Perhaps we can set up a permanant page that allows easy access. If anti-gays begin a campaign in NY or NY, I’ll try and get something together.

Yes we do.

Unfortunately, bitchy gay syndrome has affected many gay activists here too. Whether the community can put aside their petty issues with one another and stand united as a whole remains to be seen at this particular time.

Show real gay people, real gay families, and the real pain and hardship people suffer.

We also need a better answer to (yes on 8 chant) “Shame on you – you want to teach the children” than “uh, no we don’t.”

Yes we do! For a lot of perfectly good reasons. Children should learn to respect differences between people at a young age, children should be taught about reality as it is, gay couples aren’t a dirty secret that children should be protected from, there are children in these schools who are gay and know it and deserve our support, there are kids in gay families in these classrooms who deserve to see their families respected, just because your religion doesn’t agree with homosexuality doesn’t mean you have some kind of right to airbrush it out of the world as far as your kids are concerned.

Vegetarians don’t get to take their kids out of school when the teacher reads a book about eating bacon (and neither do the Jews), the children of pacifists have to learn about war, the children of creationists have to learn about Biology, the children of white supremacists have to share their classroom with black kids, and the children of anti-gays will have to learn that gay people exist.

Because they do. Get used to it.

Can it be redefined on the basis of religion? Why no, that goes against a basic right which is identified in the federal and all state constitutions. And yet it was religiously led support and money which redefined marriage in California.

Ok, why not attack the California amendment which will ban marriage for gays and lesbians on the basis of religion? Parade a gay couple and a lesbian couple before the court, call them Wiccan and tell the court that Wicca allows for marriage (handfastings) between its same-gendered members, therefore this amendment is in violation of religious freedoms. Even the National Organization of Wiccan Congregations offered a statement in support of Gay and Lesbian Marriage in California last September.

Hell, I’m atheist; as far as I’m concerned they’re screwing with my anti-religious rights. Which is why I’d just love to use their pet Amendment against them to get marriage for all of us. Failing that, I’m with AJD.

I just saw the LDS statement calling for both sides in the debate to not vilify the other and use mutual respect and civility, not relying on misinformation! As if they hold the moral high ground!

Dear Ms. Marino-Thomas,

You may have read that, according to the Associated Press, the same people behind Proposition 8 are headed for New Jersey and New York to ban same-sex marriage here.

I’m going to level with you: A big reason why we lost in California was because No On 8 launched a tame, weak, feeble and impotent campaign. It used the same campaign tactics that we’ve been using across the country that have gotten us virtually nowhere and done nothing but created more and more setbacks. I’m not a campaigning specialist or expert, but unless you want to see two more states join the list of states with gay-marriage bans — one of them a bellwether state — you need to do things differently this time.

First of all, you need to resist the temptation to use focus groups and go with your gut. That means no more ads that make vague and abstract pleas for tolerance and “don’t discriminate” and “say ‘no’ to bigotry” while avoiding images of gay people or even the word “gay.” Instead, air and print ads that show real gay couples and their families, that highlight the prices of homophobia like teenage suicide and hate crimes. Very importantly, if you don’t want to see 70 percent of black voters here vote for a ban, reach out to racial minorities — show gay people who are black, South Asian, Latino/a, Native American, Middle Eastern and Asian, as well as interracial couples, and do ads in Spanish, Chinese, Russian and other languages. Show gay people as relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Second, you need to launch a pre-emptive attack against the religious right. Highlight the Prop. 8 campaign’s blatant use of lies and thuggery. Talk about the issue in terms of church-state separation. Considering the Mormon church’s role in Prop. 8, do ads that talk about their history of bigotry against blacks and their lack of repentance on the matter. I’ve been telling everyone: Make this our generation’s Scopes trial, with us as H.L. Mencken and Clarence Darrow!

Third, we need to stop being so goddamn overconfident and self-satisfied and dump the happy-go-lucky positive thinking in which we just assume we’re going to win because this is such a liberal state. Already, I read the following in the AP story: “Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said she isn’t worried the Proposition 8 campaign has produced a new political juggernaut, noting that the religious denominations that worked together in California have deep theological and spiritual differences.” This is the problem I’m talking about. Even after a colossal failure at the hands of those very religions with “deep theological and spiritual differences,” she still just assumes everything will be fine. This is a strategy of futility.

Fourth, you need to get our community riled up and pissed off. Notice how we only marched through the streets and picketed the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City after we lost. I read that that people tried to have a march in West Hollywood, and only a few hundred people showed up. Meanwhile, they saw thousands of people getting drunk in bars.

Fifth, related to reaching out to minorities, eviscerate the claim that we’re not a “real” civil rights movement. Hire Angela Davis (lesbian and Black Panther) to do a commercial. Show video footage of Bayard Rustin and Coretta Scott King.

Sixth, make appeals to conservative ideals like keeping the government out of people’s lives. Accuse the anti-gay-marriage people of trying to legislate their peculiar notions of morality.

If we’re going to win this time, we need to be prepared to put up a huge, nasty fight. The Human Rights Campaign school of passive activism simply hasn’t worked anywhere. It failed miserably in California, and it will fail even more miserably in New York — I guarantee it.

The bottom line is, we’ve had failure after failure after failure. We need to be angry and pissed-off, and we need to show it. Nobody is going to see our pain and our suffering if we don’t show it. We can’t keep acting complacent and comfortable, as though we can win dignity for ourselves by just sitting around and waiting for it to arrive.

I would like to donate to your campaign when the campaign for bigotry reaches our state, but that will depend on whether you plan to repeat the tactics that have brought us nothing or employ tactics that will yield real, tangible results.

NY and NJ groups should anticipate what the hate mongers are going to say up front. They should have commercials saying “Opponents of gay marriage are going to trot out the same lies that they trotted out in CA about teaching gay marriage to kids, forcing ministers to marry gay couples against their religious convictions, and that marriage and domestic partner benefits are equivalent.”

By taking them on first and calling them liars before they even open their mouths, you can take some sting out of their arguments.

I also think that asking voters if they really want to get behind a movement that is overwhelming funded and managed by the Mormon Church would be worthwhile. Point out the pattern in Alaska, Hawaii and California. Also, pointing out that the Mormons have a long unrepentant history of discrimination against blacks should also be a prominent message in African American communities. Yesterday it was African Americans, today gay people; both victims of Mormon discrimination. Blacks have no reason to believe that the Mormons have their best interests at heart.

The Prop 8 folks were vicious, and the No on 8 folks were far too tame.