Today's Fresno Bee reported on "Meet in the Middle for Equality"

Today’s Fresno Bee reported on “Meet in the Middle for Equality” (http://meetinthemiddle4equality.com/), a major rally that will take place in Fresno the first Saturday after the California Supreme Court rules on the legal challenges to Proposition 8. The article is included in full below.

Over 70 organizations are mobilizing members to attend the event from across California. On Wednesday, Academy Award-winning actor Charlize Theron sent a message encouraging Courage Campaign members and supporters to attend (http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/community/post/juliarosen/C2WH). 

The Courage Campaign and various partner organizers involved in making Meet in the Middle possible are committed to sharing resources — like training and voter files — throughout the state. Since the Camp Courage training event (http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampCourage) took place in Fresno in early March, 10 canvassas have been organized by Courage Campaign Equality Teams in the Central Valley (http://www.couragecampaign.org/EqualityTeams). Camp Courage will return to the Central Valley, in Sacramento, in the coming months.

Fresno key for same-sex marriage supporters

By John Ellis / The Fresno Bee

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1388870.html

The next skirmish in the battle over same-sex marriage will be in Fresno, where supporters plan a large rally to kick off a campaign they hope will change minds — and votes. Their goal: to undo Proposition 8.

In choosing Fresno, supporters of same-sex marriage are moving far from the supportive urban environs of San Francisco and West Hollywood, and coming to hostile territory.

Last November, the central San Joaquin Valley overwhelmingly approved Prop. 8, the statewide ballot initiative that eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Supporters of same-sex marriage plan to rally on the Saturday after the state Supreme Court rules on Prop. 8’s legality. The high court has until June 3 to rule.

That ruling is widely expected to affirm the will of the voters. But supporters of same-sex marriage — buoyed by decisions in Iowa, Maine and three other states to allow such marriages — said they plan to put an initiative on the November 2010 ballot to legalize the practice in California.

And if they want to have any chance for a statewide ballot-box victory, supporters say, they must win hearts and minds in Fresno and other parts of inland California that approved Prop. 8 by wide margins.

The rally is being called “Meet In The Middle For Equality.” Actress Charlize Theron is expected to attend, and organizers predict the rally could attract up to 3,000 people from throughout California.

“It has a literal meaning in that Fresno is at California’s midpoint, and it also has a figurative meaning in the sense that if advocates are going to change the way people think about same-sex marriage, we have to go to Fresno,” Rick Jacobs, chairman of the Courage Campaign, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group that supports same-sex marriage, said of the rally’s title.

It’s unknown whether same-sex marriage supporters will run into any opposition here.

The Rev. Jim Franklin, pastor of Cornerstone Church in downtown Fresno and one of the driving forces in the local pro-Prop. 8 effort, said he supports the right of same-sex marriage supporters to hold their event and has no plans to counter the rally.

Still, he doubts its effectiveness locally.

“The greatest results are the last election,” he said. “The numbers are the numbers.”

Last November, more than two-thirds of voters in Fresno, Kings, Madera and Merced counties approved Prop. 8. In Tulare County, more than 75% of voters said yes. Statewide, 52% of voters said yes.

The idea for the rally was conceived by local gay rights activist Robin McGehee. She said Prop. 8 opponents blundered last year by focusing their efforts on the strongly Democratic-leaning Los Angeles and San Francisco urban areas and ignoring places like Fresno.

McGehee, a Fresno resident, said mainstream gay rights organizations “left our families behind enemies’ lines with no resources” last year.

Though the ultimate goal is legalizing same-sex marriage in California, McGehee said the longer-term battle lies in altering attitudes towards gays and lesbians.

McGehee is a Mississippi native who came to Fresno as a college student because she expected to find tolerance in California. What she found, she said, was that Fresno was a lot like her hometown of Jackson.

And like the gap between the end of slavery and true equal rights for blacks, McGehee said, it will take longer to gain acceptance of gay rights than it will for same-sex marriage to be approved.

Rally organizers plan to bus in supporters from throughout the state. A march from Selma to Fresno — a march reminiscent of 1960s civil rights marches — is planned, and then a City Hall rally from 1 to 3 p.m.

After that, McGehee said, two teams will spread out across Fresno and Clovis where they will go door to door in neighborhoods to speak on behalf of same-sex marriage.

Some of those will be veterans of a boot camp known as Camp Courage, which was organized by Jacobs and the Courage Campaign. The camp is modeled after community-organizing boot camps employed during President Barack Obama’s campaign. The camps teach volunteers about such strategies as walking door to door and making phone calls to support a cause.

It was at the second Camp Courage, held in Fresno in early March, that McGehee made what Jacobs called “an impassioned pitch” for his organization to join in organizing the “Meet In The Middle For Equality” rally.

Franklin thinks busing in outsiders could backfire because central San Joaquin Valley residents don’t like getting lectures from San Francisco residents, whom they perceive as too liberal.

He also said it would give a false impression of local support for same-sex marriage.

“You’re not making a statement,” he said of busing people in. “You’re just moving the chess pieces around.”