LGBT POV

Oh, that NOM. The National Organization for Marriage just launched a $500,000 campaign to “expose” Tom Campbell – a Republican candidate seeking to unseat US Senator Barbara Boxer in her re-election bid. He’s a – gasp – RINO!!!!! That means – “Republican in Name Only.”

In a fundraising email, NOM’s Brian Brown – who calls Boxer “one of the most notorious uber-liberals in the Senate” – says:

This powerful new campaign is a continuation of NOM’s aggressive leadership to expose liberal pro-same-sex marriage Republicans. NOM helped lead the effort to derail the candidacy of Dede Scozzafava in New York’s 23rd Congressional District last November. Scozzafava was so discredited as a result of NOM’s effort and that of other groups that she was forced to withdraw from the race.”

Click inside to see how this might help Boxer – plus reaction from Campbell’s campaign and EQCA’s Geoff Kors.

Openly gay Assemblymember John Perez (D-Los Angeles) is making history Monday as he is sworn in as the new Assembly Speaker. He is taking over from Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), who is running for Congressmember Diane Watson’s seat.

Longtime political columnist Rick Orlov notes that Assembly Speaker is considered “the second-most powerful job in California politics.” He writes:

“In a ceremony being compared to an inauguration, Perez will outline his priorities – jobs, jobs, jobs and perhaps a bit on education and, oh yeah, that multibillion-dollar budget problem. He is expected to be speaking to a full house, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Gov. Gray Davis and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – Perez’s cousin.”

Also attending will be many of Perez’s longtime LGBT friends, including Eric Bauman, the openly gay vice chair of the California Democratic Party. Please click inside to read more about Perez’s swearing in and a comment from Equality California’s Geoff Kors on this history-making day. UPDATE from Bauman at 12:50p: “The Gay Mens Chorus has the house in tears with a medley of America the Beautiful and America… To be followed by It’s a Brand New Day from the Wiz… Go boys, turn them out!”

UPDATE: LA Times reports Perez sworn in at 12:56.

UPDATE: West Hollywood City Councilmember John Duran in the Capitol Gallery says: “The Assembly Chambers were filled with the spirits of the thousands of LGBT activists who strolled the Capitol halls for more than 40 years demanding justice on sodomy laws, hate crimes, discrimination and AIDS. Much blood was shed to get us here.”

UPDATE: EQCA’s Geoff Kors just emailed comments, including this: “Like Harvey Milk, Speaker Pérez proves that being LGBT does not preclude a person from achieving greatness or making the world a better place for others.”

As Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors notes in his remarks at EQCA’s Awards gala Saturday night, last year was an amazing legislative year for LGBT bills and resolutions in California. EQCA sponsored an unprecedented 63 pieces of legislation and among the 11 bills that passed was state Sen. Mark Leno’s Harvey Milk Day bill which created the first ever annual day of recognition for an openly LGBT person.

Please click inside to read Kor’s remarks.

Prop. 8 Case: Progress on LGBT Rights Doesn’t Equal Equality writes Geoff Kors, Executive Director of Equality California in this guest blog about the testimony of Dr. Gary Segura, a tenured political science professor at Stanford University, this past week in the federal case against Proposition 8.

“The real issue,” Kors writes, is that so long “as a shift in the political landscape can undo the gains we have made, as a community we are still vulnerable enough that the protections afforded to suspect classes are necessary to truly protect our rights.” Please click inside to read his essay.

I was among the lucky LGBT reporters who worked with the Sirius/XM Out Q news team of Tim Curran and Aaron McQuade to put together their Year in Review specials. My assignment was Prop 8 and in case some of you missed the special, I decided to post the script. I think the interview with EQCA executive director Geoff Kors was illuminating, for instance, in how he suggested that the upcoming Harvey Milk Day in California schools will help take away one of the Religious Right wing’s key arguments against marriage equality. And Shannon Minter calling Ted Olson and David Boies ” a Dream Team beyond description” indicates that the LGBT community is becoming more unified in their support of the federal challenge to Prop 8 that goes to trial next week. Please click inside to read the script.

Coming on the heels of the gut-wrenching loss of marriage rights in Maine, the vote in the New York state Senate to oppose a marriage bill brought by openly gay Senator Thomas k. Duane was agony. (Read Paul Schindler’s excellent coverage in Gay City News here.) For some of us in California, the losses are constant reminders of our own unhealed grief and anger over Prop 8. But in fact, California didn’t have an easy time winning marriage equality in the state Legislature, either. So I asked Geoff Kors, Executive Director of Equality California, to write a piece about what that experience was like – to perhaps add a tiny bit of balm to the open wound our New York friends might be feeling. Please click inside to read Geoff’s story.

Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors calls on President Obama to file a brief in the federal court challenge to Prop 8 – and calls on you to sign EQCA’s petition to pressure the president to do that. Click inside for more information and the link to the petition.

Election Night one year ago was simultaneously thrilling and devastating with the election of America’s first African American president and the passage of antigay Prop 8.
Click inside to read my contemporaneous story summing up the No on Prop 8 campaign. (Protest stories coming up).

The Let California Ring campaign was launched in 2006 as an effort to start one million conversations around the state about marriage equality in anticipation of what became Prop 8. They’re best known for the ad that seemed ubiquitous forever – designed to win over women voters. Click inside to read about the campaign – and a little wrist slapping of the California Democratic Party.

It’s not as if the LGBT political community in California didn’t see Prop 8 coming. They did and they started preparing for it well before the initiative was formally announced – just as the LGBT community in Maine expected their antigay ballot measure after their marriage equality bill was signed into law. California’s two marriage equality bills, you remember, were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – apparently on the advice of his openly gay chief of staff, Susan Kennedy. But signed or vetoed, the community knew another initiative fight was ahead.

What many in today’s LGBT community might not realize is just how hard a struggle it was to get domestic partnership rights in California. While tremendous progress was made between the passage of the antigay marriage Prop 22 in 2000 and the passage of Prop 8 in 2008 – it was never as “easy” as many thought it should have been to defeat Prop 8.

As we shift from the joy of the freedom to marry to the politics of Prop 8 in this commemorative series, I asked Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors, who was involved in the domestic partnership battle, to lay out a brief synopsis of what that struggle was like. Click inside to read his historical recollection.

Next Tuesday, Nov. 3, straight politicos will eye election returns in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races – and an odd GOP primary in upstate New York – to try to gauge a new political trend or mood in the country.

Many LGBT people and their allies, however, will be fixed on the results of two antigay measures – one in Maine to determine if marriage equality will go into effect, and one on the West Coast in Washington state, to determine if LGBT couples get to keep their domestic partnerships.

For LGBT Californians, it is also a moment of grief as we note and mourn the passage of Prop 8 – the constitutional amendment that stripped away the right of same sex couples to marry.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs the Harvey Milk Day bill and a significant marriage “clarification” bill that is sure to cause an uproar. Click inside to see the governor’s signing message, and a memo from Equality California explaining what the bill would do and reaction from EQCA Executive Director Geoff Kors. UPDATED with a quote from Sen. Mark Leno.

Equality California just sent out an urgent email saying the folks who passed Prop 8 are swamping Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office to get him to veto Sen. Mark Leno’s marriage bill.