UPDATED: So, after some crazy technical hurdles, we managed to live blog most of the No on Prop 8’s “virtual town hall”. As soon as the audio transcript is available, we’ll link to it. You can also expect a post on the event in the morning. Til’ then, follow our play-by-play account of No on 8: The Conference Call!
5:55pm: So, there was supposed to be a town hall tonight– and for Windows users who download proprietary software, there may very well be, but the rest of us are S.O.L. should dial in: 877 270 9470, pin: 1831.
For a campaign that’s been accused of being out of touch and needlessly hermetic, this is– seriously, we’re speechless.
If by some chance you’re able to access the meeting, let us know. It’s a theoretical “virtual town hall” Windoze only echo chamber, where leaders Geoff Kors, Lori L. Jean, Shannon Minter, John A. Pérez, Rev. Eric Lee and Steve Smith will answer your Windows users questions in what is sure to be a lively discussion something we can’t access. You can listen to the town hall along with us at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center site–that is, if you have a PC and download some Microsoft software.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
6:00pm Well, we went to the site and it turns out the “Virtual Town Hall” is only accessible to Windows users. Seriously. We’re trying to find a workaround.
6:10pm There is no software available for Mac users to join the Town Hall meeting. So, I guess this means that No on 8 is a PC, no matter what the grassroots ads made during the campaign tried to say. Here’s the No on 8 campaign’s concept of a “virtual town hall”:
6:15pm: “Mac users can dial in: 877 270 9470, pin: 1831”
6:22pm: We’re in— and in time for my question! I asked about the “independent board” that will evaluate the campaign:
“Who composes the independent evaluation board? Will the No on 8 campaign commit tonight to making the findings of the independent evaluation of the No on 8 campaign public? If not, what reassurances will it give the public that they ought to support the same leaders again in future campaigns?”
Lori Jean says she doesn’t know who will be on the board and that she doesn’t think releasing the results of the board “would be wise”. Moderator Karen Ocambs’s following up now.
6:24pm: Karen asks a good follow-up about possibly releasing a redacted version of the report that doesn’t reveal future strategy recommendations and Lori basically says that she’d be open to releasing anything that didn’t make the No on 8 campaign look bad. Which is silly and stupid.
6:28pm: Polls, polls, polls! “We should have spent more money aimed at women, especially at the end” says someone (I think Steve Smith). Programming note: Amy Balliett, who runs the Join the Impact group was supposed to be on the panel but is MIA tonight.
6:30pm: Why wasn’t the campaign prepared to deal with the attacks on gay marriage as affecting kids? Geoff Kors is saying that the Yes on 8’s “Prop 8 will turn your kids gay” focus was “the number one reason” they lost. Oh, that and the teacher who called her marriage “a teaching moment.”
6:34pm: Rev. Lee is saying that “there would be even more resistance” if the No on 8 campaign made the argument that there are already plenty of gay and lesbian parents out there with kids w/o gay marriage. He believes that the gay community needs to reach out to African-American pastors and says he doesn’t get a sense that there was “a lot of outreach” to them. He also says there was no outreach to traditional civil rights groups, either.
6:38pm: Why didn’t the No on 8 campaign hitch their wagon to Barack Obama‘s Train-O-Hope and get a bunch of African American leaders to list their opposition to Prop. 8? Rev. Lee basically says, “Beats me, would have been a great idea.”
6:41pm: Geoff Kors says that “Everyone anticipated this would be a 10-15 million dollar campaign” and it wasn’t until Oct. 6th that the financial numbers for both campaigns were released. Geoff Kors says that there were paper handouts about Barack Obama and African-American leaders but their media advisors told them that Obama’s “I’m against gay marriage but also against Prop. 8” was too confusing to voters.
9:42pm: Steve Smith concurs that the Yes on 8 campaign blew them out of the water financially and they lost the early voting because of it.
9:47pm: What was the structure of the campaign? Committees upon committees is the short answer. “It was a two-tiered structure”, says Lori Jean. “We needed everybody to raise money and organize their communities.” The big committee then elected the Executive Committee: Oscar de la O, Bienestar; Maya Harris, ACLU of Northern California; Delores Jacobs, San Diego LGBT Community Center; Lorri L. Jean, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center; Kate Kendell, National Center for Lesbian Rights; Geoff Kors, Equality California and Andy Wong of Chinese for Affirmative Action.
Lori Jean then states that you could basically buy your way into the Executive Committee with a big donation.
So, the EC became really unwieldy and the paid consultants complained that they needed a smaller, more nimble body to work with and so a “mini-EC” was created. Get all that?
6:52pm: Questions about visibility, both in the gay community and in rural areas. One questioner asks why there was no visibility at the West Hollywood Carnivale, which has a ton of straight people who come to one of the biggest gay enclaves in the country.
Lori Jean says “I don’t know what happened at the West Hollywood Halloween thing- given that was in the last few days of the campaign.” In terms of rural outreach, they hoped that rural LGBT orgs would handle that. Where they focused: Greater L.A., San Fran, San Diego, Sacramento.
Who ran the field operation? Through mid-Sept it was the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and then later Basic Rights Oregon and Marriage Collaborative.
6:57pm: Steve Smith says “While it is frustrating in the community, tactically it was the right thing to do, making all those phone calls…It was by far the biggest field campaign in the state that wasn’t a presidential campaign.” Except tactically, you lost, so no, that’s just not true.
Karen mentions that many volunteers felt the campaign was a disorganized mess, so Smith uses this as an opportunity to mention that the proposition wording was confusing. As to the ‘mechanics’ of the field operation, nobody is taking responsibility for it! Smith says, “that’s a problem we ought to figure out and clean up…It made sense to do it on the phone, to focus on undecided voters and not focus on voters within the community…”
7:00pm: Oh gosh, they really hate Erin Carder, the schoolteacher who called her wedding “a teaching moment”.
7:03pm: Shannon Minter, the Legal Director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights says, “The reason we’ve won in courts is because of groups like Equality California” and then spends a minute or two talking about how great the No on 8 groups are. He’s talking about the upcoming California Supreme Court battle, but mainly he keeps talking about how awesome LGBT rights groups are. The case will be about whether a “bare majority” has the right to strip a minority of basic civil rights. Also, Shannon has a wonderfully deep voice. UPDATE: Which is because Shannon is a dude. My bad.
7:07pm More legal questions- Are the folks who got married before Prop. 8 passed safe? Shannon says, yes….aaaaaaaaaaand very very very slowly gets around to the fact that that’s actually one of the questions that will be decided by the California Supreme Court when it hears the Prop. 8 case. But he says that the “law on that is very very strong.” He also says if you have any problems, you should contact his group, Lambda Legal or the ACLU.
7:10pm: Shannon Minter: “We are in a fight for our lives. That’s no hyperbole…We’re going to have to fight for it and fight for it very hard.”
7:12pm: Here’s a fun question about why we can’t all just become transgender people and get legally recognized that way. Well, that’s not really the question, but its the implication. Shannon basically says that while California is friendly to trans folks, the courts usually require you to be pretty serious about your gender identity for a legal recognition of a gender change.
7:16pm: Boycotts! Good, Bad, Backlash-prone? Rev. Lee says “I’m not sure a boycott would be effective. I think we need to educate more…particuarly clergy.” He reccomends community forums, advertising in black papers and in black papers. Karen brings up Rosa Parks! We really like Ocamb’s tenacity tonight. Rev. Lee thinks that education is really what’s needed.
7:20pm: Karen asks Geoff Kors and Lori Jean about The Day Without a Gay idea but mistakes what it’s about– that is she thinks it’s about gays not buying things, where the real idea behind it is to have gay people spend the day doing public service. Lori Jean seems to have hung up. Geoff Kors says “We haven’t had a lot of effective boycotts.”
Oh, Lori is back! We don’t have a real job, so never get to be on conference calls. It’s fun. Lori’s talking about her Invalidate Prop 8 campaign which sends very annoying postcards to the Mormon Church saying that a donation has been made in their name to overturn Prop 8.
7:21pm: Is there any money left over from the campaign? Nobody knows right now. Your email addresses are going to go to all the No on 8 campaign groups and to donors over $100,000 (they get to use it as a one-time shot).
7:26pm: Geoff Kors is answering a question about a potential 2010 ballort initiative. In January, there will be a summit for anyone who wants to get involved– but groups right now, not individuals. Karen mentions Rick Jacobs of the Courage Campaign, who’s been a smart and effective critic of the lack of a No on 8 netroots strategy. Kors is really big on big coalitions and doing studies on what to do next. Lori chimes in that we need to have a multi-election strategy saying that 2010 “may be too soon.”
7:29pm: Lori Jean’s also making this really annoying argument that we should not pursue a ballot initiative until after the Supreme Court decision is done, because it might give the Supreme Court cause to “punt” their decision and then points out that “we never win” in ballot initiatives or votes. So basically, there’s no chance to win at the polls so we better just leave it to the courts.
7:34pm: And we end this with a “How do we promote unity?” questions and to his credit Geoff Kors says that “an important piece of doing that” is to reach out to new people and new communities. Lori Jean seconds that the community is wide and diverse and that “can be an advantage and a disadvantage.”
She hopes the January summit will include every group under the sun. She also is impressed by the grassroots energy that’s popped up after Prop 8 passed.
Rev. Lee would “like to see…more representation from different ethnicities and from the straight community. I hope we get to the point where we don’t have to talk about straight or gay, because that tends to isolate us.” He talks about doing social, political and economic outreach to develop relationships with a wider community. He points out that if black civil rights had been put to a vote there would still be segregation– and says that ultimately, the Supreme Court is going to decide this thing.
And that’s the ballgame. Just noticed John A. Perez, Member-Elect of California’s 46th was supposed to be on the call and was a no show as well.
Mike Tidmus
>>To join the Town Hall, please load the Windows console version of Live Meeting
Why are they doing this on Windows software and not providing links to some Mac version if such a thing exists?
G-A-Y
Unreal. Did it not occur to them to even think about Mac users?!
Richard
Don’t tell me this crew got something wrong.
Kenster999
So where’s the live blogging? Here on Queerty?
Mike Tidmus
After calling them on it, they now say: “Mac users can dial in: 877 270 9470, pin: 1831”
Al Benson
I am hearing a lot of self justification… don’t type fast enough to live blog…but a queerty question was asked regarding the evaluation teem: answer we are looking for experts at evaluating campaigns” said Lori Jean…the results of the evaluation will not be made public to prevent the enemy “from knowing our strategy”
Leland Frances
“Jean open to releasing anything that didn’t make the No on 8 campaign look bad”
Folks, I rest my fucking case.
Except to add, I will NEVER send money to anything again with Jean’s, Kendall’s, or Kors’ name attached.
Al Benson
panel of experts?…you don’t need a panel of experts to see what went wrong…this is a total dodge.
Mike Tidmus
It’s not the money. It’s how you spend the money stoopid!
The Gay Numbers
It’s like they do not live in California or 2008. I am thinking of a phrase- “deers in headlight”
The Gay Numbers
Phone calls are not the best way to reach voters. Bar none the two best ways to reach voters in voter contact is neighbor to neighbor and through canvassing. This is true of issues advocacy. So I am not sure again what year they are living in. 2004 maybe.
J Boogie
Hahaha I believe Shannon Minter is a man
J Boogie
oops he’s FTM
Mike Tidmus
Education versus boycotts and demonstrations??? Why not both?
Mike Tidmus
Bottom line: Trust us. We know what’s best for you. Give us more money.
JPinWeHo
Shannon Minter has a “deep voice” because he is not a she – Mr. Minter is a FTM trangendered attorney who has worked tirelessly for LGBT rights.
reversion
Wow, these guys are TOTAL LOSERS.
Japhy Grant
@JPinWeHo: My bad. Updated to correct, though HE really does have a wonderful voice.
The Gay Numbers
@Japhy Grant: Speaking of correction story: Obama’s plan on DADT:
http://washingtonblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=22644
“A member of Barack Obama’s transition team is denying media reports that the president-elect has decided to delay efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell†until 2010.”
Also:
“Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), the lead sponsor of legislation that would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell†told CNN earlier this month that the administration would approve of such a bill next year.”
And:
“Retired Army Col. Stewart Bornhoft, who is gay and a former commander in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said changing the law would require both “passion and preparation.â€
“Clearly, the passion for change is there,†he said. “But it requires proper preparation for the [Defense Department] to declare that they can implement open service successfully.â€
However, Bornhoft said repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell†should be attainable in the next Congress.
“Whether that’s the first or second half of that period should be determined by the progress within the Pentagon’s thinking rather than an arbitrary calendar date,†he said.”
Wondermann
So basically their greed for power and popularity destroyed the campaign. Lori said you could buy your way into the EC, and they did.
This is so horrible, remove them from their positions…now!
Dick Mills
It seems rather paradoxical that the “No On 8” campaign made a conscious decision not to include GLBT persons in their ads, but on the town-hall call they suggest that the best way of persuading undecideds is to be out and proud. It seems as if it would have been very simple for them to introduce Californians to real, live, honest to goodness GLBTs in their ads. But I got the impression that they chose not to because we don’t test well with focus groups??
Sapphocrat
@Wondermann: How do you remove leaders you never had the choice in electing in the first place?
(Yeah, my ass is burning from the whole call, too. And not in a good way.)
Mike Tidmus
>>How do you remove leaders you never had the choice in electing in the first place?
Their paycheck is in your pocket. Spend your money wisely, grasshopper.
chuck
@G-A-Y:
It’s hard to think when one’s head is shoved up one’s ass.
I’m a Mac user and I am as pissed for being excluded for that, as I am being excluded as a grassroots person.
ECca liked my check, however. I should be receiving an email very shortly, asking for another one.
For what, I don’t know. But, I’m sure they’ll think of some way to throw it away.
Btw, since donating to ECCA, I’ve wound up on over a dozen other organizations email lists…all of whom are asking for money.
Fucking whores. Not a dime more. To any of them.
They can kiss my queer ass, including HRC which I have already canceled my membership with.
Jon B
What really concerns me is that there is no NATIONAL leadership. Here’s the thing people seem to be seriously overlooking, Proposition 8 is not a California issue. In order to get Federal bans overturned, and for the Supreme Court to rule once and for all that gay marriage is a fundamental right (it would also be nice if they ruled that sexual orientation discrimination is granted a heightened standard of review) we need individual states to stand up and provide marriage rights. We also need several states that provide civil unions, and we need states that provide neither. Currently, there are only 2 states with gay marriage (a third if you include NY, which recognizes marriage) and 3 or 4 (not sure of the number here) that provide for civil unions or domestic partnerships? In order to successfully challenge gay marriage bans we need legal disagreement on the issue. 2 states aren’t enough. This is why HRC, and every other LGBT organization has to start putting some real elbow grease into these fights. Furthermore, we as a community need to start putting in our fair share of money time and effort. It’s pathetic that Mormons can fundraise better than we can on something that has no effect on them.
Also, as an aside, why has no one in the legal challenges against Prop 8 brought up the absurd consequences of upholding the proposition, namely that it leads to the potential for extreme uncertainty in the law, this issue has potential to flip-flop every two years until we finally get protection from the Supreme Court of the United States.
Troy
I really wanted to listen in on this “town hall”, but my mac wouldn’t seem to accept the software they wanted me to download. I think i’m beginning to understand why we lost this campaign.
Did anyone resign, at least?
TG and SL
Couldn’t get into the call, no surprise with this brain trust. Did anyone say the critical phrases they needed to: “I’m sorry we took so much of your money, blew our lead, and lead incompetently. We should have done better and we should resign as soon as new leaders are identified and able to take over. Our screw up was of monumental proportions and we take full responsibility.” I’m guessing not but I have a feeling that we’ll read feel good money requests from Jean and Kors in tomorrow’s inbox. Save it.
Don
Three points:
First, after one of the most devastating defeats in the history of the gay rights movement, they wrap up their town hall meeting in 2 hours? That pretty much says it all. If there were a genuine interest in working through what went wrong and how to make it right, this would have been a 4-5 hour marathon, and only the first of many. What arrogance.
Second, I find it incredible that no one asked how two of the leaders could go on long vacations during the campaign. These must have been screened out.
Third, Qweerty says of Lori Jean “She also is impressed by the grassroots energy that’s popped up after Prop 8 passed.” Wow! Awesome grassroots energy! Lori Jean should lose more often. Think of all the energy she’ll create. Maybe she can manage the campaign to defeat the next initiative, which will be to repeal domestic partnership rights. She can go on vacation for a month, blow the campaign, and then marvel at all the beautiful demonstrations in the street.
Undoing this defeat necessitates the removal of leaders like this.
Sapphocrat
@Mike Tidmus: Wise words, Grandfather. Frankly, I wish I still donated to HRC so I could tell them to shove their martini glasses up their asses all over again. (I read HRC the riot act and told them to bugger off, repeatedly, after Cheryl Jacques was ousted, and they still won’t stop sending the mail begging for my once-generous, long-ago donations… all addressed to my ex of 15 years ago. At least the “=” stickers make good bookmarks.)
As for EQCA/No On 8, I gambled a wad and lost. Well, I won’t be playing that machine again.
Wolf
WOW what a clusterf**k and not in a good way.
We do need to do this from a grassroots level and we need to take an ALL or NOTHING attitude.
psy
Mac user here. Annoyed at winblows only meeting.
Qjersey
The LGBT leadership vacuum is becoming even more and more apparent. These “leaders” were hired to run organizations. They were not elected and none of them have anything close to ‘grassroots’ support. HRC claims hundreds of thousands of members but doesn’t exactly do much of anything to mobilize their members. I got more emails from my state LGBT org about Prop 8 than I did from the HRC (or NGLTF).
See “Milk” and compare to these twits. Discuss.
Sean
@Jon B:
Thanks for mentioning this! What I found striking is that the people on this call seem to have elected themselves the leaders through 2010 by default. It troubles me that as we come to realize how badly and disjointed this effort was at both a state and national level, we still keep coming back to the same leadership. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?
As for organization, what is difficult especially in the GLBT community is our emphasis on privacy due to still valid implications of being out in a straight world. Sometimes we cannot reach people because we respect privacy in our community and usually have to be careful with email and home addresses. We must brainstorm on how to handle this issue in a world of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and aggressive blogging.
What strategy should we support going forward? This is what I beleive should be done beyond pursuing court cases on same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption:
1. We focus on passing ENDA with or without the transgender provision. Obama and our allies in Congress can get this done for us in leiu of tackling the Don’t Ask Don’T Tell legislation they want to hold back on until 2010. We deserve outreach in 2009 for our Obama support and this will protect the most people. It’s also an economic security issue.
2. We create a GLBT Chamber of Commerce and select one of our most prominent businessmen to be the face of it. The organization would be supported by glbt organization donations and then later membership dues. We must push the economic security issue when talking about marriage equality. We also need a lobbying arm solely focused on pushing our interests in debates over small businesses in the health care discussions occurring at the national level.
3. We must begin our own media campaign about our glbt families. Churches do it. Corporations do it. Political Candidates do it. This isn’t a recruiting commerical of course (tongue in cheek). This is a familiarization campaign. We must approach it from a view angles: 1) We have families. 2) We are your neighbors. 3) We share your values. 4) We are Americans. I see commercials profiling families like the Match.com or EHarmony ads where a lesbian or gay couple talk about their life, how they met, and their day to day grind. We could even have ads with single people talking about what they do… this would be maybe where a gay celebrity puts their two cents in. At the end they look at the camera and say “We’re gay. We’re your neighbor. And we’re Americans too.”
4. We must individually start demanding more from our organizations. If we must replace leadership or remove funding we must. I beleive we should all refuse to pay next months dues and call for a dossier from each organization we belong to as to where they are going in a 3 year plan. We all must take indiviual responsibility for who is guiding our way, this is one way to do it.
5. We organize a protest a month. We follow the example of JoinTheImpact.com’s calendar and keep the pressure on. Our protests should not be directed at our opposition. We will not change their mind and exposing their hypocracy is not our job. Our job is to sell our brand. We have to go to the people who vote and say “This is why you should support us.” We should avoid being the angry gay man at the temple and become the neighbor who shares the same concerns as his or her other neighbors but has to climb a hill to do it. But most important, it is a gay or lesbian face they see not a straight one.
Michael
@sean
Those are fantastic ideas. I think 2, 3, and 5 are quite innovative and would help to keep the pressure on without us being perceived as attacking religion/marriage/children/whatever-they-accuse-us-of-this-week.
Harvey M.
Dear Kate Kendall, Geoff Kors, and Lori Jean: YOU’RE FIRED!
Love, The Ghost of Harvey Milk
Chloe
what a bunch of fucking idiots. . .not one penny to this bunch EVER AGAIN.
GranDiva
@Sapphocrat:
Can I be your gay husband? I think I love you.
DaveO
Why no talk about reaching out to Republicans? Not necessarily religious right types, but a greater fraction of the economic conservatives who seem persuadable.
Timothy
“Your email addresses are going to go to all the No on 8 campaign groups and to donors over $100,000 (they get to use it as a one-time shot).”
THEY FUCKING SOLD OUR EMAILS!!??!!!
Timothy
>>>>How do you remove leaders you never had the choice in electing in the first place?
Their paycheck is in your pocket. Spend your money wisely, grasshopper.<<
I don’t know about the others, but Lori Jean is not answerable to ANYONE.
The LA Gay and Lesbian Center is not a community center. It doesn’t rely on contributions. The Center is a health organization and is nearly entirely financed by medical insureance and state health department reimbursements along with government grants.
Lori Jean didn’t think of the “West Hollywood Halloween thing” because she’s no longer a part of the gay community. She’s the CEO of a medical corporation with a 40+ million dollar budget and has about as much interest in Prop 8 as the CEO of Kaiser HMO.
This is the same “inspirational speaker” who went to the LA downtown protest march (the one that led to the desert) and told listeners that those who pushed through Prop 8 “are the same people who oppose illegal immigration and affirmative action.”
Huh? Did she read the exit polls? Did she glance at the blogs which tracked the contributions?
She’s so caught up in her insular world of “left v. right” and coalitions of failure and hobnobbing with the money-gays and bleating platitudes of decision by committee that it’s no wonder we lost. If the others are like Jean, then I’m surprised we got 47% of the vote.
Sorry if I sound bitter, but – unlike the attitude of our “leaders” – this actually matters to me. Personally.
Bob Conti
@Timothy: Did she really say that? Really, the only people who think Lorri Jean and Geoff Kors are relevant are… Lorri Jean and Geoff Kors.
Glenn I
@Sapphocrat:
I gambled a wad, too. And I didn’t think the odds were good. But I really really wanted this. Now I’m looking at my Visa bill. I paid how much to lose my rights?
Sapphocrat
@GranDiva: Of course you can be my new gay husband! — especially seeing as how the Mormon church will approve our sealing in the celestial… Waitasec, let me go check those pesky Doctrines and Covenants again…
Mad Professsah
As Heather would say, “Bitter, much?”
How the f*** do you all think a gay rights movement happens?
Do you know that with Geoff Kors as Executive Director EQCA has passed 50 bills since 2000 in the California legislature, giving LGBT citizens as close to full equality as anywhere in the world, not just the United States?
Despite (currently) not having access to marriage, the statutes that EQCA has been instrumental for passing mean that in California you can NOT be legally fired for being transgendered. In Massachusetts (which has gay marriage), you can be fired for being transgendered! In California Registered Domestic Partnerships have all the same rights and responsibilities afforded under state law to married couples except for NINE specific enumerated differences. Do you think that happened by accident?
I just think people need to take a chill pill and think about what they are saying before they say that Kors, Kendell and Jean need to be “fired.”
Yes, the current LGBT leaders made mistakes in running the NO ON PROP 8 campaign. Mistakes will always be made in a campaign. Please list me 4 people you would have rather have run the campaign. How do you know they would have done a better job? This destructive anger to the people who have been leading these LGBT organizations IS NOT HELPFUL.
If you feel they are so awful, go ahead–create your own organization and try and enact change that way. Good luck with that.
In the end we really have no way of knowing if Prop 8 would not have passed if we had different leadership. We can only notice what happened and decide whether and how each of us will support actions to further LGBT equality in the future.
Sapphocrat
@Glenn I: Exactly. I feel like I just fell for a Nigerian 419 scam.
khoa
@Mad Professsah: “Yes, the current LGBT leaders made mistakes in running the NO ON PROP 8 campaign.”
And if the leaders themselves had only said that, I don’t think there’d be so much hatred and resenemt against them in this discussion. Yet they didn’t …
Think about that for a minute.
Brian Miller
Do you know that with Geoff Kors as Executive Director EQCA has passed 50 bills since 2000 in the California legislature, giving LGBT citizens as close to full equality as anywhere in the world, not just the United States?
Kors has not “passed” a single bill.
He’s collected a lot of money and sent out e-mail blasts asking for more.
He and his group (along with Jean and the other retarded “leaders”) bullied the hell out of real activists during the Prop 8 debate — those activists were making the same points that EVERYONE is now making ex-post-facto.
Kors, Jean, and their national equivalents at HRC and NGLTF are utterly useless, except as examples of what NOT to do.
If Kors was pursuing another cushy line of work and his organization didn’t exist, it’s rather likely California would have passed 100 gay rights bills in California in his absence. That’s how pathetically awful his performance, and the performance of his organization, have been.
Mac User
> For a campaign that’s been accused of being out of touch and needlessly hermetic, this is– seriously, we’re speechless.
Get over yourself. Did you seriously just whine for an entire page about them not having a version of the webinar software for OS X? Because, of course, THAT’s the important issue?
For starters, the web version of Live Meeting works fine on OS X. Secondly, if you’d just loaded Parallels or Boot Camp you’d sound just a bit more professional and like you know what you’re doing.
Grlskr
@Jon B:
Jon,
I totally agree with you. Nationally, HRC gave us PAC money and their highly respected grassroots guy from Mass – Marty Rouse. What Marty did and what input HRC had for grassroots is a mystery. We know it did not work out. The Gill Foundation gave us Patrick Guerrero for the last several weeks to provide structure to our sinking ship of “leaders”. Alas — we needed a super-pro CEO type (not Geoff, Lori, and Kate who are great at raising money with e-mail.)
Grlskr
@Brian Miller:
Brian,
OK.. GK (I refuse to utter the name) is great at raising money by blasting our community w/ e-mails and has no accountability to his board (check out the composition). It is his show. As of Nov. 4, he and others “lost their product”.. so now are looking to our community for even more money for something that might not be needed in 2010. EQCA should be out of business w/ the Supreme Court decision (#1 and hopefully #2) , let Kate/Shannon do their cases nationally a la Lambda, and have Lori Jean do her great social services work in L.A. Our leaders were way over their heads and not the right people.
Grlskr
@Mad Professsah:
Committee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee
Wikipedia has a good definition – along the lines of the maxim that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. On the question of who is better than our three committee members- We needed a CEO and the talent pool in our community is huge nationally. No one is really accountable and Steve Smith is just a hired gun who will move on to other issues. Check out this piece re Smith:
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3475
Red
Why are the several LGBT 501c3 running this program. Do they have their own agendas? Why is there not a CEO for these people…… where they report results that are measured. Why did they not respond and engage the grassroots people? Shame on them and more importantly why did Geoff Kors take a vacation for 2 weeks in July and Lori Jean take off the month of August?? Why did they not take their resoures and hire a CEO to run the program? Where did the 30 millon go?? Perhaps maybe they might consider getting out of Weho and understand how to run a campaign in the state. In addition, Equality of California is done. I guess they need to reinvent a new agenda to sustain the dollars and their job.
I trusted you …I gave you 20K and your grade is an F.
angry
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