When this issue comes up again, we cannot run the same stupid campaign again. We just can’t.

No more stupid focus groups. We must be clear that this is about gay people and refute the “we are coming to get your children” lies effectively.

Back then, I sat their livid seeing no response from the No on Prop 22. When I heard that the same people we running the No on Prop 8, I knew this was a lost cause.

EQCA must not be allowed to run any repeal effort. It has to be done by a new organization that will hire the best consultants and go on the attack, not waiting to respond.

The implication was “Of course you FEEL gay marriage is icky, we all do, but…”

David, you can say we should all pull together now that we know whatever it is that is now claimed we do know. A great many of us, perhaps not so active politically (read: political creatures) but certainly knowledgeable about it and the issues involved, knew all of that long before the election. If you’ll provide an email address, I’ll be happy to send you my analysis written a few sdays after the eleciton.
As far as I can tell, the conclusions of this survey are not all that different from what I predicted.

It’s not that I’m all that smart, it’s just that I pay attention to what is going on. As an out, I’m-here-I’m-queer-get-over-it=kind-of-a-guy gay man for 40 years, I kept seeing the same stupidity being committed over and over in the ocurse of multiple campaigns.

Start with this very simple premise, obvious to Harvey Milk, who certainly influenced me hugely, and to anyone who is paying the slightest attention to what happenbs when they come out to people. THE CLOSET IS NOW, AND FOREVER HAS BEEN, THE ENEMY.The religious right is not all that important.

Very frankly, the gay political establishment lost a great deal of my respect and good will when we lost that election. We could have won and we should have won, but for that deeply closeted campaign.

Personally, I think this is where you must start. The continued disinterest of EQCA in what I have been trying to tell them for two goddamned years, (but which finally, they are starting to conclude based on a study that I am sure cost a few million at least, and WHO got paid for that?) is a good indication that this political, closet based malaise continues.

Gay marriage is ultimately about social acceptance, and you can’t ask for social acceptance while still wanting to hide in the closet. People will give you one or the other.

The No On Eight campaign team meant well but hadn’t accepted the hard lessons that were already evident at the time. Things such as Undecided being a polite way of saying anti-marriage.

I don’t buy that mis-voting claim. The pollings were clear. The graphs show that a lot of people were looking for a plausible excuse to vote Yes that they didn’t have. And there are a lot of post-election phenomena- popular measures and candidates usually get 5-10% more voter claiming to have voted for them than actually did so. After Nixon’s resignation a majority of voters claimed not to have voted for him, despite his 1972 win with 60%. There’s a lot of post-election rationalization going on. Presumably there’s a fair amount of guilt involved when an LGBT organization knocks at your door and asks questions, and you voted against them. That doesn’t mean these people will vote differently if/when they have to do it again. I think the whole supposed misvoting business is an artifact of a certain kind of political naivite and lack of experience inside organizations like EQCA.

Non-Prop 8 polling in California in 2008 in the mean showed 48% support for gay marriage. The election result hit it on the nose. If a lot of people misvoted, then they seem to have cancelled each other out remarkably well.

Here’s a recent poll that shows 51% support, in line with the 1% per year increase seen from 2005 until now:
http://www.publicreligion.org/research/?id=318

Evidence #1: the two gay guys with the two kids and the father of one of them talking aobut marriage. Why weren’t THE ACTUAL PEOPLE INVOLVED talking about why marriage was important to them.

more of hte same closeted BS.

BTW, did we know each other back in the day?

In 1978, with the Briggs initiative, Anita brought up “the children.” Harvey Milk on televised debates refuted that gay men are pedophiles with FBI statistics that gay men are only about 5% of pedophiles (more recent and better stats show that it is closer to 3%.) Our literature from Briggs countered the pedophile charge as well: with facts. The literature also used the word gay often. In fact, in 1979, one of main groups had brochures that said in bold words: LESBIANS TEACHERS AGAINST PROP 6.

The polls showed Anita’s camp ahead until close to the end. Surprisingly, we won with 10 points.

When will we learn: typical campaign strategies don’t work for us. Polls are wildly inaccurate, tepid commercials don’t work, not making allies (Harvery brought in labor and other groups reached out to faith organizations.)

I don’t support any group campaigning for gay marriage. Why throw my money away. When we get full equality it will because of all of those wonderful queens in Hollywood making movies like Milk and shows like True Blood.

Here’s a link to an article that discusses how we won in 1978 and how prop 8 was run:

http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=10080

And, we didn’t learn in Maine. Why do we keep using “modern” methods when the campaign method Harvey Milk pioneered was successful. As much as I hate to say it, our professional groups exist only to pay their upper management high salaries.

Never attribute to evil what can be explained by incompetence.