Love Honor Cherish - Blueprint for 2010 Campaign

Blueprint for Equality:

How We Will Restore the Right to Marry in 2010

Version 1.0

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July 21, 2009by Love Honor CherishINTRODUCTION: Seize the Momentum

Two days before the election on November 4, 2008, a call went out to theopponents of Prop 8 in Southern California: Come to a rally at the corner of San Vicenteand Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, and hold signs against Prop 8, to urgevoters to cast their ballots against it. A couple of hundred people showed up. It wasn’teven enough for the police to close the street.

BEFORE: Anti-Prop 8 rally in West Hollywood, 2 days before its passage

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Three days later, after Prop 8 passed, on the same corner there were thousands of people, enraged by the voters’ theft of their civil rights, and similar demonstrations brokeout across Los Angeles, throughout California, and even nationwide. In downtown LosAngeles, 10,000 people marched. In San Diego, there were 20,000.

AFTER: Rally against Prop 8 in San Diego, eleven days after its passage.

As the song goes, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.” Althoughthere were many failures in the Prop 8 campaign, the loss of Prop 8 was, above all, afailure of our own community to understand, and to explain to ourselves what was atstake. Because we did not comprehend what was at stake, we weren’t equipped or mobilized to tell the rest of California. Maybe we had to lose to begin to understand.Although the demonstrations were an immediate result, the passage of Prop 8 alsounleashed an unprecedented amount of new activist energy, most of which is focused onthe repeal of Prop 8 and working to change hearts and minds on same-sex marriage. Thisenergy – energy that was largely absent during the last campaign – includes:2

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The formation of several dozen new pro-repeal groups, several of which meetweekly;

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The Courage Campaign’s creation of the weekend program Camp Courage acrossthe state, which has trained hundreds of new activists;

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The hiring of 25 field staff by Equality California and the opening of field officesacross the state, many of them in locations that had no significant presence duringthe Prop 8 campaign.

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The launch of robust door to door canvassing programs by Vote for Equality,EQCA, the Courage Campaign and Marriage Equality USA which are goingdoor-to-door and persuading people to support same-sex marriage;

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Strong public statements of support for same-sex marriage and opposition to Prop8 from politicians and celebrities whose opposition to Prop 8 was largely mutedor non-existent before the election;

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Rallies across the state in response to the Supreme Court’s refusal to strike downProp 8, including Fresno’s Meet in the Middle, which drew thousands;

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The formation of the Out West Coalition in Los Angeles;

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The Poll4Equality Coalition’s polling project and the Get Engaged Tour, whichexplained the poll results to activists and communities across the state; and

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A series of statewide summits drawing together hundreds of activists, many of them working on marriage equality for the first time.Recent polls show that the voters are responding to this energy and are nowwilling to vote “yes” to restore equal marriage rights. Prop 8 passed by 52% to 48%.Just six months later, a poll taken in May by pollsters David Binder and Amy Simonshowed that if a vote were taken now on an affirmative initiative to repeal Prop 8, and if the voter turnout were to approximate what is expected in the November 2010 election,50% would vote to repeal Prop 8 and 42% would vote against (with 8% undecided) – solong as we clarify in the measure that it will not force churches and other religiousinstitutions to perform same-sex ceremonies. Further, if just one-quarter of the undecidedvoters go with us, the repeal initiative would pass by 52% to 48%. This represents acomplete reversal of the 48%-to-52% vote on Prop 8 in just six months, and, given that a“yes” campaign is generally considered harder to win, shows that we have madeenormous progress with the voters already. Moreover, the poll does not account for anyof the minds that will change as a result of a good campaign, or due to the increasingacceptance of marriage equality across the nation over time.The choice presently before us as a community is whether that initiative to repealProp 8 should be placed on the ballot in November 2010, or whether we should wait until2012, 2014 or later. November 2010 is 15 months away. November 2012 is more than 3years away.As set out herein, the Blueprint for Equality is not a formal campaign plan.Rather, its purpose is to demystify what is involved in a campaign to repeal Prop 8, tohighlight some key aspects of the campaign, and to demonstrate that winning in 2010 isan achievable goal. The Blueprint will be revised and enhanced, and we invitesuggestions and comments.