Call to the 3000 who have replied to this forum

[TracyMN]

I don't know the answer to what we can do, but i'm hoping some of you do. The comments below are from a forward by Rick Beck to the upcoming chapter of "Outside the Foul Lines":

But first a message from the front on the culture war:

Out of VICTORY we settle for defeat

The people claiming to speak for and represent LGBT interests were too busy to mount an organized opposition to Prop 8. The armies of religious groups came to deny you the right to marry. This was the biggest battleground for gay rights in 30 years and we blew it off.

Prop 6 would have fired gay teachers. The religious onslaught was rolling through state after state intending to deal a death blow to gay civil rights. Prop 6 polled at 60% in favor. The religious crusaders had come to do God?s work and who can fight that?

Enter Harvey Milk. Harvey cornered little old ladies on the street. He spoke to any group that would tolerate him. He spoke anywhere at any time. He ended up in front of large crowds. He?d been told he?d be shot. He would not shut up and Prop 6 was overwhelmingly defeated. Harvey?s face was on the issue. Harvey showed up to fight for our right to be free.

See the movie ?Milk? for the blueprint and fight for your rights. Show up the next time or accept you are what they say you are. Let them define us and they?ll set us back another forty years.

Forty years ago this August drag queens showed up. They threw several NYC cops out of the Stonewall Inn. Tired of being abused, they fought back. The cops brought reinforcements to teach the fags a lesson they?d never forget. The drag queens called for reinforcements too. Greenwich Village emptied onto Christopher Street and the people stood between the police and the bar.

The Christopher Street Riots had begun. The Stonewall Generation was born. The standoff lasted for days. The city fathers, with the world watching, agreed the drag queens would no longer be harassed. The riot ended and the modern gay rights era began. They showed up and they were ready to go to war.

Laws making it a crime to be ?homosexual? were overturned. This year we should be celebrating the 40th anniversary of these events. Instead we mourn the end of legal gay marriage in California. With that we may have forfeited our best shot at full civil rights for a generation. Who do we blame? Who didn?t show up?

If the next generation is watching, and I hear from some amazing college students, I hope you?ve seen how seriously this generation takes your civil rights. We could have won the day, swept the opposition from the battlefield. We could be celebrating each and every new LGBT couple?s marriage and in August we?d have been able to celebrate how far we?d come in forty years. What could have been if you hadn?t been so busy?

Take Heed: There are 18,000 legally married LGBT couples in California today. The crusaders will be back to cancel them out. They smell blood and are poised to finish us off. We didn?t show up and they did. They?ve taken the high ground where they wait.

Is there not a man or women among us with the balls to do Harvey proud? Can any of you show the courage of those drag queens?

It?s your voice that counts. It?s your feet that count. This cannot be allowed to stand. You must decide whether you want to fight it here and now or still be fighting it in another 40 years.

This was California, a beacon of hope in my youth. RIP California, your final act of decline, writing discrimination into law.

Fight For Your Right To Be Free,

Rick Beck

No peace in my world today. My marching days are done. I?d be out there if I could see. I?d show up but no one cares about some old fart?s anger with his people and that makes it your fight now.

There are great minds here, and I look forward to your comments. Thanks for listening.

Tracy

[colinian]

Take Heed: There are 18,000 legally married LGBT couples in California today. The crusaders will be back to cancel them out. They smell blood and are poised to finish us off. We didn't show up and they did. They've taken the high ground where they wait.

A careful reading of the Court's decision shows that they have effectively blocked the ability of the opposition to cancel the status of those 18,000 legally married LGBT couples without violating the Equal Protection Clause of the California State Constitution. The summary of the decision provided by the California Judicial Council, the public information office of the California Supreme Court, reads, in part:

Applying the well-established legal principles that govern whether a constitutional provision should be interpreted to apply prospectively or retroactively, the opinion concludes that Proposition 8 cannot be interpreted to apply retroactively and that the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the effective date of Proposition 8 remain valid and must continue to be recognized in California. This holding of the majority opinion was concurred in by all of the justices.

Even more interesting is this part of the summary of the Court's decision:

Analyzing the scope of Proposition 8, the majority opinion explains that, contrary to petitioners' assertions, the initiative measure does not "entirely repeal" or "abrogate" the aspect of a same-sex couple's state constitutional right of privacy and due process discussed in the majority opinion in the Marriage Cases - namely, the constitutional right to "choose one's life partner and enter with that person into a committed, officially recognized, and protected family relationship that enjoys all of the constitutionally based incidents of marriage" - nor does it "fundamentally alter" the substance of state constitutional equal protection principles recognized in that opinion. Instead, it carves out a limited exception to these constitutional rights by reserving the official designation of the term "marriage" for the union of opposite-sex couples, but leaves undisturbed all of the other aspects of a same-sex couple's constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship and to the equal protection of the laws.

In other words, the Court's decision only defines and limits the word "marriage" and does not impinge on the ability of same-sex couples to enter into domestic partnerships which have most (but not quite all) of the benefits of marriage and are already available in California (my partner Doug and I are Registered California Domestic Partners) or, if they were to be made available, civil unions. Many are now interpreting this as an invitation by the Court for the State of California to create civil unions which, other than name, will be exactly the same as marriages.

The full text of the Court's decision is 136 pages long -- plus attachments -- and can be found here as a pdf file.

Oh, my, do we live in interesting times.

Colin

[TracyMN]

A careful reading of the Court's decision shows that they have effectively blocked the ability of the opposition to cancel the status of those 18,000 legally married LGBT couples without violating the Equal Protection Clause of the California State Constitution.

What a relief that is, Colin, and thank you for the link to the whole document. To

protect the strides me make is as important as making those strides, I think.

Our seemingly endless ability to move forward and back on the same issue over

decades is never as clear as it is on this issue and the issue of abortion. That Iowa

is on one side of one and the other side on the other is to me the irony of our Nation.

And I think familiarizing myself with the document is at least my own first step in

futher support of the strides made, and those to come. Thank you.

Tracy

[The Pecman]

It ain't over with yet. There'll be another election in California, and this time, I think the pro-gay marriage forces will target the main groups who shot it down the last time.

(I would mention who the specific groups were, except the last time I did, I got into a yelling match with another member who chose to leave, something I still regret.)

If nothing else, I think it's now clear to the supporters of gay marriage that we have to have the support of all minorities for this to succeed. Noisy demonstrations and graffiti aren't gonna bring a change. It's gotta be organized, with an effective TV campaign, and hopefully with some widely-publicized debates.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this time, it'll work. If the news reports are correct, the main reason the bill went down the last time was that the Mormon Church funneled $20 million into California to fund anti-gay marriage commercials and rallys. One hopes this won't happen the next time -- but if it does, we'll be ready.

BTW, there's a huge church about 2 miles from our house that was plastered with "Vote Prop 8" and "Marriage Is Between a Man and a Woman" signs, all over the freeway off-ramps and on the sidewalks. As god is my witness, I'm gonna take the day off from work and remove every one of those signs the day of the election.

[colinian]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this time, it'll work. If the news reports are correct, the main reason the bill went down the last time was that the Mormon Church funneled $20 million into California to fund anti-gay marriage commercials and rallys. One hopes this won't happen the next time -- but if it does, we'll be ready.

In addition, the Catholic Church funneled $8 million into California to fund anti-gay marriage commercials and rallys.

Colin

[The Pecman]

In addition, the Catholic Church funneled $8 million into California to fund anti-gay marriage commercials and rallys.

'F' 'em both. The Mormons and the Catholics can do whatever they want, but leave my life alone.

I think removing the signs may be too lenient -- I may burn them instead. I swear to god, when I saw them the day before the election, my partner had to restrain me from veering off the road and just plowing them all down with my car. Homophobic bastards...

I still want to hear one of these moralizing turds explain to me why letting two gay people marry makes a straight marriage any less.

[DesDownunder]

Quote Pecman:

'F' 'em both. The Mormons and the Catholics can do whatever they want, but leave my life alone.

That's the trouble, they won't leave our lives alone. Here in Australia the conservative Catholics are regarded by some to have taken over the left wing parties now in government. Separation of state and church isn't worth a sh*t. Secular government is just a dream.

[E.J.]

I think removing the signs may be too lenient -- I may burn them instead. I swear to god, when I saw them the day before the election, my partner had to restrain me from veering off the road and just plowing them all down with my car. Homophobic bastards...

Don't know about where you live, but in Georgia it's illegal to post campaign signs within the public right-of-way (it's considered a safety hazard). Most people ignore the signs but if someone complains, they are usually removed. Might be worth checking out.

[The Pecman]

Don't know about where you live, but in Georgia it's illegal to post campaign signs within the public right-of-way (it's considered a safety hazard). Most people ignore the signs but if someone complains, they are usually removed.

Where the fun in that? It'd be a lot more fun to burn them.

I can't do anything about the signs this church puts up on their own property. But I swear, I'd donate money towards renting out a billboard right by the church with a pro-gay marriage ad.

I'm reminded how one network -- I think it was NBC -- put up a giant billboard advertising a rival talkshow opposite CBS' LA headquarters on Beverly & Fairfax. So right where they were taping the Pat Sajak Show, every day, the host had to look up on his way to the studio and see a huge sign promoting Johnny Carson. I'm sure it drove him nuts.

Forcing the church staff to see a large pro-gay marriage billboard by their building every day would really make me smile.

[TracyMN]

I can't do anything about the signs this church puts up on their own property. But I swear, I'd donate money towards renting out a billboard right by the church with a pro-gay marriage ad.

I'd contribute to that.

My favorite idea is to picket FOR these things in front of their churches, on public property, not mentioning them al all, "just in the neighborhood" kind of thing. Nothing personal you understand, just

a coincidence Ought to make them crazy..or is it crazier?

Like I said, there's good minds here, and I am ejoying the discussion, and learning some things too. Sounds like one of those things people seldom know about, EJ, and it's worth taking note of where our own states stand. If I can find out about Minnesota, i'll post it here!

Tracy