Camp Courage Sacramento


“Camp Courage Sacramento was and inspirational and transformative weekend for me.”

Hearing that statement from a Camp Courage attendee is nothing new. However, for me, it carries an entirely different meaning as this was not my first Camp. After attending the Camp Courage in East LA and seeing a number of my friends share the experience with their families, I immediately ran home and signed up to come to the Camp in Sacramento with my Mom and Dad. See, I grew up in Sacramento and moved to LA for college and have stayed there ever since. When I first came out to my parents, they were very supportive. However, I, like many young LGBT people was still either too nervous or too ashamed to fully share my life with them. It took me a good 3-4 years before I was comfortable enough with myself to share the details of my life, my cause, and my relationships with those I was close to. Slowly, that changed for me as I started to fight for LGBT rights and that shame dissipated. The result is that I am now as closer to my family than I have ever been and the culmination of this was brining my parents to Camp Courage.

The weekend played out as most Camp Courage’s do – effectively teaching hard and soft skills, educating participants on where the movement stands and inspiring action. Having been through Camp before, the main focus for me this weekend was on my parents and how they were feeling and what they were learning. And they genuinely seemed to enjoy themselves and were really engaged in the materials. However, for me, the crowning moment came on the car ride home. My Dad told me he had three reflections on Camp and what he had learned there that I will share with you now:

1 – He had no idea the pain that LGBT people had felt over discrimination and losing initiatives like Proposition 8 and Question 1 until he saw people speaking about them openly and honestly at the Camp. See, I have always been a more stoic, let’s “focus on what we can do in the future” type of person, so for my Mom and Dad, they had never truly appreciated the pain this had inflicted on our community until they heard the stories of personal pain from others.

2 – My Dad shared with me his “Story of Self.” He had a gay cousin who had died of AIDS when my Dad was in his 20s. He had a lesbian sister who had come out to him and was now married with her wife. And he had me, his gay son, who was fighting for equality and who he hoped could one day get married in front of friends and family. LGBT issues had slowly intertwined their way thought his life and had always handled them decently (very supportive of me and his sister), but now realized his previous actions had been woefully inadequate and that he could no longer sit on the sidelines while people he cared about suffered and were discriminated against.

3 – He needed to get involved today. He wanted to sign up to canvass and to join California Faith for Equality, provided they had a means for him to contribute to meaningful action.

As stoic as I may be, I found myself fighting back tears as my Dad related this to me and my Mom agreed with him. Then at dinner, as my Dad related to other family members what he had learned and why it was so important for us to proactively work for change – I fully understood the importance of Camp Courage. Yes, it is a great experience for LGBT leaders and organizers. However, I missed an important opportunity in East LA, when I went to Camp but neglected to recruit my straight friends and family in LA to attend with me. This experience is not just a meaningful skills training for gay people - it is an opportunity to teach, empower and share ourselves and our struggle more fully with friends, straight allies and family. It is an opportunity to bring new faces and perspectives into the fight for equality.

And perhaps within this there is a greater lesson for our movement. Winning true equality in CA and beyond is going to be complex and will take a lot of hard work. It is not something we can win on our own, but we will need the help of those people who love and support us. And much the same way, my Dad now realizes that his response to his LGBT family was good, but inadequate – I realize my work during Proposition 8 was the same. I was happy to call voters, fundraise money and talk to strangers – yet I neglected to have real conversations with the people I could most easily move on the issue. The Briggs initiative was largely defeated by LGBT people “coming out” and talking to their friends and family. Winning marriage equality will require us to do the same thing. No longer can we be afraid that we might cause some discomfort with friends, family or strangers by having candid conversations about why we NEED equality. That discomfort is not because of anything that is wrong with us, but is because of a lack of knowledge or familiarity on the part of others. And if we are too scared or too ashamed to push through those difficult moments and make this an issue that can be a normal and comfortable part of conversation, then we are doomed to keep failing at the ballot box no matter how good our commercials are and how flawless our field campaign is.

So thank you again to Courage Campaign for all they do with these Camps. They are giving us the skills and the keys to gain full equality in California and beyond. And now, it is up to us to use them.

A year ago I knew what went wrong and I knew how to fix it.

A year later, I don't know what went wrong. I don't know how to fix it.

We had the money. We had a stable campaign. We had the a robust well-oiled field campaign. We had a strong campaign manager. We had the turnout we wanted. We had great coordination between the netroots and the campaign. We had a not particularly religious state. We neutralized the church issue. We had a manageable voter universe. We had an opposition with an inferior media and field operation. We had TV ads with gay people in them. We responded to their attacks swiftly.

And we still lost.

Our campaign wasn't perfect. But it was damn good.

And that's why this loss is so hard. The lessons to be learned are not as obvious. Not knowing how to fix it makes it tempting to throw our hands up in the air and say at 0-31 we just can't win marriage rights at the ballot box. Or we have to wait a decade until we can.

But that would be letting them win. That would be giving up. That would be accepting inequality.

We can't. I won't.

We need to learn how to neutralize the schools issue better than we did this time. We must continue telling our stories, one by one, person by person, door by door.

Nate Silver as usual has some smart thoughts:

I certainly don't think the No on 1 campaign can be blamed; by every indication, they ran a tip-top operation whereas the Yes on 1 folks were amateurish. But this may not be an issue where the campaign itself matters very much; people have pretty strong feelings about the gay marriage issue and are not typically open to persuasion. There's going to be an effort by many on the left to blame Barack Obama for his lack of leadership on gay rights issues; I think the criticism is correct on its face, but I don't know how much it has to do with the defeat in Maine. A more popular Democratic governor, for instance, who had been a bit quicker on the trigger in his support of gay marriage, might have helped more.

Persuading voters to change their minds about marriage equality is extremely difficult, but it is possible and it happens every single day. It just takes a lot of resources and is most effective on a one-to-one level.

That means we must continue to invest in grassroots organizing, training new leaders to work in their communities and supporting their efforts over time. We need to continue to build connections and relationships with faith communities. We can organize in churches. We can even organize in Mormon Temples and Catholic Churches. It has happened. It is happening.

There are lessons to be learned out of Maine and the No on 1 loss. We know that we can build a massive GOTV operation. We know how to build a model where a campaign invests in the netroots and reaps the rewards. The church issue can be neutralized. It's possible to set aside differences and focus on a common goal. We can build a campaign to be proud of as a community.

What we can do now is have experts in Maine politics analyze the results to understand better how we lost. We need talk to the No on 1 campaign leadership/consultants to get their advice like they did from our Prop 8 loss.

We can win marriage back in California. We will win marriage back in California. We can win marriage in Maine. We will win marriage in Maine.

I am not quitting. You better not be either.

This weekend I am picking myself back up and getting right back to work, training hundreds of activists in Sacramento how to organize at Camp Courage. They will and I will come in with heavy hearts, but leave empowered.

We will leave and fight the next fight together.

I'm at a beautiful retreat house on a hilltop in the mountains north of San Luis Obispo as thirty volunteers led by Courage's brilliant field team learn the skills to be community organizers. The spirit and energy in the room outshine the magnificent California countryside.   Read More »

Doug Manchester played a relatively unsung role in qualifying Prop 8 for the ballot. His $125,000 donation came in at a critical time when the proponents were running out of cash during the signature gathering process.

It is conceivable that Prop 8 would not have made it on to the ballot if it were not for Doug Manchester. In response to that donation and the poor treatment of his workers a boycott of his hotels was established a year ago, and has now cost Manchester upwards of $7 million in canceled reservations.

He has hired gay heavyweight PR crisis man Howard Bragman to respond to the boycott. Their genius idea was to offer up $100,000 in hotel credits and a $25,000 contribution to any 501c3 organization that supports civil unions.

It was a cynical attempt to try and buy-off and divide the LGBT and labor communities. And it's not working. No way. No how.

Today, the Courage Campaign, Equality California, UNITE HERE and Californians Against Hate have teamed up to launch the "Say No to Manchester" website, asking our members to sign a pledge to uphold the boycott of the Manchester Grand Hyatt and Grand del Mar Resort.

It's a relatively unique campaign with labor and LGBT organizations coming together to support workers rights and equality.

Flip it for the email we sent out to our members today.   Read More »

I'm sitting in the Gloria Molina Community Center in East LA with 250+ Camp Courage campers. Sixty two people here are monolingual Spanish speakers. We're brown and black and white and Asian and gay and straight and lesbian and bisexual and transgendered. Forty or so people here self-identified as knowing no one else in the room. They just showed up to learn, to experience, to experiment.   Read More »

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I saw Outrage on Friday. Besides being supportive, I was curious. I am always looking for agreement, camaraderie, unity. I found the movie’s premise lost under the weight of the title. Even watching the movie makers on the View that morning, it wasn’t readily obvious that author and blogger, Michael Rogers was objecting to closeted people voting against their very people they have relationships with. Closeted gay men in politics are voting against HIV/AIDS funding, against gay marriage, against making crimes against LGBT people a hate crime. It is the chasm between their sexual orientation and their visible, measurable, callous voting record. Frankly, for me, it begs the question, would they be less stalwart if they were straight.

The characters in the movie, opening with Larry Craig, were all recognizable. Those of us who read gay news are aware of these men and their voting records. I have to admit, I have zero idea what this looks like to straight people. Heck, I got emails this week asking me if Adam Lambert is gay – straights see things very differently than I do. Governor McGreevey was bright, radiant – no really – like someone who just discovered deep spiritual relief. Governor Crist was slimy and resistant; what is the opposite of present?

A paragraph on women ~ Elizabeth Birch of the Human Right Campaign was terrific, moving and honest. Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin was open and relaxed. Oh but the wives, the terrified wives, standing next to the pathetic closeted husbands at counterfeit press conferences; Mrs. Craig, Mrs. McGreevey, Mrs. Crist. Actually there are thousands of straight spouses who are trapped infraudulent lives, holding their families together. How the gay spouse can do this is really beyond me. I kissed a girl, I liked it and I came out; all within about 5 seconds. And it is no secret that there are many, many lesbians and bi women in politics ( no I have not slept with all of them) but I can tell you that I have never seen them vote against LGBT rights or human rights for that matter.

But what really bothered me, deeply bothered me, was one clip of Larry Kramer, beloved founder of Act-Up. Certainly this brave hero of the LGBT movement said dozens of quote-ables during the taping but what they chose to show was Mr. Kramer saying that activism comes from rage, from anger. For me it was like hearing nails on a chalkboard. I have spent over 40 years working to deepen my understanding and practice that successful, lasting activism comes from love. You cannot convert the opponent by burning his car, breaking her windows, clubbing their kids. Fear will never create conversion. (aren’t we having a national conversation about torture on this right now?)

However, more importantly, the oppressed will become poisoned by the violence. The minority has to find love in their heart and become irresistible. That is the only way to create a healthy movement, a true lasting conversion and extinguish fear. I was fortunate to spend some time with Jeremy Gilley, the British filmmaker who is creating International Peace Day, through his film-making of Peace One Day and The Day After Peace. I told him that I am not as worried about those who die by gunshot as I am about those who pull the trigger as they live on with their hearts broken. Violence is intoxicating, contagious and another disease – like homophobia.

Tuesday, May 26 is California’s Day Of Decision. On Facebook, the White Night Riots video has been viraling around. I want to tell people that clearly those 1979 riots did not work or we would not be rising up for our rights in 2009. Releasing of violence may be billed as good for you but it isn’t. It is not some limited energy that must be spent. It is a viral, burgeoning disease that only attracts itself. If you are angry, you deserve to be loved. If you are homophobic, you need to love and be loved. No matter what happens on Tuesday, extinguishing anger with love is the only way that will last.

I have to celebrate when good news comes through CNN.  I believe that what you focus on expands so you can bet your bottom dollar I really stretch good news as far as it will go.  Today it has been reported that the Obama Team has invited Reverend Gene Robinson, openly gay bishop, to deliver a prayer at an inauguration event on Sunday and Reverend Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Disciples of Christ to give the invocation at the National Cathedral on Wednesday.  

This is good news.  This is very good news, however, if Rick Warren had not been asked to deliver the central invocation, it would not be news at all; it would just be another illustration, in a long list of illustrations, of inclusion in the Obama choices.  So why is it news?  Why is the Warren thing so BIG?  Actually with these two additions of Watkins and Robinson, its easier to see.  The issue is that Warren trades on exclusion, hate-language, judgment and identifying that there is an unacceptable "other."

Let me use myself as an example of my thinking.  I am a Buddhist and I would never expect a Buddhist to give the invocation as it is a small minority in the US.  I expected a Christian.  The president-elect is Christian.  Most Americans are Christian.  Heck, some of my family and friends are Christian.  But never in a million years would I settle for a Christian speaker to call Buddhists, Nazis.  Never would it be ok for a Christian speaker to call Buddhists pedophiles.  To go even further on this line of thinking, it means they wouldn't even be much of a Christian if they promoted anti-Buddhist talk and would not let Buddhists in their church. 

Why is this so position controversial?  Why is this even indefensible (Ms. Etheridge)?  It is obvious ~ Warren is all about exclusion, trades on hate, hands out name-calling like a Vegas blackjack dealer, made millions telling people that their lives are not enough.  Does he really represent Christianity to Obama?  JEZZZZUS. 

So don't ring me up and ask me if the invitations to Revs Robinson and Watkins make this all ok.  This is not the time ~ anymore than thinking that Palin, being a woman, would make me happy when Hillary Clinton was not the presidential nominee. 

If you run for office talking about inclusion, than choosing an inclusionary person to give the central invocation is really obvious choice.  President-elect Obama, you are so smart - there is no denying it - you get all this.  DO SOMETHING, proportional, as they say.