No on Prop 8 folks were supposed to steer us through the next phase. They would've kept Prop 8 as a non-threat and educate people about the equality and importance of voting no.
Well, that didn't happen. The campaign failed and with that launched protests, the blame game, and miss opportunities to focus the anger. And as the smoke clears, some new realities pops up.
Advocate did a piece that sheds some light on the major failure, mainly focusing on the inner circle. They include Lorri Jean of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, Geoff Kors of Equality California, the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Kate Kendell, Delores Jacobs of the San Diego LGBT Community Center, and Michael Fleming of the David Bohnett Foundation.
They claimed that the Yes on Prop 8 was just too big and ready to attack. But we should've been as well. This was and is war. We are fighting for our rights and to protect our rights, the No campaign should've been ready to battle.
Miss Lorri claims that they had a difficult time getting us on the ball. I find that hard to believe, but here's what she said: “If we could have found a way to energize our community faster, we could have competed with them. We experienced enormous complacency in our community until we finally put out the word that we were going down.”
But from the article, the inner circle only worked with the FABULOUS versus the grassroots. Several major donors and supports groups were turned away or not called back.
For an example, in my men's group, In The Meantime, one of our facilitators Jeffery King said he was ignored.
"We told them what should be done, we told them what they shouldn’t do — and they did what they wanted to do.”
Then it was lack of skills that did us in. Most of the inner circle folks haven't ran a campaign this serious and this big. They should reached out to everyone and brought in the overall community. Hell, they could've took a few pages from Obama's book about fundraising and networking.
The fact is they wasn't ready and that foolishness cost us. So now, we need to get new leadership in the No for Prop 8 campaign and give these ice cream social planners the boot. If they knew we were struggling in money raising, support, and vision, they should sought better ideas to get us together. We needed them to be leaders and all we got is a bunch of wanabees. Please, for the sake of our rights, leave; and let the people not celebs, f**kbuddies, or your clique, pick who will lead us through to the next phase.
2 comments:
I almost don't want to reply to this post because it is so stupid. So, let me get this clear, one of the leaders of your men's group was ignored and therefore the leadership for the No on 8 campaign should be replaced. Well first off, what a stupid reason. But more to the point, bitch, bitch bitch...we didn't win, let's blame someone because god knows it could be because we (the LGBT community) did not work had enough in our own little worlds to stop the proposition. We didn't give enought money, we didn't volunteer enough, we didn't come out to enough people who matter, we didn't talk to our allies and make sure they talked to others...we just plain did not work hard enough. We are to blame, not the people who led the campaign, and stopped having a life, stopped seeing their families, lived out of suitcases, debated ugly people on the other side, begged, literally begged for money for the campaign, took abuse from their own community, worked day and night . . . and for what...we lost and the yoyo's are calling for their heads...I sorry, but that just does not fly. Guess what! We lost because there are enough people out there that just don't like us. They don't care if we have civil rights, equal rights or any rights at all. They are either very religious and buy the religious crap, or they are just plain bigots that need to hate . . . bottom line, they don't like us. Can we change that? Maybe...but probably not, in my opinion. Not in the next few months. Civil rights were not won by the ballot box, they are won in the Courts. We could have helped ourselves by working harder at the ballot box, but we still might not have won... Stop the blaming and start working to change people and their thinking. We won't change the bigots, but we can influence those who are misinformed, and that is where the Yes folks killed us...they lied and they cheated and given the opportunity they will do it again. We, you and me, we have to do better and we cannot blame those who are working harder than we are.
I'm glad you are passionate, but I just gave one example from many. The leadership is to blame, however you are entitled to your opinion.
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