A guest piece from Courage Campaign’s National Field Director Arisha Michelle Hatch on what happened at the Traditional Values Coalition’s press conference today -Adam
By Arisha Michelle Hatch
Rev. Louis Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition — one of three California “pro-family” organizations leading the effort to overturn the Fair Education Act — wanted to hold a big press conference today in Orange County. Below is the invitation.
Traditional Values Coalition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 22, 2011
CONTACT: Benjamin Lopez
TVC Chairman to Release Results of Poll Favorable to Repeal of SB 48 Law Would Require Teachings on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Topics
Anaheim, California-”A recent statewide poll shows California voters are overwhelmingly against the newly-signed Senate Bill 48,” said Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman and founder of Traditional Values Coalition (TVC). “The results of this poll should be a warning sign to liberal activists that wish to inject controversial issues into the classroom. Parents are simply against social engineering in the classroom.
“This polls proves that the voters of California are completely behind parents. What we need now are for parents to grab pens, clipboards and petitions and get signatures to stop the assault on our children and grandchildren in California’s schools by leftist homosexual radicals seeking to indoctrinate the minds of young, impressionable youth.” Sheldon added.
Rev. Sheldon will announce the details of the new poll at a press conference set for Monday, September 26, 2011. Details are as follows:
Press Conference
By Traditional Values Coalition
September 26, 2011
11:00 AM
Orange County Registrar of Voters Office
1300 S. Grand Avenue, Bldg C
Santa Ana, CA 92705
SB 48, which was signed by Governor Jerry Brown on July 14, 2011, will now amend current Education Code sections to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender to the list of categories to be covered in all textbooks, curriculum and instructional materials. These new textbooks and instructional materials would apply to ALL subjects in curriculum and to ALL grades K-12.
Traditional Values Coalition is one of three lead statewide pro-family organizations involved in the current Referendum effort aimed at placing the provisions of SB 48 before the voters on the June 2012 ballot. The other organizations assisting Traditional Values Coalition are Capitol Resource Institute and Pacific Justice Institute.
Traditional Values Coalition is an interdenominational and multi-racial public policy organization speaking on behalf of 43,000 churches nationwide and 8,300 churches in California. For further information about Traditional Values Coalition please call Benjamin Lopez at [redacted] or visit our website at www.traditionalvalues.org
So, myself, along with Courage’s Anthony Ash and Ana Beatriz Cholo, went.
The photo you see below was the number of press people who showed up.
Rev. Lou Sheldon's press conference
Namely, well, the three of us, a press liaison for Lou, and Lou himself.
In a parking lot.
Rev. Sheldon is no stranger to controversy on LGBT issues. He’s been so vocal that the Southern Poverty Law Center classified TVC as a “hate-group” way back when.
Rev. Sheldon stood in front of a makeshift podium, in the parking lot of the Orange County Registrar of Voters Office – the Registrar staff told him he couldn’t be inside the building – to make his short polling presentation.
With such low attendance, Courage staff got a front-row seat for this press conference and even got to ask a few follow-up questions before he abruptly ended his presentation. He struggled to stay on message, often times contradicted himself and seemed to suggest that his biggest problem with the Fair Education Act was that it doesn’t allow negative portrayals of the LGBT community.
A few highlights from our chat below:
Courage Campaign’s statement on today:
Rick Jacobs, Chair and Founder of Courage Campaign, Says Rev. Louis Sheldon Peddling Lies About New Education Law
Reporters Skip Out on Press Conference; Courage Staffers Only People Present
“The Rev. Louis Sheldon and the ‘Traditional Values Coalition’ have been peddling so-called “facts” about gay people for decades now. All they’ve managed to do is hurt people and earn themselves a place in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s pantheon of hate groups together with the Ku Klux Klan,” said Rick Jacobs, the chair and founder of the Courage Campaign, a 700,000 member grassroots and progressive, national online organization. “Their latest lies are about the Fair Education Act, a law that requires California schools to integrate lessons about social movements, current events and the social contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals into existing social studies lessons. Rather than encouraging learning about the diversity of American history, Rev. Sheldon, like his friends at Westboro Baptist Church and other fringe groups, seek to foment division and hatred, the opposite of Judeo-Christian teachings.”
Courage Campaign staff members were on-hand at today’s press conference, called by the Traditional Values Coalition to release commissioned polling results, to share the facts about SB 48 — the Fair Education Act — and to clarify misinformation being disseminated by Sheldon. Click here to watch the video. Members of the media decided to skip the event and Rev. Sheldon was left speaking to an audience of three — all staffers from the Courage Campaign.
Courage Campaign is working to defend the FAIR Education Act as part of a broad coalition that includes people of faith, labor organizations, LGBT groups, disability rights advocates, racial justice organizations and many more who care about equality.
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Courage Campaign is a multi-issue online organizing network that empowers more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots supporters to work for progressive change and full equality in California and across the country.
For those of you in or near Salt Lake City, or who have friends/family in the area: Four-time Tony Award winner Terrence McNally is hosting a reading of his play, SOME MEN, in Salt Lake City on October 10th to benefit Courage Campaign and the work our members are doing to further equality across the country. We did a sold-out reading last year in Los Angeles and it was so popular, we decided to put one together in a place where LGBT people have so few protections and deserve more attention. Benefits will go to the Courage Campaign and the Utah Pride Center. SOME MEN is a series of interwoven stories about various gay men over the course of 80 years. It’s a fascinating production.
The flyer’s above. It’s quite the cast of characters. For more info or to buy tickets, click here. Rick and some other folks from our team will be there to do a Camp Courage training for that weekend, as well.
Holy cow. Where to begin? Dustin Lance Black’s play about Prop 8 hit Broadway for an incredible night. The tapes of the Prop 8 trial might actually get released. Florida’s working on domestic partnerships, North Carolina’s marriage ban is even worse than we thought, New Hampshire might repeal marriage, and Missouri — yes, Missouri — favors legal recognition for gay couples. All that, plus the first Republican co-sponsor for the repeal of DOMA. Wow.
I’m sure you noticed that I didn’t do an episode last week. That’s because I was in New York for the star-studded Broadway premier of Dustin Lance Black’s new play, “8,” based on the transcripts of the Prop 8 trial. It was even more amazing than anyone could have hoped, and if you missed it, don’t worry: it’s coming to your town. Now that it’s had its premiere, the plan is to license the play to local community theater and student groups all over the world. Visit BroadwayImpact.com for more information.
Let’s turn now to Florida, where Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen became the first congressional Republican to co-sponsor the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the federal marriage ban. That brings the total number of co-sponsors to nearly 130, a record high.
Also in Florida, two Democrats have introduced a domestic partnership bill. But the state already has a constitutional amendment banning recognition similar to marriage, so it’s unclear if Florida would even be allowed to recognize domestic partnerships.
The language of North Carolina’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban marriage is even more harsh than was previously agreed to. Lawmakers debated a version of the bill that permitted employers to opt in to providing partnership benefits, but the version that will go before voters leaves that provision out. Polling currently shows the bill losing by a very slim margin, which could be a problem since the vote will occur in May, during the Republican primary when conservative turnout will be high.
And In New Hampshire, Republicans have introduced a bill to end marriage equality in that state. The proposed measure would ban more than just marriage — it would leave couples with even fewer protections than they had under civil unions. The House Judiciary Committee will vote on the bill next month.
Those are the headlines, visit us over at MarriageNewsWatch.com for more on all these stories and more. And connect with us at Facebook.com/MarriageNewsWatch to get breaking alerts right on your wall. See you next week.
Life is marked by transitions. Birth. Death. Switching shampoos. Oh, and perhaps biggest for our interest: Marriage.
So too, NOM. This week, we saw all kinds of NOM transitions, from the birth of a new group to the end of a former reign. All of which provide us with new ways to glean insight into the group that wants to put vice grips on marriage and its meaning.
We’ll look at it all. But first let’s get started with a little thea-tuh.
Maggie takes aisle seat
The most ridiculous NOM story of the week actually happened at the very beginning. On Monday night, NOM’s Maggie Gallagher actually showed up at the one night only production of 8, Dustin Lance Black’s dramatic structuring of the Prop 8 trial transcripts. Amid an audience that surely rejects her work more than just about any other per capita crowd ever assembled in American history, there she was, the most identifiable member of the organization that spearheaded Prop 8 and continues to push similar measures across the country and federally. She just showed up, as if it were The Lion King or something. That takes some nerve!
But why was she there, really? Well, a later-in-week NOM development might provide that answer. Stay tuned for some speculation on that.
(*Photo evidence courtesy of Freedom To Marry’s Josh Meltzer)
John takes head chair
But while the Maggie-on-Broadway news was certainly the most bizarre moment, the biggest NOM development this week revolved around the announcement of a new Board Chair. We learned mid week that Maggie is moving on to other NOM projects (more on that in a sec), so in her stead, NOM has chosen prominent conservative attorney, professor, and failed California Attorney General candidate John C. Eastman.
My first reaction: Big shocker. NOM has been all kinds of into Eastman and his career for quite some time. In fact, when John was running for CA AG, NOM co-hosted a big ticket D.C. fundraiser for the candidate. This was followed by Eastman actually running, without any qualification or comment, NOM press releases, verbatim, on his campaign website. And during that 2010 cycle, NOM president Brian Brown even described Eastman’s ultimately unsuccessful bid (he lost to Democrat Kamala Harris) as “one of the most important races in the country.” So the connections were there, plain as the gay-slighting day. This official role is just a formalization of a long-standing relationship.
So what do we know about Eastman? Well, from my hours of vetting, I found lots of pragmatic legalese, suggesting that we’re likely going to get a more measured voice who will strive to up NOM’s scholarly credentials. With Eastman, NOM can play the “he’s a lawyer” card, which will surely earn points with some. In looking at his past, I see a new NOM chair who will most likely play a button-downed, “just that (false) facts, ma’am” role.
Obviously, we’ll have to wait and see what the Eastman era brings. But from past writings, it’s pretty clear that marriage isn’t his only LGBT-centric sticking point, even if his new role will demand him to stick only to the “protect marriage” script.
Timothy takes dogmatic pen and stationary
In terms of NOM’s now patently obvious Catholic basis: The organization was quick to jump on a new letter that Archbishop Timothy Dolan, President of the US Bishops Conference, sent to the Obama administration. The gist of the letter, as you might expect, revolved around Dolan chastising the “attacks” that the President has supposedly waged against “traditional marriage.” It’s typical stuff from a church leadership that seems to think personal faith beliefs are perfectly fair planks from which to sink certain *CIVIL* rights.
All you have to do to recognize the overstep is to look at how NOM staffers headlined their take on the Dolan letter, a single line reading: “US Bishops Step Up, Demand Obama Administration Cease Its Attacks on Marriage and Family.” It’s not the “attack” part with which I have a big problem, since the NOM crowd has “boy who cried wolf” that term into a de-contextualized state that no longer persuades anyone. To me, the more egregious word here is “demand.” It says all you need to know about how NOM and figures like Archbishop Dolan view this conversation. They seem to think that religious freedom affords them with the right to make such demands. The goal seems to be for everyone, regardless of chosen faith beliefs, to uncritically submit to their religious dictums. Chilling.
In his letter, Dolan writes of the “growing sense of urgency” he feels towards the modern marriage fight. Well I say, “Right back atcha, Timothy!” Only my urgency pertains to Dolan and NOM’s marriage between civil and canonical law, not the growing sense of marriage equality that is slowly but surely bettering this nation.
‘Anti-Defamation’ takes dictionary, checks if term longer means anything
On Friday came word of what Maggie will be doing with her newfound spare time: She’s heading a NOM-branded project called “The Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance,” in which she’ll try to “to create a supportive community for those who have been threatened for standing for marriage, to nip the climate of fear being created in the bud, to expose for fair-minded Americans on both sides of the debate the threats being made, to conduct high-quality qualitative and quantitative research documenting the extent of the harm, to develop legislative and community proposal to protect Americans right to engage in the core civil rights: to organize, to vote, to speak, to donate, and to write for marriage.” Naturally.
I’ve already mused, at length, about why NOM is directing resources toward this effort. In short: The organization wants to change not only America’s laws but also the American psyche itself, so that the organic script of greater equality building a stronger nation (i.e. the tried and true script we’ve seen throughout history) will flip in their favor. They are trying to change the psychology so that people won’t follow their instinct towards seeing civil rights deprival as a discriminatory act. For a fully fleshed out take on this, see my NOM Exposed post on the subject.
This late-in-week news of this ADA project also takes us back to week’s begin: The 8 play and why Maggie might’ve been there. Just think about it: Maggie is launching a new project all about how marriage equality activists are the big bad meanies who are constantly in search of some other “traditional marriage” proponent to attack. So what would’ve been a better way for Maggie to launch her new time-waster than with a video of some playgoers acting like she so desperately wants them to act? It’s likely that she wanted some sort of story, photo, or video that would give her new ADA project some launch fuel. In terms of the politics (detached from merit), it would be smart strategy.
Word on the street is that Maggie even tried to go backstage. Well of course she did: Because just imagine what kind of story she could’ve launched with, had she managed to coax one of the actors or, better yet, their real life counterparts into a red-faced tirade against her? Picture someone like Ted Olson scoffing at Maggie Gallagher. You would have heard Maggie “squee!“-ing from coast to coast! The Prop 8 proponents (and NOM in particular) would have had fundraising pitch letters written before Maggie had even hailed her cab home. I’d bet money that Maggie’s ADA effort was a big reason why she showed up in that theatre Monday night: To all-but-taunt her opposition into saying or doing something stupid.
But by all accounts (including Maggie’s telling lack of personal report), no big run-in took place. Because the truth is that while any equality activist who sees Maggie would be understandably likely to roll a reasoned eye or shake a principled head, few on the side of civil fairness want to “defame” her in any way. What we want is for this contrived fight — one that has provided Maggie with a huge financial windfall for years now — to come to an immediate end. We don’t want or need to foster a “climate of fear,” as NOM claims in the ADA press materials. Our one goal is to silence the fear campaigns that groups like NOM have perpetuated for their own duplicitous gains, so that we might finally achieve the sense of peace and fairness that will allow more people to work more closely on TRUE social issues. Because this world sure has enough of them, none of which involve love, rings, or chicken dances.
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Black’s dramatic structuring of the Prop 8 trial transcripts. Amid an audience that surely rejects her work more than just about any other per capita crowd ever assembled in American history, there she was, the most identifiable member of the organization that spearheaded Prop 8 and continues to push similar measures across the country and federally. She just showed up, as if it were The Lion King or something. That takes some nerve!
(more on that in a sec), so in her stead, NOM has chosen prominent conservative attorney, professor, and failed California Attorney General candidate John C. Eastman.
freedom affords them with the right to make such demands. The goal seems to be for everyone, regardless of chosen faith beliefs, to uncritically submit to their religious dictums. Chilling.
community for those who have been threatened for standing for marriage, to nip the climate of fear being created in the bud, to expose for fair-minded Americans on both sides of the debate the threats being made, to conduct high-quality qualitative and quantitative research documenting the extent of the harm, to develop legislative and community proposal to protect Americans right to engage in the core civil rights: to organize, to vote, to speak, to donate, and to write for marriage.” Naturally.
