This weekend's Camp Courage in Sacramento was a good tonic for the loss in Maine and part of our collective path forward to restoring marriage equality to California. The heart of Camp Courage is learning how to craft your "story-of-self" a personal, emotional version of who you are and why this issue matters so much to you. The goal is to empower activists to use their personal narrative to bring about political change. Stories-of-self can be used to recruit volunteers, to inspire a crowd or to change a persons' vote one door at a time.

It isn't easy to have people open up and share the most painful, scary, raw parts of their lives. But those are the stories that are the ones that need to be told the most. The power of Camp Courage comes from people risking sharing their stories of pain thus forming community and strength.

Adam Bink over at Open Left quotes Harvey Milk's famous "come out come out" speech and writes:

The same tactic Milk used for school employees everywhere must continue to be used in these communities. We have to encourage people in these towns to come out of the closet and say they want the right to marry. State Representative Mike Carey, who represents heavily Catholic downtown Lewiston and voted in favor of marriage equality in the legislature, pointed out to me that in these kinds of votes, the default vote is for fear, and it is a huge barrier to reach one's conscience if they have no personal knowledge of the issue. For all the "gay marriage will be taught in schools" ads our opponents ran in Maine and will run in other states that tap that fear element, we have to counter with people who can give voters that kind of personal touch on the issue.

It isn't just gay people that we need to come out and tell their stories, it is all of our wonderful straight allies. No, there is no application to become a straight ally, just start telling everyone you know your personal story of why you support equality for all.

One of our amazing volunteers that helped put together Camp Courage Sacramento Chris Huack brought his parents to Camp. He blogged about the experience at the Courage Campaign. Here is Chris relaying the three reflections his dad had about Camp. (more on the flip)

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.

One by one we are building an army to repeal Prop 8. It is not easy, or fast, but it is absolutely critical to our success. The best way we change hearts and minds is having everyone supportive of equality speaking from their hearts.

We have to be vulnerable. It is wrenching to know that as a gay person that the best path to earning the right to get married some day is if I share my most painful moments of my life with strangers in order to win their vote. It shouldn't be that way, but that's what it takes and it is what I will continue to do. Will you join me?   Read More »

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.

Note: this email was sent to our members this morning from Mike Bonin, one of the founders and now Program Director of Camp Courage.

Dear friend --

I never could have imagined it.

As a kid growing up scared and closeted in New England in the 1970's, I never could have imagined that the issue of gay marriage would ever be seriously debated, let alone hotly contested.

I never could have imagined a day when gay people would have been in television ads, when WWII veterans emotionally spoke out in favor of their gay children, when people of faith stood up for LGBT rights, when armies of people -- gay and straight alike -- would descend into a small New England state to say gay people should be equal.

I know that the news from Maine is depressing. But it is not the end. It is just another bump in a long road. Let's not forget how far we've come as a country, while recognizing how far we need to go to achieve full federal equality, fighting for it at every level: in the courts, at the ballot box and in Washington, DC.

Equality will be ours, but we will have to fight for it. And I can't imagine a better opportunity to learn the secret to our future success than Camp Courage -- an experience that graduates say is one of the most powerful and transformative events of their lives..

If you want to join more than 200 people who have signed up for Camp Courage Sacramento this weekend, you have less than 24 hours to do so. On Friday at 12 p.m., registration will close. Click here now to sign up:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

While marriage equality did not come to Maine, it will surely come to America, and when it does, events like Camp Courage will be where the seeds of equality were planted.

On Saturday morning, Camp Courage Sacramento will begin. Within minutes, the room will be buzzing with energy, as participants learn how to tell their "story of self" -- the foundation of changing the hearts and minds of our friends, family and neighbors.

By the end of Camp Courage on Sunday, lives will be changed, powerful friendships will be forged, and a community will be connected.

Time is running out. If you want to experience this transformative event, sign up now for Camp Courage Sacramento before it's too late:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

When I was a kid, I never could have imagined a day in America when full equality would be the law of the land. But one day, from sea to shining sea, that change will come.

Come to Camp Courage Sacramento this weekend and learn how to be that change.

Mike Bonin
Camp Courage Program Director

It stings, deeply, to have witnessed another close defeat for marriage equality. We fought a hard battle in Maine, and it is heartbreaking to have come so close and not won a victory.

And yet, we're not going to let this defeat discourage us. After the passage of Proposition 8, a new movement emerged to fight for and win full equality for LGBT Americans. That movement is a grassroots, bottom-up movement. The Courage Campaign has been empowering that movement ever since. That movement helped us fight to a near-victory in Maine. That movement appears to have fought to an actual victory in Washington State. And with your support, that movement will fight for victories in California and at the federal level.

The Courage Campaign is going to redouble its efforts to win. We're going to continue organizing on the ground. We're going to continue to do the research to learn from the experience in Maine and to learn how to win in California. And we're going to continue to fight for full equality at the federal level as well.

To do that, we need you to organize with us. Click here to make an investment in the movement for equality. Help us power the repeal. Help us win.

Below is the email Julia Rosen sent to our members today from Maine, where she had worked for the last week for equality.   Read More »

We sent the following email out today about Camp Courage Sacramento - and telling a remarkable story about an experience one of our campers had at Camp Courage East Los Angeles back in August.

Dear friend --

Before we see you at Camp Courage on Saturday, we want to share a story with you.

Take a moment to read what Theresa Wang, a Los Angeles activist, said about her experience at Camp Courage and how transformative it was for her mother:

My mother, Stella, has always been the stereotypical Asian woman, not drawing any attention to herself and for the most part keeping quiet. When I came out, she was devastated, but dealt with it on her own, prioritizing my happiness over her own discomfort. Eventually she grew to be completely supportive, even attending protests and on this particular weekend, attending Camp Courage East LA.

The heart of Camp Courage is about telling your "story of self," and as I facilitated my group's stories, I peeked over to see my mother telling hers. She was crying.

As this was an exercise completely foreign to her, I immediately began to question my judgment in bringing her to camp. Telling her story out loud appeared to be too much.

After group sharing, a few people were asked to share their story on stage and I was surprised to see my mother getting up to tell hers. I watched in shock as my mom's group stood behind her as she talked about her coming-out process as the mother of a lesbian who was getting married.

In that moment, I watched my mom turn into a storyteller on stage, grabbing the attention of the whole room. Near the end of my mom's story most of the audience was crying as well. As she finished, the entire room gave my mom a moving standing ovation while chanting her name -- "Stella!" "Stella!" "Stella!" -- in a moment of unbelievable joy.

The people attending Camp Courage that day were not the only ones moved by my mother's story. A few weeks later, my mom wrote her story down and had it published in the China World Journal -- the most widely-read Chinese language newspaper in the United States.

There are so many "Stellas" in our lives -- people who want to learn how to support us in our activism or become an engaged activist themselves.

Do you know someone like Stella -- a friend, family member, co-worker or ally -- or anyone who would enjoy sharing Camp Courage with you? If so, please ask your friend to come to Camp Courage Sacramento. Just give them a call and tell them how important it would be for them to come with you on Saturday.

Or forward this email to your friend or loved one and let them know that you want to share this experience with them and that you need their help in bringing marriage equality -- and full equality -- to California. Here's the link for your friends to RSVP:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

We all have a place in this movement. See you on Saturday at Camp!

With gratitude,
Daniel Segura and Billy Pollina
Camp Courage Coordinators

11 of our amazing Deputy Field Organizers and Equality Team members have come out to Maine, as part of the Volunteer Vacation program to work insane campaign ours until the polls close. They arrived over the weekend and have been put to work for No on 1 all over the greater Portland area.

Mitchell is helping "cut turf" for all of the canvassing over the weekend. Jasmine has been out on the University of Southern Maine campus encouraging students to vote early and volunteer. Laura is fielding phone calls from Maine voters calling the office with questions. Derrick buried in spreadsheets, helping organize staging locations for election day.



The office here has been a buzz of activity, crammed with staff, volunteers and on occasion TV camera crews. The Rachel Maddow show was here yesterday interviewing Governor Baldacci, who previously opposed marriage equality and is now one of its biggest backers. NBC News was also here filming a spot for Sunday.

Yesterday some local TV stations came by to film shots of some No on 1 signs that appear to have been shot up by a paintball gun. The Yes on 1 campaign has been trying to make themselves a victim since some of their signs have been defaced and stolen. These types of shenanigans are typical during a heated election, and usually it's just a couple of numbskulls messing with signs instead of doing something productive like talking to voters.



Here is a few of our Courage Campaign DFOs, Equality Team members and staff holed up in a small windowless room making calls.



Much more to come over the next few days.

No matter where you are you can help bring home a victory to Maine. Sign up now to be a virtual phone banker and we will get you trained and on the phones.

We're delighted to share this message with you from Sheila Kuehl, elected in 1994 as the first openly gay or lesbian state legislator in California history, and the first woman to hold the position of Speaker pro Tempore.

Sen. Kuehl attended Camp Courage Fresno in March and would like to share her experience with the Courage Campaign community in anticipation of Camp Courage Sacramento.

Rick Jacobs
Chair, Courage Campaign

Dear eden --

"We were all amazingly moved. We cried. We didn't want it to end. Maybe most unexpected of all, we were profoundly changed."

That is what I wrote in 2004 after flying to San Francisco to officiate at the weddings of eight of my closest friends, following Mayor Gavin Newsom's historic decision to -- at least temporarily -- legalize same-sex marriages.

I could just as enthusiastically have written those words about Camp Courage Fresno, the transformative training event for marriage equality activists that I attended in early March -- just over five years after the "Winter of Love" in San Francisco and a few months after the shocking passage of Proposition 8. I was there as a camper and loved every minute of it. We all -- experienced organizers, or not -- learned so much and came away very fired up.

We've come a long way. But we still have a long way to go, if we want to repeal Prop 8 and restore marriage equality to California.

That's why I want you to sign up for Camp Courage Sacramento on November 7-8. Spots are filling up fast and I don't want you to miss this wonderful opportunity:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

People ask me when I first became an activist, expecting me to say that I experienced some great tragedy because of my sexual orientation that lit a fire, ignited a bulb, or wound up the spring leading me to devote a good part of my life to the lesbian and gay movement.

Imagine their surprise when I say, "It was the week I spent as a camp counselor at UCLA's UniCamp for 'underprivileged' children." The pain expressed by these kids -- a feeling of being unworthy -- affected me deeply. I realized that I needed to start working to make things better in the world.

That was the root. The tree took a little longer to grow.

That is the beginning of my "Story of Self" -- the training model used by "Camp Obama," and adopted by Camp Courage, that transforms each participant's unique inspiration for supporting marriage equality into compelling and authentic narratives that can be used to persuade undecided voters.

To discover your own Story of Self and gain so many skills and committed new friends, please come to Camp Courage Sacramento on November 7-8. Space is limited for this special training in Sacramento, so please sign up ASAP:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

For most of our lives, gays and lesbians have been part of a community that couldn't even dream of full equality. But that afternoon in 2004 on the steps of San Francisco City Hall -- and later, when the couples came home to balloons in their yards, flowers in their homes, celebrations at work, presents, notes, and endless congratulatory e-mails -- we saw how marriage allows society to recognize our equality.

For the couples, and for me, it was like a dam opened. That place where all of us had buried any hope of marriage -- where we had dutifully registered as domestic partners and convinced ourselves marriage wasn't worth having -- that place cracked open to the sun. It was a revelation.

No matter your level of experience or skill, Camp Courage can be a revelation for you as well -- gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual or transgender.

I hope you will be at Camp Courage on November 7-8.

Sheila Kuehl

NOTE: Please note that it is necessary for participants to bring their own lunch to Camp Courage on both Saturday and Sunday. As lunch time is limited and there will be no time to leave the Camp venue to purchase lunch, please make arrangements before you arrive at Camp to bring lunch with you. Thank you.

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 »

From: Rick Jacobs, Chair, Courage Campaign and the staff of the Courage Campaign
To: Our friends, allies and partners in the marriage equality movement
Subject: 2010: It's time to make a decision

I write to you today with urgency and seriousness. After months of discussion and debate, the time has come to make the tough decision.

In May, 83% of Courage Campaign members said that our organization should work with our partners to place a marriage equality initiative on the ballot in 2010. If the Courage Campaign and our allies in the movement want to initiate the repeal of Prop 8 in 2010, we must make that decision very soon.

Frankly, too much attention has been placed on the political consequences of running an election in 2010 or 2012. The bottom line is that we must begin now to convince the people of California that civil marriage rights should be made available to all people, period. None of us should have to wait one more day to achieve equality at any level.

And while I say that, I also don’t want to lose this critical battle. Going to the ballot in 2010 is a decision that obviously comes with potential consequences.

Our members told us to help build the movement, so over the last several months, the Courage Campaign has mobilized 44 grassroots Equality Teams in 23 counties across California. And we’ve held five Camp Courage trainings in communities from the coast to the Central Valley to train people to be successful organizers. Last weekend alone, 279 activists gathered in East L.A. at the most diverse Camp Courage yet, with tremendous support from the Latino and Asian Pacific Islander communities.

We've also been working with some of the smartest, most experienced campaign professionals in America -- people who ran Barack Obama’s campaign, who know California and who can help our movement chart a course to victory. They've given us tough love, great advice and helped us outline the steps necessary to a successful outcome. This team isn't telling us when to initiate the repeal of Prop 8, but they are telling us we need to start now with a persuasion campaign designed to win the hearts and minds of California voters -- no matter which election year we wage the battle.

The Courage Campaign will support a repeal of Prop 8 in 2010 if our members -- together with other major stakeholders involved in this movement -- make a strong commitment to this campaign.

I want to be clear that no one organization can dominate what will need to be an independent, but accountable campaign operation. The Courage Campaign will aggressively support the effort, not run it. A small governing structure should oversee the day-to-day operations -- giving an experienced campaign manager the latitude necessary to make smart, strategic and timely decisions. If a campaign for 2010 materializes, the governing structure should include those who did not necessarily support going to the ballot in 2010, but are necessary and fundamental partners to any campaign to win back marriage equality.

To win, we will need to run a smarter, stronger and more disciplined campaign. The first step in running a winning campaign is to ensure we use the most effective initiative language that a majority of California voters will support. This takes research – expert polling and focus group work that will help us gain the best understanding of the California electorate. And we must begin that research immediately.

Along with our allies, we need to raise $200,000 to conduct this research -- and we don't have much time to raise it. If the Courage Campaign can raise $100,000 and our partners and allies in the movement can raise another $100,000 -- for a total of $200,000 -- we can put the research effort in place and meet the late September deadline recommended by the Secretary of State for filing an initiative for 2010.

We are prepared to ask our members to raise $100,000 to meet our commitment to this goal. We are willing to ask the Courage Campaign community to make this commitment because they expressed their support for going to the ballot in 2010 by such an overwhelming margin.

If we can make this community fundraising goal, we can move forward. If we can't make this community fundraising goal, then we will have to accept that the movement is not ready to produce the funding and resources necessary to support a campaign to repeal Prop 8 in 2010. And we will have to wait until 2012 to bring marriage equality to the ballot again.

Our people-powered organization is ready to win, but we are faced with the reality of these deadlines. If we want to convince a majority of our fellow Californians to support full civil marriage rights in 2010, the marriage equality movement has to stand up and commit to the cause now.

Together.

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 »

One of the key tasks facing the marriage equality movement as we plan to return to the ballot and restore equal rights is to include communities of color as a central part of the movement. That includes outreach to those Californians that speak a language other than English.

The Courage Campaign is beginning to undertake that work through our upcoming Camp Courage in East Los Angeles, to be held the weekend of August 1-2. Today we are launching Camp Courage East LA Español, a site that provides information about Camp Courage in Spanish, including Camp registration. In addition, we will be having on-site translation into Spanish for attendees at Camp Courage East LA. A significant number of monolingual Spanish speakers have already signed up to attend. There is still space, but it is going fast -- be sure to sign up now to attend.

Camp Courage East LA Español builds on our previous outreach to the Spanish-speaking community. In May we released the Spanish language version of our Fidelity video, set to the song "Volar" by Jaime Ciero:



Several amazing 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.

Our East Los Angeles training is the fifth of several planned around the state in the coming months. If you are interested in our future trainings, please email CampCourage@couragecampaign.org.

July 2nd could mark the beginning of the end to Prop 8, the controversial initiative that stripped California's LGBT population of the right to marry.

Why? Because on July 2nd, the first hearing of the federal case brought against Prop 8 by power team Ted Olson and David Boies will be heard in the North California U.S. District Court with the case assigned to Judge Vaughn Walker.

Even more dramatically, Olson and Boies, who have an amazing track record of winning cases, had requested a preliminary injunction against the initiative while the courts heard the merits of their case. In other words, this would have put the enforcement of Prop 8 in the Golden State on hold during the trial, consequently allowing same-sex marriages to occur again.

The hearing on July 2nd would've centered around the merits of the injunction, but Judge Walker had other thoughts in mind, calling recently for a move to “proceed expeditiously to trial."

“Given that serious questions are raised in these proceedings ... the court is inclined to proceed directly and expeditiously to the merits of plaintiffs' claims," the judge declared. “The just, speedy and inexpensive determination of these issues would appear to call for proceeding promptly to trial."

(See Case Document and Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Judge Walker's Order for Trial)   Read More »

Lt. Dan Choi, from Orange County, California, is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an Iraq War veteran. On Tuesday, he will face a panel of colonels who will decide whether or not to fire him -- to discharge him from the military for "moral and professional dereliction" under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

An amazing 140,000 people signed Lt. Choi's letter to President Obama a few weeks ago. Now he needs your help again. Please join over 44,003 people and sign the letter of support and add your own (optional) personal message.

When we told Dan earlier today about the amazing response he got choked up. It's important that Dan walks into the courtroom holding as many signatures of support as possible for his fight to continue serving his country, no matter who he loves.

Will you add your name?

Flip it for the email Dan sent to Courage members earlier today.   Read More »

The gracious and disarmingly honest mentor to aspiring fashion designers on the hit TV show "Project Runway, Tim Gunn was kind enough to record this special message for Courage Campaign members.

As Tim likes to say to his designers, it's time to "Make it Work!"

If you're ready to get to work and have some fun, watch this video and then RSVP for a special "Make it Work!" Equality Team event near you.

More than 20 “Make it Work!” events are scheduled between June 18-28. Find one near you and join the fun.



Flip it for the full message from the fabulous Tim Gunn and Make it Work!   Read More »

I just put my 3 1/2 year old to bed. She was chanting "What do we want? Civil Rights! When do we want it? NOW!" Crazy, right?

She doesn't know the meaning of those words and it is my deepest hope that long before she has her own children, there will be no need for rallying cries such as this. But until that day, the chant must be repeated loudly and clearly across our nation and across our world. An hour ago, my family returned from a demonstration, one that was organized very last minute, in response to both the disturbing decision by the California Supreme Court and the firing of Lt. Dan Choi for publicly coming out of the closet. Lt. Dan, as many were calling him tonight, was there to speak, passionately and from his heart about knowing first hand how important it is to fight for the right to love. As simple as that. This man spoke, and many listened as he put it so clearly. This man who has risked his very life for this country is fighting the battle of his life for the simple right that so many of us take for granted. I don't agree with war and I have never understood a person who would choose a life in the military, but this man, this strong man, this eloquent man, who has become a symbol for a movement to which he has been drafted, showed me the true meaning tonight of the words "courage" and "hero."

This afternoon, I told my children that I wanted to attend this rally and that I wanted them to go too. I wanted them to understand what it means to be a part of something bigger than one's self. We went, and my husband met us there and we held signs and took pictures and chanted and listened. And my children felt the energy that is created when many voices come together as one. I told my children after, that the reason I wanted them to go is that I want them to be able to tell their children what it feels like to be the change they want to see in the world. I told them that I hope that their children will ask them with confusion how it was that homosexuals could not marry, could not be afforded the same rights to love and live and die for their country-that their children will not be able to even imagine this world.

Here's the thing. I was going to write a funny piece about the "don't ask, don't tell" life of a mom. How as long as you don't ask me if my beds are made, I won't tell you that they aren't. As long as you don't ask me when I last showered, I won't tell you. As long as you don't ask me if the kids had cereal for dinner, I won't tell you. We all walk around with our dirty little secrets and an unwritten code that we won't ask the real questions and we won't expect the real answers. BUT, after going to this rally, after listening to Lt. Choi speak of the necessity to deny his very being in order to keep his job, a job that so many Americans consider heroic, my dirty little secrets seem insignificant, not even worthy of mention. To live your entire life as a lie-don't ask me if I am gay and I won't tell you, is incomprehensible to me.

There are so many problems that we as a country and a world face-the environment, the economy, healthcare, disease, education-that it is entirely mind boggling that we even need to spend our resources to fight for a basic human right. Rick Jacobs, chair of the Courage Campaign, Lt. Dan and another young man whose name I did not get, spoke of these things and we listened and we replied and we shouted and we told our children that we must pick our battles and when we do, we must fight for them with everything we have. I grew up in a time when, in certain places, people of color could not drink at the same water fountain as white people. Last November, we elected an African American man to the highest office in our land. Yesterday that very same man nominated a Latina woman to the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

Times have changed. Times are changing.

It is time to change don't ask, don't tell. It is time to ask. It is time to tell.

This is the post I wrote on my blog last night at mothahhood.wordpress.com

Check the flip for the email Charlize Theron just sent to our members asking everyone, no matter their sexual orientation, to come to Fresno for Meet in the Middle for Equality.

The whole Courage staff will be there this weekend. Are you coming? Are you bringing a carload of your best friends and favorite family members?

Please join us for this historic event. 1 pm this Saturday at the Fresno City Hall. RSVP now.

There is a great line-up of speakers and there will be a bunch of tents, including a blogger tent for the netroots' finest. So come one, come all to Fresno!   Read More »

I attended last night's rally in Beverly Hills with my entire (hetero) family. It was a powerful experience for us. I wrote my thoughts last night. Please feel free to read them at my blog:

http://mothahhood.wordpress.com

As we recover from the unjust decision handed down by the California Supreme Court yesterday, we are reminded of our determination, forged in the angry days after the passage of Prop 8 in November, to restore marriage equality at the first available opportunity.

Now that the California state courts have closed themselves to the cause of equal rights, it's time we dedicate ourselves to organizing to win. We will win in 2010. And if we don't, we'll win in 2012. And if we don't, we'll win in 2014.

Courage Campaign Managing Director Eden James explained this to the crowd in an inspirational rallying cry of a speech at the rally in San Francisco last night:



We reinforced this message in the following email to our members yesterday:   Read More »