Note from Robert: Rick Jacobs, Founder and Chair of the Courage Campaign, wrote the message below explaining the Courage Campaign's "Four Principles for a United Movement." The four principles were also distributed by Courage Campaign staffers at the Leadership Summit in San Bernardino last Saturday.

This past Saturday in San Bernardino, activists gathered for the third in a series of leadership summits to determine the best course of action to win back marriage equality in California.

Winning a campaign to repeal Proposition 8 will take hard work and sacrifice from thousands of activists, community leaders, contributors and volunteers. The marriage equality movement is powerful and determined. The next step for the movement is to add structure that empowers the grassroots and netroots to win as soon as possible..

The Courage Campaign proposes the following "Four Principles for a United Movement" -- the foundation of a campaign to restore marriage equality to California:

1. Our campaign to win must begin now, regardless of when the movement decides to place a marriage equality initiative on the ballot.

2. To unite the strength of activists across California, the campaign must be independent, accountable, and not dominated by any one organization.

3. To gain the trust and full commitment of supporters, the campaign needs a representative and functional governance structure.

4. Victory on election day requires a strong, experienced campaign manager who understands California politics and has won battles like this before. Our opposition is well-organized, and we need exceptional leadership on our side to prevail.

Following on these principles, the Courage Campaign does not expect and does not intend to run the next campaign to repeal Prop 8, although we expect to have a voice at the table.

The first step towards victory, no matter the date of the election, is training and empowering marriage equality activists across the state. The Courage Campaign has been laying the groundwork for a victorious campaign by conducting intensive training, coordinating online, mobilizing volunteers, partnering with progressive organizations and building infrastructure for the long-term.

Since January, the Courage Campaign has been training and empowering marriage equality activists across the state at "Camp Courage" training events as well as building 44 "Equality Teams" in 23 counties across California -- serving the organizations and individuals that are fueling the movement toward marriage equality. So far, these Equality Teams have participated in 128 events statewide since March -- including canvasses, trainings, and phone banks -- with more events taking place every week. These teams will be the backbone of any future campaign effort to repeal Prop 8:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/EqualityTeams

The Courage Campaign will host the fifth Camp Courage training event in East Los Angeles on August 1-2. Modeled after Camp Obama, these intensive one or two-day programs have been instrumental in channeling the enthusiasm of activists into effective action. More than 700 activists have been trained in Los Angeles, Fresno, San Diego and Oakland. Some of the lead co-sponsors of Camp Courage include the Human Rights Campaign, CREDO Mobile, Dr. Bill Resnick, HONOR PAC, California Nurses Association and the Dolby Family.

Several community organizations will be co-hosting Camp Courage East Los Angeles, including API Equality LA, Bienestar, California Faith for Equality, Equal Roots, HONOR PAC, Latino Equality Alliance, Somos Familia, and The Wall Las Memorias Project. This unique training will serve a diverse cross-section of the Los Angeles community. Registration pages for Camp Courage East LA are set up in English and Spanish:

ENGLISH: http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampEastLA

SPANISH: http://www.couragecampaign.org/EastLAEspanol

Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was that an amazingly gracious church who, on a hot, San Bernardino summer day, had 200 sweltering people emotionally overheated and packed into its hall with an AC struggling to keep up.

Or maybe it's because the California LGBT population has cannibalized its leadership to the point where no one is willing to take the unpopular stance of leading this wounded community made up of people that will bite anyone's head off who has a slightly different opinion from theirs.

Whatever you believe the reason to be, the Leadership Summit on Sunday was an utter failure. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.   Read More »