One of the nice things about my having announced a run for office against California State Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff is that I've started to get great unsolicited e-mails pointing to awful things in his political past. Especially given the bitterness of the Amendment 1 vote, one of them that I received yesterday caught my eye.
We have a group in our state called Equality California that does great work on LGBT issues. (Check out their website!) Well, someone tipped me off yesterday to look at the bills that they opposed in 2008. I'll reproduce the entire list here:
Opposed Legislation
A number of anti-LGBT measures are introduced in the California Legislature each year. EQCA opposes these bills because of the negative impact they will have on the LGBT community and our families.
Assembly Bill 1498 would weaken nondiscrimination protections that apply to state-funded and operated programs and services.
Author: Assemblymember Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine
Status: Died in Assembly Business and Professions Committee.
Assembly Bill 2085 would delete existing civil rights protections related to curriculum in the Education Code.
Author: Assemblymember Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar
Status: Died in Assembly Education Committee
Assembly Bill 2086 would discourage schools from offering diversity programs that discuss sexual orientation or gender identity issues by requiring prior written consent from a student’s parent or guardian.
Author: Assemblymember Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar
Status: Died in Assembly Education Committee
Two out of the three bills that EQCA actively opposed in 2008 -- the last time this seat was open -- authored by my opponent. What a slimy way to try to get ahead!
I have to hand it to Sen. Huff, though: this was probably good politics in my district. Here in North Orange County, Richard Nixon's old stomping grounds (and I do mean stomping), we're pretty much the opposite of the libertarian coastal region 25 or so miles to our south. The only legislative district at any level within Orange County that voted to oppose Prop 8 four years ago was the one centered around Newport Beach. My district voted by about a about 26% margin (thanks to Kalex and madhaus for provoking this clarification) in favor of Prop 8. Yes, we're more conservative on this issue than North Carolina. So catering to homophobia here may well pay off at the polls.
Too bad for me, I guess! I'm supporting marriage equality regardless. I'd rather lose than go down in history as someone who embraced bigotry to get ahead. I have some tactical disagreements sometimes with GLBT rights proponents about how to do so, because I'd like one more non-conservative on the Supreme Court before the issue comes to a head, but I want full equality in same-sex marriage -- especially when it comes to the biggest prize of all, changes federal law. (I have argued in the past here and elsewhere that laws disadvantaging GLBT should receive the same heightened intermediate scrutiny as laws against gender discrimination -- because at base these laws are gender discrimination. Every single objectionable law is basically saying that GLBT people can't be allowed to do something that others can do because of their gender.)
But even those who aren't with me on same-sex marriage and intermediate scrutiny for judicial review of laws disadvantaging GLBTs should have their jaws drop at the likes of the wording of the laws that Bob Huff proposed.
Here's the first one:
AB 2085, as introduced, Huff. Schools: discrimination.
Existing law prohibits a person from being subjected to discrimination on the basis of disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation in any program or activity conducted by a public or private preschool, elementary, or secondary school or institution, the governing board of a school district, or any combination of school districts or counties recognized as administrative agencies for public elementary or secondary schools, that receives, or benefits from, state financial assistance or enrolls pupils who receive state student financial aid. Existing law prohibits a teacher from giving instruction, and a school district from sponsoring any activity, that promotes a discriminatory bias because of disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
This bill instead would prohibit a teacher from giving instruction, and a school district from sponsoring an activity, that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race, gender, color, creed, disability, national origin, religion, or ancestry. The bill would thus delete sexual orientation from the categories listed in existing law.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.
For those curious, here's what a deprivation of civil rights looks like. Section 51500 of the Education Code is would be amended to go from this
51500. No teacher shall give instruction, nor shall a school district sponsor any activity, that promotes a discriminatory bias because of a characteristic listed in Section 220
to this:
51500. No teacher shall give instruction, nor shall a school district sponsor an activity, that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race, gender, color, creed, disability, national origin, religion, or ancestry
In other words, Huff's legislation would have just taken the list of impermissible bases for discrimination in instruction and cut all of the GLBT-based concerns right out of it.
Proponents of his bills called it "a return to common sense." No, it's a return to bigotry.
I oppose that strongly and openly. The fact that he would even try to do this shows exactly why such protections are absolutely necessary (and why I as a Californian am glad that we have them. I'm publishing this diary to let his oppo researchers have at me over the issue, if that's what they want to do. My main campaign themes are Occupy related, dealing with the perversion of the political system and the destruction of the middle class -- but if the Huff campaign wants to try to convince the public to put up with his shilling for wealthy donors by stoking their homophobia instead, then I will fight that battle too.
I think that you already have enough background on the companion "permission slip" bill -- which is also a slap at academic freedom -- that I don't need to review it here. (You can read an article celebrating the demise of both bills at the link.) I'll reproduce a few of my favorite paragraphs:
Two bills opposed by Equality California failed in the Assembly Education Committee, safeguarding existing protections for California students. The measures would have stripped away important civil rights protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. Members of the Assembly Education Committee rejected both Assembly Bill 2085 and Assembly Bill 2086 with a 6-3 vote along party lines. Every Republican Assemblymember on the committee voted to repeal student protections. The six votes against the bills came from Democrats.
AB 2085 would have deleted existing protections against discrimination in public school instruction based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and perceived gender, disability, nationality, race or ethnicity, and religion. The bill would have voided student safeguards that were secured with Equality California-sponsored legislation. AB 2086 would have discouraged schools from offering diversity programs - such as Coming Out Week and Day of Silence - that discuss sexual orientation and gender identity issues. Both anti-queer measures were authored by Assemblymember Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar.
“We are pleased California’s fair-minded legislators opposed these bills, recognizing the progress we have made to ensure that all people, especially our youth, are treated fairly, equally, and with respect,” said EQCA Executive Director Geoff Kors. “Although we have secured important protections under law for all California youth, anti-gay activists and policy makers continue to attack the civil rights of our young people. We must continue to be vigilant in stopping these attacks in their tracks in order to safeguard the youth protections we have worked long and hard to secure.”
...
Testifying in opposition of the bills, Lance Chih, a 20-year-old college student from Sacramento, recalled discrimination he faced in high school because he identified as gay. “I remember how afraid I was to go to my school,” Chih said. “I remember sitting in class and being harassed for being gay – and the teacher doing nothing to intervene. The laws that are in place are designed to help make, and keep, school a safe environment.” He said there were a few teachers on his campus that were following the law and were there to protect him. “The next student may not be as lucky, especially if we make it OK to tolerate blatant bullying and discrimination.”
...
Organizations that joined EQCA to oppose AB 2085 included the American Civil Liberties Union, Anti-Defamation League, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality, California State Conference of the NAACP, California Teachers Association, Los Angeles Unified School District, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and California NOW. Groups opposed to AB 2086 included the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, District IX, California Family Health Council, California Federation of Teachers, and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.
I'm linking this diary to my Facebook page -- and I will
promise you that Huff's campaign team will be dancing around like the hippos in
Fantasia when they find out about it, because they are the sorts of people who think that
anti-GLBT bigotry sells. In my district, they may be right. I have probably just made their day. But my message to my district will be this:
Even if you disagree with me about these issues, you should not allow yourself to be manipulated by someone who whips up bigotry as a way of achieving the power to do you economic harm.
A lot of bigotry in politics is a racket, a scam. Back in the Civil Rights Era of the 50s and 60s, politicians from Lester Maddox to George Wallace didn't actually care that much about anti-minority bigotry on the merits, but they knew that it was good politics and so they rode it to power. (Whether the willingness to embrace bigotry to obtain power even though one doesn't believe it worse than actually believing it is an interesting question.) One persistent theme in the politics of sexuality is that it is the
closeted, covert, and loudly conservative people who do the most damage -- from the political war rooms to the pulpits -- both in their public and their private lives. I'm willing to say that bluntly to voters -- so stay turned for an interesting race.
You can follow my campaign at my website (which is still-unfinished, but coming along), www.gregdiamond2012.com. If you want to donate, you can go directly to my ActBlue page. If you'd prefer to send a check, e-mail me and I'll give you the address. (I still haven't decided whether to get a PO Box or take my mail at the new campaign headquarters.) If you want to get involved by, among other things, helping me research Bob Huff's squalid legislative record, I'd love your help.
I'll ask you for one other favor: I love the old netroots tradition of adding one cent to the donation to mark it as being from the netroots. This time, as a reminder of both Prop 8 and these two terrible, embarrassing, vicious and bigoted pieces of proposed legislation, I'm asking that you add eight cents to your donation. If you can spare $5.08 and up -- and you like the sort of campaign that I'll be running -- I appreciate your help. And, as always, if you even have to think twice about how donating would impact your personal finances, then bless you for even thinking about it, but do not donate! Someone else who has the money will have to donate a little more to make up for the fact that you can't. There will be other, cheaper ways to help, such as letters to the editor.
(The poll is unrelated, but I would appreciate your letting me know your answer!)
10:44 AM PT: Oh yeah -- my campaign's Facebook page. (I'll be on Twitter too, as gregdiamond2012, but not so much yet. When it finally happens, it will probably be suddenly and without warning!)
12:16 PM PT: I had no inside information that this announcement was coming today, but I'm glad to see it. It's sad that we have to say that the President's stance has taken courage -- but it does, and he has shown it on this issue. I hope that he'll also favor an end to such discrimination in federal law. Do Republicans really want this fight? OK, if so, they'll have it!