2. More important, however, is that, whatever Bottini’s accomplishments, and they do exist, she is on record as being AGAINST gay marriage so as much as I think the NO nonleaders fucked up in most every other way, it was LOGICAL for them not to ask her help for there was no reason to believe she would have given it. And her reasons fall under that retarded, “why imitate straight people” crap. Straight people have sex, too. I don’t see anyone suggesting we stop “imitating” THAT!

3. We will not succeed in changing the future if we don’t clear up more of the myths of the past. Yes, Bottini played a major role in the No on 6/anti Briggs Initiative campaign. Briggs wanted all CA gay teachers fired, and even straight teachers who “sympathized” with us. But she was NOT the “leader who defeated” it. NOR was Harvey Milk.

As much as I HATE saying it, the leader who defeated it was STRAIGHT and his name was Ronald Reagan. He came out against 6 in the middle of September of 1978, and by the end of that month,support for it had gone down some 20 points from the beginning of the month. It ultimately lost even in Brigg’s home county, the infamous Orange.

There ARE gays who deserve credit for convincing him to publicly oppose it. One, whose name escapes me at the moment, was a Republican advisor who called David Mixner and his cloe friend, business and campaign partner Peter Scott, asking if a statement from Reagan would help. The other, whose name to the best of my knowledge has never been revealed, was even closer to Reagan and arranged for a private meeting between Ronnie, Mixner, and Scott.

They convinced him not of the unfairness, the bigotry of it, but that it could cause chaos in schools; that any of the millions of students in CA, disgruntled for whatever reason, could arbitrarily denounce a gay teacher, accuse any teacher of being gay, and the proposition would require a formal investigation, etc., etc. Mr. Discipline was shocked and would have none of that. [Anyone interested can read the details in the great history of the post Gay Lib movement, "Out for Good," and in Mixner's own "Stranger Among Friends."]

If anyone’s phone should have rung, rather than Bottini’s it should have been Mixner’s [Scott died of AIDS], and the Rev. Troy Perry’s, whose 16-day fast resulted in thousands of dollars being donated to seed the No on 6 campaign, and then he and Del Martin and Leonard Matlovich and Dave Kopay [because, unlike Milk at the time, they had national recognition] barnstormed the country to raise more money.

And whatever gays who convinced Pres. Carter and Gov. Brown and even the San Francisco Catholic Archbishop [not the fascist in that office now] to also come out against 6 also deserve credit.

Which brings me back to the relevant REAL way the No on H8TE peeps failed. I am not the first to say that they totally fucked up in not promoting the fact that Obama and Repug Gov. Schwarzenegger were against 8.

4. Except for refusing to again follow those who failed, the focus should now be on identifying successful tactics not personalities. And, by the by, the Join the Impacters haven’t a clue.

We needed to lose this vote.

I believe more strongly in the principled argument that a majority should never be allowed to vote on a minority’s rights. Had prop. 8 NOT passed, you can be assured the pro-prop. 8 folks would have found an argument to fight the result. Fortunately, OUR argument to fight the result is the correct argument.

I try to remain realistic (i.e. not too optimistic) that the CA Supreme Court will make the right decision here, but the fact that prop. 8 made it on the ballot in the first place is the biggest concern to me. I know we will eventually retain our right to marry, but I am fearful of the precedent set by this ballot initiative, which allowed my right to be voted away by an ignorant and mis-educated majority.

Where’s *your* evidence that Alan Brickman called anyone a thief?

Overpaying is incompetence, particularly in this circumstance. But, I saw Alan Brickman assert: “THey kept everybody out so they didn’t have to share the money” and I saw him assert that those in question overpaid themselves – both realities being pretty much par for the course with the self-appointed, self-serving LGB (non-)intelligentsia-oids who say that they know what’s best for all LGBT folks because they say that they know what’s best for all LGBT folks and then expect no one to question their claims that they know what’s best for all LGBT folks even when they repeatedly prove that they don’t know what’s best for anything other than their paycheck sources.

It’s a bit much to accuse people of being thieves. Where’s your evidence? I’m all for accepting the fact that the leaders were incompetent and arrogant but not sticky-fingered.