Box Turtle Bulletin

Protests Spread Outside California

The passage of Proposition 8 has sparked gay outrage in a way I’ve not seen in many years.

Of the 384 contributions to either side of Proposition 8 coming from Seattle, WA, only three were to support the amendment, a total of $350. So it is fair to say that the Mormon Church in Seattle was not to any great extent responsible for the dissolution of marriage rights of California same-sex couples.

But the battle lines have been drawn. The church has shown itself willing to throw tens of millions of dollars into campaigns to deny gay couples their rights and that any one particular congregation may have been less involved is not the issue. And while gay couples in Washington are not much impacted by Tuesday’s election results, they are taking it personally.

So today dozens of supporters of marriage equality picketed a Mormon church in Seattle.

As church members and their families walked to the church for worship services, protesters chanted “shame on the church,” “equal rights” and other slogans at them.

The leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints may have thought that they had bought themselves a constitutional amendment. But along with that amendment they also purchased a change in public perception. Gay men and women throughout the nation – along with their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family – now see the church as an enemy of civil equality.

But while the Mormon Church may not be much enjoying their new image, others are envious of the attention.

In Texas, a Baptist church announced that their next sermon would be titled “Gay is Not OK”. This might have normally resulted in a roll of eyes, but the gay community is angry and ready to be heard. So church-goers were met with protesters. Having gotten the attention they wanted, they announced that next week will be “What to say to a gay person”. The protesters will be back.

I cannot help but think that the shock and anger resulting from the passing of Proposition 8 may well light a fire in the belly of the community in a way that hasn’t been seen since Matthew Shepard.

Schwarzenegger Supports Court Case to Overturn Prop 8

In the wake of the election, the Arnold Schwarzenegger has finally seen fit to make a public comment about Proposition 8. (LA Times)

“It’s unfortunate, obviously, but it’s not the end,” Schwarzenegger said in an interview on CNN this morning. “I think that we will again maybe undo that, if the court is willing to do that, and then move forward from there and again lead in that area.”

He was aparantly refering to the lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to invalidate the proposition. Should that effort fail, the Governor suggests perseverance.

Today, Schwarzenegger urged backers of gay marriage to follow the lesson he learned as a bodybuilder trying to lift weights that were too heavy for him at first. “I learned that you should never ever give up. . . . They should never give up. They should be on it and on it until they get it done.”

I appreciate his sympathies, especially as gays, friends, and families take to the streets in protest throughout the state. I do wish, however, that he had been more vocal before Tuesday. With such a narrow margin, a little heavy lifting on Arnold’s part might have influenced the outcome.

Mounting Protests Against Prop 8

Protests continue to mushroom across California in the wake of last week’s passage of Proposition 8, which eliminated the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples.

In Los Angeles:

Police estimated that 12,500 boisterous marchers converged about 6 p.m. at Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards in Silver Lake near the site of the former Black Cat bar, which the city recently designated a historic-cultural monument for its ’60s role as home of the local gay rights movement.  Police guided the demonstrators through the streets for more than three hours without major confrontations. No arrests were reported.

…Steering the crowds, several hundred officers were on scene, riding horses, motorcycles and bicycles. Others on foot were sprinkled through the crowd. Mario Mariscal, 20, and his mother, Delia Perez, a 45-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, stood on the Sunset Boulevard sidewalk. Mariscal came out to his mother as gay when he was 16. She held a sign saying, “Give my son his rights.”

In San Diego:

An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people marched from Hillcrest to North Park behind a giant rainbow flag in protest of Proposition 8. The measure, approved Tuesday by 52 percent of voters, overturns the state Supreme Court ruling in May that legalized gay marriage.

“I don’t want anyone to take away my right to marry,” said Ken Hagen, a University City newlywed who marched down University Avenue alongside his partner, John Young. Chants for equality were sometimes drowned out by drivers honking their horns in support of the passing crowd. Signs waved and bobbed in the air with slogans such as “We Shall Overcome” and “Not Gay, Love You Anyway.”

In San Francisco:

Thousands of demonstrators marched down Market Street in San Francisco on Friday night to protest the passage earlier this week of Proposition 8, which effectively bans same-sex marriage in California.

The march began around 5:30 p.m., as the group worked its way west toward its final destination of Dolores Park. A large group remained around Ninth and Market streets, holding signs, chanting and jamming traffic. About a dozen Muni buses were stuck in the traffic mess.

In Oakland:

Backlash to the passage of an anti-gay-marriage law continued to sweep across California on Sunday, with hundreds of protesters rallying outside the Mormon Temple on Lincoln Avenue in the Oakland Hills. Same-sex marriage supporters carried signs, blew whistles, and passing cars honked in support outside the largest temple in the Bay Area. The Mormon church was among the top contributors to the effort to pass Proposition 8.

…The California Highway Patrol was forced to shut down the nearby Joaquin Miller and Lincoln on and off-ramps to the freeway due to the Oakland protest. A CHP dispatcher said the highway ramps were closed to protect pedestrians from traffic.

In Orange County:

About 300 people gathered in front of Saddleback Church protesting the recently-passed gay marriage ban this morning. Holding signs reading “Shame on Rick Warren” and “Preach Love not Discrimination,” the crowd chanted “Equal rights now.”

…In Orange County, hundreds protested without incident in Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach yesterday. Protests were planned in Lake Forest, Laguna Niguel and Rancho Santa Margarita today.

In Sacramento:

Thousands of Prop 8 opponents demonstrated at the State Capitol Sunday for the latest rally against the measure banning same-sex marriage in California.

By 2:00 p.m., thousands of people had massed in front of the California statehouse. The event was the latest demonstration in Sacramento and across the state since the passage of Proposition 8 Tuesday, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

In Santa Barbara:

Many people at a rally in Santa Barbara Friday night not only oppose Proposition 8, they oppose the fact that it was on the ballot to begin with. “This should not have been a ballot measure, the basic fundamental human rights shouldn’t be voted on by the electorate,” said David Selberg with Pacific Pride Foundation.

In Long Beach:

More than 2,000 demonstrators marched through Long Beach on Friday night, protesting the passage of Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage in California. Fifteen people were arrested.

The march started about 7:30 p.m. and within an hour had taken over Broadway, with protesters shouting and holding signs with such messages as “Did we vote on your marriage?”

See also:
LDS Church Can’t Hide Behind A Temple
Thousands Protest In Salt Lake City’s Temple Square
Protesters Target Mormon Temple in Westwood

A Question of Priorities

From The Washington Post:

Gay Vote Remains 4%

Those persons who were willing to identify as gay or lesbian to exil pollsters remained constant in 2008 at 4%. That translates to roughly five million voters.

This percentage is consistent with exit polling in 2004 and 2000.

Proposition 8 and Race

One of the lessons learned in the vote on Proposition 8 is that Black and Hispanic voters did not support marriage equality. Because of the inexact nature of exit polling, and because of the rounding of percentages, it is difficult to state anything with certainty, but the following seems to be correct:

It appears that Black voters determined the passage of Proposition 8. Although some sites claim that this is not the case, by my calculation if the Black vote is excluded from the count, the Proposition would have just slightly less than half of the votes needed to pass. It appears that if just 50% of black voters had voted against institutionalized discrimination this amendment would have failed been statistically even.

Hispanic voters supported the amendment 53% to 47%. This split, while nearly offsetting the non-Hispanic white vote, was not enough of a split to cause the amendment to pass.

There was also a gender divide. White women were 4% less likely to support the proposition and Latino women were 2% less likely.

However, in what seems to be an inconsistency, black women seem to have favored the proposition significantly more than black men. Women supported it by 75% while the black population as a whole polled at 70%. This suggests that black men may have been as much as 13% less likely than black women to support this initiative. It is difficult to understand what this result may be saying.

It is important to recall that the Yes on 8 Campaign deliberately lied to and deceived black voters. They funded mailers and the robocalls falsely implying that Sen. Obama was in favor of Prop 8. Going forward we must be aware that anti-gay activists, including the hierarchy of the Mormon and Catholic churches, will say or do anything in a campaign, no matter how dishonest, and that they have now been rewarded for their duplicity and deceit.

UPDATE: To help understand my statements, I’ve placed my calculation below. Please understand that this is from the exit polls and not from the actual vote. This is subject to all sorts of rounding errors which are greatly increased by multiplying. Further, note that the actual voting results show that the proposition passed with 52.4%, which is larger than the 51.9% on the below grid.

Please also note that the purpose of this commentary is NOT to assign blame to our African-American neighbors. There is plenty of blame to spread around, and I place most of it at the feet of those who ran a campaign of complete dishonesty.

Marilyn Musgrave Ousted

Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave is best known as the main sponsor of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment in the 108th and 109th Congresses. This set her up as a major target for the gay community and a multi-year effort was initiated to remove her and her anti-gay activism from office.

On Tuesday, Musgrave lost her seat.

U.S. House District 4 Democratic candidate Betsy Markey beat out incumbent GOP Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave in Tuesday’s election.

Markey won with 55 percent of the votes compared to Musgrave’s 44 percent. With 89 percent of the precincts reporting, Musgrave has received 130,833 votes and Markey received 163,155 votes.

It was not just gay rights that led to her ouster. It was her focus on issues unrelated to her district. Her prioritization of conservative social issues was just an indication that her priorities were related to her own personal religious agenda and not to the day to day concerns of her constituents.

Michael Huttner, executive director of the Denver-based liberal activist group ProgressNowAction, said Markey’s wide margin of victory showed that Musgrave was unseated over more than just her views on gay marriage.

“She, perhaps more than any single elected (official) in Colorado, completely ignored the needs of her district,” he said.

“Rather than helping a record number of foreclosures and thousands of people who lack health care in her district, she spent her three terms with her single issue of bashing gays, which is just completely out of touch and mean- spirited,” Huttner said.

Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) was the chief sponsor in the Senate. Allard did not seek reelection this year. As of January, neither chief sponsor will be in Congress and the chief cheerleader for amending the US Constitution will no longer be in the White House.

Episcopal Church Loses Another Diocese

The AP:

A third theologically conservative diocese has broken away from the liberal Episcopal Church in a long-running dispute over the Bible, gay relationships and other issues.

The Diocese of Quincy, Ill., took the vote at its annual meeting that ends Saturday.

Two other dioceses — San Joaquin, based in Fresno, Calif., and Pittsburgh — have already split off. Next weekend, the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, will vote whether to follow suit.

While homosexuality is one of the main issues impelling the separation, these diocese have a number of theological differences from the rest of the church. For example, Quincy, San Joaquin, and Fort Worth were the only three diocese that did not ordain women.

After Fort Worth, it appears that the break-aways may stop for a while. And four of the hundred diocese are not a significant number. It may well prove that some of the tempest within the church will abate now that those most likely to disagree have finally removed theirselves.

The Black Cat Named a Historical-Cultural Monument

On New Years Eve we shared with you the story of the police raid on the Black Cat Bar in the first minutes of 1967. Our retelling of this tale encouraged Wes Joe in his efforts to have that event recognized for its historical significance.

Today the LA Times reports that the City Counsel has honored Wes’ request.

The Black Cat, a Silver Lake bar that was home to the gay rights movement in Los Angeles, on Friday was named a historic-cultural monument.

“With Prop. 8 we took five steps backward, but the Black Cat gives us the perspective that we’ve taken 50 steps forward since 1967,” Wes Joe, a Silver Lake resident who nominated the bar for monument status, said at Friday’s council meeting in Van Nuys.

Congratulations to Wes Joe and to Le Barcito, the current name of the Black Cat.

As Wes notes, in the midst of our disappointment and our anger arising from the enshrinment of discrimination into three state constitutions on Tuesday, this should serve as a reminder of how far we have come.

Thousands Protest In Salt Lake City’s Temple Square

 An estimated 3,000 people gathered in downtown Salt Lake City to protest Mormon involvement in the campaign for California’s Proposition 8:

A sea of signs in City Creek Park, where the march began, screamed out messages including, “I didn’t vote on your marriage,” “Mormons once persecuted . . . Now persecutors,” and “Jesus said love everyone.” Others read, “Proud of my two moms” and “Protect traditional marriage. Ban divorce.”

Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and three openly gay state legislators, Sen. Scott McCoy and Reps. Jackie Biskupski and Christine Johnson, spoke out in support. At one point, the crowd took up the mantra made famous by the country’s new president-elect: “Yes, we can!”

LDS Church Can’t Hide Behind A Temple

The Mormon church doesn’t like the attention it’s getting in the wake of California’s Prop 8. Church leaders released this statement yesterday:

It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election.

Members of the Church in California and millions of others from every faith, ethnicity and political affiliation who voted for Proposition 8 exercised the most sacrosanct and individual rights in the United States – that of free expression and voting.

While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.

Once again, we call on those involved in the debate over same-sex marriage to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other. No one on either side of the question should be vilified, harassed or subject to erroneous information.

Well, the Mormon leadership is right on their last sentence. If only they had heeded that advice during the campaign. Gay couples throughout the state were vilified, harassed and subject to dump truck loads of erroneous information during the campaign that the Mormon church itself played an enormous role in waging. There was no sense of civility during their campaign. Why should they not expect to reap the seeds that they sow?

The leadership of the LDS Church has their hand prints all over the campaigns in Arizona and California:

• We know Arizona state Senators who didn’t want to be present for the vote to place Prop 102 on the ballot, but were coerced and harassed by their bishops and other church members into cutting short their vacations to cast their vote.
• Once on the ballot in California and Arizona, we know that Mormon prophets called on their followers to give of their “time and means,” and that this call went out to all Mormons in California and Arizona, as well as in Utah.
• We also know that the Arizona anti-gay campaign was under the direct leadership of some of the most prominent LDS members in the state.
• By some estimates, more than $20 million of Mormon money went to fund the $36 million California campaign, while an additional estimated $3-7 million funded Arizona’s $8 million campaign.

One thing must be made clear: the leadership of the LDS church has every right to do this. Churches are barred by IRS regulations from endorsing political candidates, but they are fully free to participate in the political process on the issues — including ballot propositions. To claim otherwise would be to deny the LDS Church’s right to speak out on what it sees as important moral issues. It would also deny the rights of LDS members to fully participate in the democratic process.

But exercising those rights in the democratic process brings with it public scrutiny and criticism. That, too, is an integral part of the democratic process from which no one is exempt.

When the Mormon church chose to enter the political sphere, the fact that they are a religious institution became irrelevant. They led non-Mormons in their political campaign, and they exhorted everyone —  regardless of their religious affiliation — to vote on amendments which affected everyone, Mormons and non-Mormons alike. This was a democratic political campaign, not a religious one. We were voting on constitutional amendments, not theology.

Mormon leaders were acting in their role as citizens in the democratic process, a role that they have every right to be proud of — at least from their particular point of view. After all, their political campaign was successful. I don’t like how it all turned out, but such is politics. There are always, by the nature of the beast, winners and losers. And their side won this time in the end.

But as citizens leading a political campaign, they cannot escape public accountability for their public actions, especially when their political actions were seen by many as dirty, degrading, dishonest, and most definitely un-Christian. After all that, the leadership of the LDS cannot suddenly change roles, toss up their hands and say, “You can’t criticize us! We’re a religion!” They forfeited that right when they threw themselves enthusiastically into a non-religious, political campaign. They forfeited that right when they left the temple and entered the world of Caesar. They are politicians now, and they deserve the same scrutiny and criticism due to any other political leader or movement.

It is not scapegoating to point out the facts, nor is it Mormon-bashing to criticize their agenda and tactics. This is all fair game in politics — politics which the Mormon church eagerly entered. Andrew Sullivan is right: gays and lesbians now have every right to regard the LDS leadership as their enemy. After all, gays didn’t wage a campaign to strip Mormons of their civil rights. It was the Mormon leaders who have successfully removed a civil right which had already been granted to gays and lesbians.

This is not bigotry or discrimination against a religion. It is criticism leveled against what is now seen as a powerful political organization. That is perfectly legitimate.

Welcome to the world of politics, LDS. There’s no hiding behind a temple now.

[Updated to attribute the final point to Andrew Sullivan.]

More Protests This Weekend

Andy Towle has been keeping track of all the protests over Prop 8 anticipated this weekend:

PROTESTS – this WEEKEND. I’ve UPDATED the list of demonstrations taking place this weekend. There are now events in San Francisco, Mission Viejo, Palm Springs, Long Beach, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Laguna Beach, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. I’ve added an event for tonight in San Jose, and updated the San Diego protest information. This will be the first non-pride gay rights march in San Jose history.

Warning New Jersey and New York

Delerious over how their campaign of lies succeeded in California, anti-gays are already planning on their next target:

Gallagher said anti-gay marriage groups plan to focus next on New Jersey and New York, where the state legislatures are being lobbied to pass laws legalizing same-sex marriage.

The plan is to mobilize the same religious factions that joined forces in California to deter lawmakers from “taking on this divisive social issue while we are in the middle of a huge financial crisis,” Gallagher said.

And they will use the same tactic of flat-out lying:

Leaders of the successful Proposition 8 campaign say an unusual coalition of evangelical Christians, Mormons and Roman Catholics built a majority at the polls Tuesday by harnessing the organizational muscle of churches to a mainstream message about what school children might be taught about gay relationships if the ban failed.

If I were in New York or New Jersey I’d start marching and protesting today.

Maine Marriage Support

The State of Maine has had some few limited same-sex partnership rights in the form of Domestic Partnerships since July of 2004. But there appears to be support for increasing recognition and protections.

On election day, Equality Maine had volunteers sit at 100 precinct hoping to collect 10,000 signatures in favor of marriage equality. They got over 33,000, nearly 5% of all Maine voters.

We hit our goal of 10,000 signatures by noon on Election Day. I was stunned, but there was no time to slow down and celebrate. Calls began pouring in from our volunteers — they were running out of postcards, and voters wanted to sign. We scrambled to print and deliver thousands more postcards across the state.

Lines at the polls were long, but even after waiting an hour or more to vote, people waited in line to sign our postcards. As the postcards ran out, voters began signing scraps of paper, jotting their names and addresses down on anything they could find, and handing them to our volunteers.

When we approached voters about marriage equality for all couples in committed relationships, the most frequently-asked question we heard was this: Where do I sign? I’m so proud of our hard-working field organizers and volunteers. And I’m so proud of my fellow Mainers, who realize that marriage is about treating all families equally under the law.

They are also reporting that after the election there are now “pro-equality majorities” in both chambers of the legislature. I wasn’t able to determine how such persons were defined.

However, Equality Maine appears to have a go-slow approach. WCSH6 reports

Betsy Smith of Equality Maine said her group is trying to build support for gay marriage slowly, telling Mainers it would be another form of legal protection for gay and lesbian couples. She said Equality Maine members will push for marriage once they feel most mainers would support it.

Smith said, “Our plan in Maine is we know we have to change the hearts and minds of Mainers. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to do the work. We’re going to do the hard work of talking to voters.”

Marriage Equality to come to Sweden in May 2009

The coalition government of Sweden has been dancing around a way to bring about a change in marriage law to allow for same-sex couples without offending one part of their coalition, the Christian Democrats. Now a solution appears to have been found.

Sweden’s four-party centre-right government has been split on the issue, with the junior partner Christian Democrats also opposed to the use of the word “marriage” for homosexual unions.

However the three other parties, the conservative Moderates, the Liberals and the Centre Party, are in favour of a gender neutral law that eliminates the current reference to marriage as something between a man and a woman.

The opposition Social Democrats, the country’s biggest party, also support such a law, and together the parties would garner enough support to adopt the legislation in parliament.

The process will be for the coalition government to propose a marriage bill that does not have gender-neutrality and for the parties that support marriage equality to amend that bill. The Prime Minister predicts passage and implementation by next year:

“The coalition government has agreed that we will present a basic marriage bill to parliament. The three parties in favour of a gender neutral marriage law will then present an accompanying motion seeking to have such a law in place by May 1, 2009,” Reinfeldt said.

Sweden was one of the first countries to allow for Registered Partnerships in 1995. They will be the seventh nation to offer same-sex marriage rights:

2001 Netherlands
2003 Belgium
2005 Spain
2005 Canada
2006 South Africa
2009 Norway
2009 Sweden