Tomorrow thousands of Californians will join in common purpose to give an official kickoff to the 2010 campaign to overturn Proposition 8 with a reversing ballot measure. Where will this massive demonstration take place? San Francisco? Los Angeles? West Hollywood? Nope. Fresno.
Californians are probably thinking, why the heck would you go to Fresno? and non-Californians have probably never heard of it. Fresno is actually the 5th largest city in the state of California with a population of over 500,000 people and is found in the heart of the central valley of California...the far more conservative central valley of California.
In November, Fresno county voted for Barack Obama 49.4%/49.0%. But for they voted in favor of Proposition 8 68.8%/31.2%. Fresno county also voted for Bush in 2004. (see map & stats here) What's the point? The point is Fresno is a good representative of conservative California AND the more conservative parts of our country.
So we are "meeting in the middle" to launch the next stage in our campaign for marriage equality. We're going to bring our message to the people who actually need to be convinced that we should not be treated as second-class citizens. The demonstration will begin tomorrow (Saturday, May 30) at 1:00 PM in front of City Hall. Speakers will include Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter for MILK; Cleve Jones, lifetime gay activist who worked with Harvey Milk and helped start the AIDS quilt amongst many other movements; and Lt. Dan Choi, who recently came out on national television and was discharged from the army under DADT.
In addition to the rally, the statewide campaign for the 2010 ballot measure has already begun on the airwaves with the help of the Courage Campaign, a netroots organization, with the above commercial. This is exactly the kind of commercial that SHOULD have been produced and aired in the runup to November's Proposition 8 vote. It doesn't try to hide gay people. It doesn't try to couch the debate in broad issues of "fairness". It puts our love on display and asks people to put themselves in our shoes.
The Courage Campaign is taking donations to help air this commercial across the state. They have also started to conduct on-the-ground training for activists on how to effectively canvass and engage voters on the issues. They are replicating many of the successful campaign strategies of the Obama Campaign in order to execute a far more effective 2010 campaign to restore equal rights for LGBT Californians.
Please lend whatever assistance you can to help. Everyone is welcome to join us tomorrow in Fresno tomorrow at 1PM in front of City Hall. Make a donation to the Courage Campaign or simply sign the pledge to help overturn Prop 8 and restore marriage equality in California.