Church. Jim reminds her that even the Catholic church admits that you must listen to your conscience--the voice of God within you--when it is in conflict with the Church.
• He also emphasizes religious freedom. No one wants there to be an official religion of the state. One of the students in attendance (who was half of an adorable gay couple) points out that this argument must be approached very carefully, because the yes voters want their children to be "free from having the beliefs of others forced upon them." A great point about that: Teaching kids about something is not the same as teaching them that it is good or they should do it.
  
• There are a lot of sins in Leviticus that no one would ever seriously suggest we legislate against. I didn't catch the title, but there's a book about someone who tried to follow Leviticus literally for one year. Supposed to be very funny.
• More on the Bible: St. Paul condemns homosexual relationships. But he also condemns heterosexual relationships, advises everyone not to have sex at all, unless absolutely necessary. He's also completely opposed to marriage and family life. (If I understood correctly, reproduction isn't necessary because the second coming of Jesus is only a few years away.)
  
• The slippery slope argument: If we let gays get married, how do we know this won't open the door to pedophilia, incest, etc. The key is to point out that we're talking about consenting adults. Children and animals are not in that category. Also, remind people that those are completely separate, unrelated issues.
  
• Jade: "The traditional family is a myth. Somebody made it up in the 50's and they've been promoting it on TV ever since."
• This is important: According to some study, people don't vote for rational reasons. Their votes are usually based on emotional reasons. This of course goes back to the common complaint that the no on 8 campaign should have used actual images of gay couples. But with that in mind, what are the appeals to emotion that we can make? The suicide rate among GLBT kids is still relatively high. Not that we can change that overnight, but the way the government/society treats them might have something to do with it.
• http://www.soulforce.org/ is a resource for gay Christians. Jim described it as "PFLAG for evangelicals"
• Rick Warren is slowly beginning to change his stance. He's removed all the anti-gay language from his website and invited Melissa Etheridge to speak at his church. This was news to me!
• I think the most annoying argument I hear is that prop 8 is the "will of the people." Democracy is not the same as majority rule. There's a reason we have courts and a Constitution.
• Jade recommends talking to the yes voters you know, and who may be persuadable, not worrying about the far "right wing" people.
  

If you have friends who voted yes, and you probably do, talk to them. It's not easy, but it's necessary. No matter what happens 90 days from now, we should continue to fight, and dispell the myths from the campaign that many people still believe.

Looking Forward

Okay, so we lost. We're all angry about it. If it's going to take you a while to stop being angry, I understand. In fact, you probably shouldn't plan on ever "getting over it." So write angry facebook notes, take to the streets, unfriend the people who voted yes, whatever you need to do.

But I'm going to try to do what I can to look forward. Right now there are already lawsuits being filed, and whether anything comes from those or not, it's not clear what the next step will be. Whether it will come through the courts, the legislature, or another proposition showing up on the ballot, we don't know. But regardless of what it is, proposition 8 has started a long conversation on same-sex marriage, and I think it's important that we allow this conversation to move in a new direction.

To the "yes on 8" voters:

Marriage has always been between a man and a woman in this state, up until this past June, and I understand that kind of change is difficult for you, in the same way that anything new or unfamiliar is always difficult. The Supreme Court of California recognized a new right that had never been legally considered a right before (at least not here). Of course there will be at least some part of you that objects to that kind of change. I realize that, despite what you heard from the protesters on the streets of West Hollywood on Wednesday night, your vote was not intended to be bigoted or hateful, or to treat anyone as a second-class citizen. Change is hard, and we will never get any closer to reaching any kind of agreement or understanding on this issue if we don't recognize that fact.

That said, many of you were tricked into voting yes. You bear much of the responsibility for that, and of course, so does the official "yes on 8" campaign. The campaign consistently misled and lied to voters, in an effort to move the conversation away from the real issue (same-sex marriage) and scare people into voting yes. No church has ever been denied their tax-exempt status for refusing to marry any particular couple. If topics like marriage are taught in California public schools, they have to give parents the right to opt out. Barack Obama stated very clearly that he was against prop 8. Nearly all the official material that came from the yes on 8 campaign was absolute lies or at least implied false statements. It is your responsibility as a voter to be smart enough not to fall for such things, and to call out your own campaign when you see it happening. If you want to use the electoral process to prove that a majority of Californians are on your side, then you need to actually get out there and convince people. As it stands now, all you've proven is that people are very susceptible to emotional advertising.

To the "no on 8" voters:

First of all, next time, get angry before the election. And then channel your anger into volunteering or donating, or at least making sure all your friends will vote our way. And if they say they're not going to, then talk to them about it (see below). In any case, get angry and take action before the election. I'll only say it one more time. Get involved BEFORE the election.

When I was volunteering for the No On 8 campaign over the summer, trying to recruit new volunteers to join us, I would explain briefly how the campaign needed so many thousands of volunteers in order to win. Often, they would then assure me that such a proposition would never pass, not here in California. I don't think anything more needs to be said about those people.

I want to stress again that I understand how frustrated and disappointed everyone is right now. However, slogans like "Stop the hate, no on 8," referring to your opponents as bigots, saying they've treated you as a second class citizen, insulting an entire religious group: None of that helps us very much. Changing the minds of millions of people is not easy, but insulting them is a sure way not to do it. I think we did a great job in this campaign of making sure our messages were always positive and truthful. Next time around, we need to do exactly the same thing, and work even harder to combat the lies that we now know the other side will probably tell.

To people on both sides of this issue:

Even though this fight is over, the conversation that will lead us to the next fight has to continue. So keep talking about this issue, not just with your friends on your side, but with anyone you know who voted the other way. This can be a somewhat painful experience, but we all have to live in this state together, so let's at least try to understand each other a little bit. We will never all agree on everything, and there are people on both sides who will never be swayed. But if we don't start talking to each other soon, trying to understand where the "other side" is coming from, then the "yes" voters will always be "hateful homophobic bigots" and "no" voters will always be "in league with activist judges trying to redefine marriage for us all." This is California. We should be better than that. All of us.

Lawmakers

I never intended for this blog to be political in any way, and I'm not trying to change that now. But I do have one question. Here are some quotes from 365gay.com's article on today's historic California Supreme Court decision:

The dissenting opinion to Thursday's ruling was penned by Justice Marvin Baxter.

While he agreed with many arguments of the majority he said that any changes to the state marriage law should be decided by voters.

[...]

Schwarzenegger has previously vetoed bills that would have legalized gay marriage. Both times Schwarzenegger said that the courts or the people through a plebiscite should decide the issue.

I'm not an expert on how government works, but these two people, a California Supreme Court justice, and an actor-slash-governor, should both know a little something about how it works. If I'm not mistaken, we have three branches of government, just like the federal government does. One of them, the legislative branch, is responsible for making laws. We, the people of the state, are responsible for, among other things, electing the members of the legislative branch. The only reason for having the voters decide an issue directly is if the legislative branch is not responding to a pressing issue for some reason, and the citizens need to take things into their own hands. Now, it may be that the legislature is unwilling or unable to act on some issue, and in that case, it might be a good idea to have a ballot initiative. However, this is not that issue. The legislature has tried to make a decision, and, as it says in the article, Schwarzenegger vetoed their decision twice. I see no reason that this issue ought to be decided by the voters directly. Except perhaps that Schwarzenegger doesn't want to have a bunch of conservative anti-SSM people mad at him.

I'm not even looking at this from a gay rights point of view. I'm just saying, there are people in Sacramento whose job it is to make laws, and while there are other ways of doing that, I see no reason those other ways should be invoked now.