White, Hetero-normative gay and lesbian couples seem to be the only people’s rights that HRC are concerned with. This is not the LGBT community, this is only one of many.

Very sad.

a) without permission of the parents involved (would you want your child’s photo on Statewide TV without your knowledge or permission?)

b) they LIED about it implying the children were forced to attend as a school function

So much for the value of children and the family they claim they are “protecting.” And “truth” – don’t most religions teach telling the truth is a virtue?

BTW, I echo John in SF as well, I have not vandalized any Churches etc. and don’t support that. We’ll never know the whole story of course, but there are instances of violence being self inflicted and blamed on the other side for media attention.

a) without permission of the parents involved (would you want your child’s photo on Statewide TV without your knowledge or permission?)

b) they LIED about it implying the children were forced to attend as a school function

So much for the value of children and the family they claim they are “protecting.” And “truth” – don’t most religions teach telling the truth is a virtue?

BTW, I echo John in SF as well, I have not vandalized any Churches etc. and don’t support that. We’ll never know the whole story of course, but there are instances of violence being self inflicted and blamed on the other side for media attention.

I Ditto Jaroslaw – and I’d also point out that most of what you are talking about has nothing to do with prop 8 or even marriage.

- the language of prop 8 said nothing about curriculum or schools. Zero Zilch Nada. Curriculum is generally set at the school board level anyway.

-Whether children are taught not to disrespect LGBT people has nothing to do with whether California recognises LGBT marriage. Nothing. Children should be taught not to use slurs against anyone – whether they are married or single. I’m kind of disturbed that you think it is ok for children to be permitted to use slurs in school.

-Marriage is not a requirement for adoption, so the whole adoption question has nothing at all to do with Prop 8 or gay marriage. Whether Prop 8 passed or failed, gay people would have the right to adopt in California.

I don’t personally condone name calling of pro-8 voters, or any kind of sign stealing, cross stomping, or any of that. But I’ve had my no on 8 sign vandalised 3 times, and a neighbor’s dog defecated under it twice. And I live blocks from the Castro district in the heart of San Francisco. Imagine the intolerance we face in places like Salt Lake City, Yuba City, Modesto, Orange County, and the like, where we are not so concentrated. Because we have all experienced truly hateful behavior throughout our lives (not just during campaign season), we have a tendancy to assume that all people who oppose our rights are hateful. We should be more careful about our language, but don’t mistake the fact that we all know people who have been called names, beaten up, or even killed just becasue they were lesbian, gay, bi, or transgendered.

Five years ago, I attended part of the trial of one of our own murdered 5 years ago. The pictures of her blodied body, beaten and raped into an unrecognizable form, shows all to vividly that hate against us is still alive and well right here in California. THAT is why we KNOW that at least some of those who voted against us are filled with hatred for us. And that is why our children should be tought to respect everyone.

1. First graders were INVITED to their teacher’s wedding, it was not a required activity

2. The pledge cards were intended for an older age group children – the school acknowledged it was some sort of mistake. Sorry, life is like that – no perfect schools, no perfect families, no perfect employees, no perfect anything.

3. Catholic charities chose not to place children in QUALIFIED homes that passed all the required tests, so they chose to shut down their charity rather than place children in same sex households. That’s how it is when you take government money…..ALL recipients must obey the law.

Let the Homobigots rights Campaign burn and die the death it deserves.

Transfolks and those LGB types deserve nothing less…

I know here in Dallas, a company that buys a table at the Black Tie HRC dinner think they have carte blanche to gay bashing comments the rest of the year.

BTW did you know that Andrew Sullivan was on the list with Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and other right wingers that CBS planned to hire for a Bush cover up?

Al you misquoted me.

I did not write that HRC was tremendously successful at achieving LGBT equality. You added HRC to that part of the sentence. What I said is that the leaders of the campaign against 8 — EQCA and NCLR (and their partner organizations) — have been tremendously successful at achieving equality.

HRC did not win marriage in the California Supreme Court. EQCA and NCLR (and several partner organizations) did.

HRC did not win domestic partnerships in CA. EQCA did.

I call that pretty successful. You may disagree with me, and that is fine, but my opinion is that these leaders have a proven history of moving the legislature, the courts, and the people towards the direction of LGBT equality. It is my opinion that to throw them out — as many posts on this page suggest — would be disasterous for our movement.

On a personal note – I’m OK with being disagreed with, but I don’t think it is necessary to sling personal insults into the mix by asking if I am high. I can live with that question just fine, but it is just the latest example of how some folks are choosing to move from disagreement about tactics and strategies and into personal attacks. It is really self-destuctive.

Again, let us BUILD UP not TEAR DOWN.

Are you high? The events who have achieved success in gay equality have been first and foremost the Stonewall RIOTS, the Act-UP DEMONSTRATIONS, ZAPS, STREET CLOSURES and finally the independently organized mass movements of this past 12 days.

Not a single thing was done by a long list of passive defeat-habituated no-longer leaders including HRC and The Gay center here in LA.

The reality is that it’s over for them. Like a ponderous dinosaur, it will take some time for the news to reach their brains.

Perhaps the election of Obama portends more then anyone suspects in terms of clearing the decks of the old ineffectual politics and making way for the new. ….oh yeah an ‘honorable’ mention: so HRC has 700,000 plus members and supporters…well a web site that accepted only a single dollar donation from each could have buried the Mormon and Catholic efforts.

ANY of us could be leaders, ANY of us could revitalise the movement. Stop complaining and set up a mailinglist for the people who were out there this weekend. Next time you want some people to show up somewhere, all you have to do is send them an e-mail.

Splendiferous!

EQCA (and equivalent organizations in many states) build broad based coalitions and GET MANY BILLS INTO LAW, including a domestic partnership law in CA that is the full equivalent of marriage (save the name). EQCA was one of the plaintiffs in the marriage case in CA that ultimately recognized the constitutional right to marry.

NCLR, who’s legal work WON THE RIGHT to MARRY in California…and who advocates for hundreds of LGBT individuals and families across the country.

Equality Federation…which ensures that what is learned in California (and other states) doesn’t stay in California.

Dollar for dollar, these organizations are unbelievably effective at securing our rights.

Lastly – I love Horizons Foundation which was one of the major contributors to no on 8 – EVEN BEFORE it was on the ballot, and which supports hundreds of LGBT organizations – in the Bay Area and nationally.

There are MANY other orgs worthy of our support. I believe that if donors gave EVEN HALF of what they give to HRC to these effective organizations, that we would win marriage nationwide in less than 10 years – even after the prop 8 defeat!

Let’s spend our energy to BUILD UP, not TEAR DOWN—

John

spreads HATE about gay people and has nudity on their site from the Folsom Street fair as “examples” of how “perverse” we are.

They are asking for Donations through PAYPAL.

** Complain and report them to PAYPAL at aupviolations@paypal.com and compliance@paypal.com let’s have their PAYPAL ACCOUNT taken away from them for “TERMS OF SERVICE” violations.

Paypal TOS clearly state there is to be no pornography /nudity , or Hate involved in the use of their service *see* http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/.....me-outside

!!THE HRC IS A MIS MANAGED JOKE!!

Not only was the organization a quiet bystander on Saturday’s Protests they actually debated making a statement separating themselves from it due to a few anti-religious/racist remarks made in some of the California protests. It is clear we need new leadership that understand the GLBT community, one that reflects the energy we need. Without change I doubt we will see equality in our lifetime.

They have also started work on something new this summer along the lines of the Business/Corporate program. They found that a lot of hospitals do not recognise same sex rights so they are hoping to start the same type of program where hospitals can ask to be rated and then if they pass certain criteria will get an positive index. anyway if you are interested by looking here

http://www.hrc.org/about_us/hrc-foundation.asp

Or you could just take Andrew Sullivan’s word for it all.

I tried to look at the bright side of HRC. Their ‘worknet’ program of lobbying corporations for equal benefits has been relatively successful. So I asked how I could donate to HRC’s worknet program without having my money go towards their building, their black tie dinners, and their ‘press releases’. I was told that I’d have to donate in excess of $5000 to be able to specify my donation. So they get nothing.

But one thing they CAN do is to add a new score of -20 points on their equality index to any employer that specifically recruits at schools where Gay couples can not be students (unless they have a one for one affirmative action policy). In that way, companies would be penalized for discriminating against Gay couples through recruiting at schools such as BYU in order to ‘weed out’ Gay people.

Then we lose the election, and suddenly everybody is sending invitations to join dozens of anti-8 Facebook groups, and marches up and down San Francisco. This is a GREAT thing, mind you. But if more folks had responded to my pleas in July, in August, in September, and in October, then maybe we would be attending wedding receptions in November instead of demonstrations.

The HRC has less money because they can’t convince anyone who would give it to them that they have the gumption and strategy to do anything, or take postures that represent something.

Is

Bear this in mind everyone: we did not lose for a lack of funds or because the other side raised so much money. We lost because people are still willing to accept the LIES that all fundamentalist, evangelical demagogues throw their way. Sunday mornings were much bigger advertising opportunities than anything on television. And we should’ve been there outside those churches EVERY Sunday morning since May.

HRC was part of the coalition fighting 8, but they were not central to that fight. Had we won, they could not have taken much credit and now that we lost, they should not be blamed for it either. (I’m not a particularly big fan of HRC, and I’m not a donor, for the record).

The folks who were much more central to the fight against 8 were the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Equality California. While folks may want to blame them and the supposed lack of leadership, you would be kicking out the folks who WON marriage in the CA Supreme Court in the first place. You would be kicking out the folks who moved the California electorate EIGHTEEN POINTS since the beginning of the decade – when Prop 22 passed (which had identical language to Prop 8) Lastly, you would be kicking out the folks who won domestic partnerships that confer all the rights and priviledges of marriage (excep the name), as well as DOZENS of other bills.

Why would anyone want to replace or punish such fantastically successful advocates? We should all write checks TODAY to keep NCLR and EQCA going strong.