Irving Progressive

..and what have we learned about America?

1. Bigotry is still fashionable
State-level propositions designed to abridge the rights of homosexual people passed in California, Arizona, Arkansas and Florida. Shame on those states. I just struck you from my list of states to live in in the future. My boycott on spending money in Oklahoma also remains, especially since the very wonderfully bigoted Sally Kern won re-election to her state seat, although her opponent did reduce her winning margin considerably over the previous election cycle.

2. The African-American community has a hypocrisy challenge over gay rights
One would think a community that has spent hundreds of years struggling against discrimination in all of its obvious and subtle forms would have learned by now what the word means, and would be sensitive to attempts by majorities to tyrranize minorities. It seems that the African-American community has not learned this. According to exit polls, African-American community members supported Proposition 8 on the California state ballot by a majority of around 3 to 1.
As Pam Spaulding has pointed out, Proposition 8 was not passed in CA by the African-American community, which is less than 10% of the electorate in that state. An awful lot of people across the board voted for the proposition. However, the fact that a historically oppressed community voted so positively for a proposition designed to take rights away from another oppressed community should be a matter for some reflection and (dare I say it) shame amongst that community.
A lot of people have been pointing out that the right answer to this issue is more outreach to the African-American community. It is clear from reading some of the reports of the strategy of the "No to Prop 8" campaign that no serious outreach took place until almost the last minute. While I am all in favour of outreach as a strategy, I'm going to be blunt - why is this community so myopic that it seems unable to make the connection between the enduring violations of its human and civil rights and the same diminution of the civil rights of gay people?

3. The "No to Prop 8" campaign strategy was defective and poorly executed.
The campaign failed to address the issues head-on, preferring to tiptoe around the use of the word "gay". No attempt was made to frame the issue as a human rights issue by showing that gay people are, when you strip away perjorative labels, normal human beings like everybody else. There was no pervasive and compelling frame around which to organize the campaign.
Any progressive campaign of this type is going to have to work much much harder in the future. The more monolithic command-and-control model of religiously-based groups works in their favour when it comes to message discipline, organization and daily focus. Freethinkers, almost by definition, are like cats when it comes to alignment and discipline. The next time this issue comes up for a vote in any state, a campaign in favour of full civil rights for gay people needs to be focussed, unashamed, and needs to understand the George Lakoff Playbook (i.e. it needs to create its own frames and not be forced to argue using the frames of opponents).

4. What should the response of supporters of gay civil rights be?
A lot of discussion has been taking place about how to respond to the Yes vote on Proposition 8. A wide variety of options have been discussed including:
- Leave California and move to a more sympathetic state (MA to name but one)
- Boycott California as a state for business and travel
- Boycott businesses owned by donors to the Yes On Prop 8 campaign
- Lobby the IRS to have the tax-exempt status of the LDS church (a major donor to the "Yes on Prop 8" campaign) removed
All of these possible tactics have advantages and disadvantages. A campaign to remove the tax-exempt status of the LDS church is not likely to succeed, since it would have to show that a principal activity of the church is political lobbying, a test that is unlikely to pass in a court of law.
To cut a long story short, I personally believe that the only type of power worth having in a situation like this is economic power. Most large businesses offer benefits to same-sex couples (subject to state law) because they want the best employees possible, regardless of race, color, religion or sexual orientation. Those businesses understand that talent comes irrespective of sexual orientation, and retaining talent trumps issues of private morality.
I believe that the actions that have the best chance of success will include an economic boycott of any businesses run by funders of the "Yes for Prop 8" movement. This is a website that lists the major donors to the "Yes on Prop 8" campaign. People may have to do some research to associate the donors with businesses that they own or control, and I will try to do that and add those businesses to the list of businesses and locations that I already boycott. A lot of the businesses may be irrelevant for me since I do not live in California...I already refuse to go back to Kanab UT after they passed their "Natural Family Resolution" in 2006. I can certainly extend that boycott further.