Bordelaise Sauce
I want to make it. It’s like coming home, the way going home never was. It’s like looking up at the sky in Piazza di San Callisto and realizing that I’m back home, back where I belong. I breathed in deeply and when I exhaled, it felt like I was shaking off all my stress and narrow bindings and finally, finally expanding to wholly fit in my skin. It’s comfort and freedom and finding out that Rome was only ever a plane flight away. It’s peace of mind. It’s complex tastes, hours of labor, and the soothing routine of mincing shallots. It’s narrowing my focus down to the edge of my blade, the familiar feel of the knife in my hand and the familiar sight of the cutting board I’ve had for years.
It’s a mouthful that widened my eyes at an inspiring, provocative meal. It’s a dance of delicate tastes that I wished would go on forever. The day it’s made, all the notes are clear and distinct but somehow create a sum greater than the parts. The day after, the flavors have melded into something less sparkling clear but smoother and more relaxed.
I want to roll up and cuddle in it like a blanket. I want to make it. I want to simmer red wine with shallots, carrots, mushrooms, parsley, thyme, garlic, and a bay leaf, then pour in veal stock and peppercorns and reduce it. I want to spoon it over a double-cut rib steak, seasoned, seared, basted, and roasted.
How can something I’ve had only four times and made only three be home? It’s unreasonable. And yet, the first mouthful was a revelation and a homecoming all at once. This is a world you never imagined. This is where you belong.
I have a profound desire to make bordelaise sauce. I have one container of veal stock left and had been planning to make the full on boeuf bordelaise meal for C, my +1, but I might not wait.
“Gay!”
I accidentally tapped a girl in the head with my book today while I was on the bus. As is typical of the 14, the bus was jam packed, standing room was at a premium, and people were falling over in the aisle and grabbing at hand rails while the bus lurched down Mission and the driver yelled, “Move to the back! Move to the back!” In the midst of it all, a querulous voice said, “You hit me in the head.”
I looked over and saw a black pre-teen, saw that my paperback was slipping ever so slightly from the hand that I was using to clutch a hand rail, and said, “I’m sorry.” And that’s the end of it. One of your run of the mill encounters on public transit, where the seething masses of humanity bump into each other, apologize, and move on.
As it turned out, the girl, another girl, her father, and I were all getting off at the same stop. As Girl #1 and her father stepped out, Girl #2 paused in the step well, looked at me, said, “Gay,” and stepped out.
I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly in the midst of all the noise–”Move to the back! Move to the back!”–and got off the bus and started walking to a coffee shop, in the opposite direction from Girl #1, Girl #2, and their adult. Not more than two steps away, I heard it again.
“GAY!”
Oh, hell no. I turned around, saw Girl #2 staring at me, walked up to her, and said, “Excuse me, what did you say?”
Girl #2 looked at me, looked away, and said, “I didn’t say nothing.”
PD: No, I heard you call me “gay.” Using that as a homophobic insult is unacceptable.
Girl #2: I told you, I didn’t say nothing!
At this point, Girl #1’s father, who is a good half a foot taller than me and probably 75 lbs. heavier than me, comes over, plants himself right in my face, and says, “Get out of her face! She’s my niece! You don’t talk to my niece like that!”
I figure he’s obviously hoping to intimidate me with his size and masculinity, and react accordingly.
PD: Excuse me, your niece called me gay. It’s completely inappropriate for her to throw around homophobic insults.
Father: DON’T YOU GET IN MY NIECE’S FACE! SHE’S MY NIECE! WHAT’D SHE DO TO YOU?
PD: I understand that she’s your niece, and her behavior is unacceptable.
Father: I DON’T CARE, YOU DON’T TALK TO HER LIKE THAT, YOU DON’T GET IN HER FACE!
PD: I wasn’t in her face, I asked her what she said, and I would appreciate it if–
Father: SHE’S JUST A LITTLE GIRL, GET OUT OF HER FACE!
PD: –you would get out of my face.
Girl #1 dances around her father and shouts, “She wasn’t talking about you!” Girl #2 smirks, making Girl #1’s claim dubious.
PD: I want your niece to apologize.
Father: GET OUT OF MY DAUGHTER’S FACE!
PD: I wasn’t talking to your daughter, I was talking to you.
Father: GET OUT OF MY DAUGHTER’S FACE, I DON’T CARE, SHE’S JUST A LITTLE GIRL.
PD: I don’t care how old your niece is, it’s completely inappropriate for her to go around calling people gay as if it’s an insult.
Father: HOW OLD ARE YOU? HOW OLD ARE YOU? SHE’S JUST A GIRL, YOU DON’T GO NEAR HER!
PD: I wasn’t near your daughter–
Father: YOU WERE IN HER FACE!
PD: How can I get in her face if she dodges around you to yell in my face while I’m talking with you?
Father: I DON’T CARE, YOU WERE IN HER FACE, I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE.
At this point, I’m almost losing it because the scene is so surreal: two preteens who are by no means little girls, dancing around their father/uncle and smirking; a man visibly trying to intimidate me with his size and volume and utterly failing, even as he leans in closer and closer, trying to loom; the repeated cries of “DON’T YOU GET IN HER FACE!” while he’s most definitely in my face. All I can think is, “Do as I say, not as I do!” while trying not to break out in laughter.
Father: HOW OLD ARE YOU? HOW OLD ARE YOU? MY NIECE IS JUST A LITTLE GIRL.
PD: How old are you? I don’t care how old she is, trying to insult someone by calling them gay is homophobic and inappropriate at any age and your niece needs to learn that.
Father: I DON’T CARE. I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE.
PD: I think your niece should apologize and I think you should get out of my face.
The father leans in closer so that I’m practically looking straight up at him, and leans and leans and leans. It’s ridiculous. There’s a pregnant silence, where he looms, I refuse to step back or back down, and he tries to loom some more. The moment drags on and on because there’s nowhere for this tension to go: he and his niece aren’t going to apologize and I’m not going to run away crying. As we stare at each other, we both fail at our prescribed gender roles: he’s failed to intimidate me and I’ve failed to be intimidated. The father says, “Whatever,” and walks away, Girl #1 and Girl #2 in tow. As I turn and walk away, he calls out over his shoulder, “Go back to China!”
Oh, dear. At that point, my temper explodes and I turn around and yell at him, “RACIST BASTARD!” Then I rifle through my mental file of insults, thinking that using bastard as an insult is inappropriate, because there’s nothing wrong with bastardy. A couple minutes later, the ridiculousness of the whole scene strikes me:
- It’s bizarre to call someone gay as an insult, because, well, so what? It has never made any sense to me as an insult because sexual orientation has no moral value or lack thereof. I’m queer and if pointing it out is supposed to make me feel ashamed of it, that is illogical and stupid. When used as an insult, gay is a catch all phrase for everything from “doesn’t adhere to stereotypical gender roles” to “gross” and the conflation just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t understand the homophobic mindset.
- In a heterosexist society, everyone is assumed to be straight, except when it comes to insults. So does this mean that Girl #2 and other homophobes think that the people they yell at are actually gay, in which case the insult is even more nonsensical (“Yeah, I’m gay. And the sky is blue. Is that an insult to the sky?”), or do they think that the people they yell at are straight and will feel insulted at being called gay? The latter also relies on the assumption that being gay is bad and so a straight person would feel bad at being called gay, which takes us straight back to point #1.
- There is something distinctly ludicrous about being called gay while feeling too sore to walk due to some acrobatic sex with my boyfriend last night. I’m queer but currently in a relationship with a straight man–how does this fit into a homophobic paradigm? Am I supposed to feel insulted at being called gay? I DON’T KNOW!!!!!!!
- The spectacle of the father standing with his face not half a foot away from mine, screaming at the top of his lungs not to get in his niece’s or daughter’s face while his daughter dodges around him to yell at me: oh, the irony. As I texted to a friend, “Easy to see where the kids got their manners.”
“Go back to China.” It’s not a new insult to me, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. It’s racist because it assumes that I don’t belong here by virtue of my ethnicity; it incorrectly assumes what ethnicity I am; and it tries to reduce me to that erroneous assumption. Couldn’t he think of a less tired insult?
-sigh- I texted my sibling afterward, saying, “while on the way to coffee, was called gay&told to go back to china. As far as insult accuracy goes i guess 1 out of 2’s not bad? Its a failing grade@school Lol” That about sums it all up.
Prop. 8 Case
[I wrote most of this on Wednesday and hadn't finished it by the time the Court announced that it would be ruling on Prop. 8 on Tuesday, May 26 (PDF).]
So, head down in cooking, dance class, going out, and figuring out things with the +1, I’ve mostly put thoughts of Prop. 8 out of my head. The CA Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments back in March and had 90 days from that date to issue their ruling. Since all the protests last fall and winter, I’ve dropped out of the local activist scene entirely. When the oral hearings began, I marked down the 90th day out in my planner and then avoided thinking about it.
June 4: dinner for three at Maverick. June 5: Court ruling? Schubert's Great at the SF Symphony
June was tucked safely away behind many, many pages in my planner, but now, it’s nearly here. The Court normally publishes opinions on Mondays and Thursdays, with announcements of forthcoming opinion filings going up the Friday or Wednesday before. Next Monday is Memorial Day and so any opinion that would have been published on Monday will be published on Tuesday, with an announcement going up on the website on Friday. According to Day of Decision, the Court will rule by June 3, which leaves three possible dates for the ruling: Tuesday (5/26), Thursday (5/28), and Tuesday (6/2). God, we’re so close.
This decision will be a ruling once more on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings. Yes, the ruling is about marriage rights, but it’s apparent from looking at the ads and rhetoric of the anti-marriage equality side that the issue at hand is much broader. Are GLBTQI people indeed people, or are we monsters? By virtue of our nature, do we deserve to be shoved into the closet and hidden away so that we don’t corrupt the minds of (assumed to be straight) little children with our existence? Are our lives political footballs to be punted around for points until the election’s over and we’re told to just wait a little longer, our expectations are unreasonable and our demands unimportant?
I’m not married and never plan to be unless it’s fully legal everywhere in the country. At the moment, I’m going out with a straight man. And still, this ruling matters to me, because it’s a judgment on my very worth and dignity as a human being. I know that eventually, Prop. 8 will be repealed, if not in the next two weeks then in the next decade or so. That is cold comfort, though, and the legal justifications for upholding Prop. 8 are equally cold comfort. No matter how much I cherish rationality, logic, and the rule of law over emotions, there comes a time when the law is wrong and people of principle must not acquiesce to it.
I love this city and I love this state, but if the government decides once again that I do not have the rights to equality that are inherent to me by virtue of my humanity, if it decides once again to codify my second-class status into law, not content to leave it unspoken, assumed, and societally enforced, what place will there be for me here?
Yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of the White Night Riots (h/t Faith). This summer will see the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Activism and change are not always peaceful, are not always conducted within the stately halls of the legislature by calm, soft-spoken people who are expected to sigh, shrug philosophically, and accept it when their humanity is decried and they are accused of being perverts, child molesters, unnatural, disgusting, sick, sinners, and abominations that will destroy society. Homophobes unleash hatred and vitriol and attack GLBTQI people and batter and kill them. And yet, it is we who are admonished not to raise a fuss, not to defend ourselves, not to overreact, not to say a word about our lived experience of homophobia.
But how can you overreact to the persistent harassment and persecution? The admonishments to behave lest there be a backlash and the demands to go quietly into the good night, those are demands to keep heterosexism in place. Those are demands to not disturb the status quo and not disturb the illusion that things are OK and that queers will get our rights some day, if we only wait long enough and quietly enough, closeted enough. Those are demands to not make people uncomfortable with the fact that homophobia is a constant, active presence for most people who aren’t straight. Those are demands to hide our dead and our wounded.
Every time I go home to my parents’ house and see their old church friends, I get asked if I have a boyfriend. They assume I’m straight. They all voted yes on Prop. 8. I want to tell them that no, I don’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and thus challenge their default assumption of straightness by making it clear that loving a girlfriend is an option for me. I have to weigh that against my parents’ reaction, though, because if I so much as mention Prop. 8, homophobia, queer rights, or anything queer-related, let alone suggest that I’m not straight, my mother will pitch a screaming fit. She’ll ask me why I have to be so “outspoken,” why I have to talk about “those people,” why I can’t just “get along,” why I have to make everything “political,” why I can’t just be “quiet.” She’ll sulk the rest of the weekend and potentially for weeks afterward. She’ll never acknowledge that by demanding that I not disturb the social peace, she’s demanding that I lie about myself and hide. She’ll never acknowledge that she’s flaunting her heterosexuality every time she goes somewhere with her husband, calls him “honey,” and invites people over to the home that they’ve made together, where there are pictures of our smiling family all around the house: female parent, male parent, and two kids. She’ll say that her old friends have “the right to have their own opinions,” not realizing or not caring that those opinions are hatred for her daughter. Sure, our family friends think queers are sick and perverted sinners, but in my mom’s mind, saving face and preserving the gay atmosphere of a dinner party is more important than how I feel about breaking bread and quietly sitting at a table with people that say that people like me are subhuman, enjoined to say nothing in my own defense. The church friends don’t know they’re talking about me when they say that gay couples will destroy marriage, but I’m not allowed to tell them they are talking about me. I’m out of the closet everywhere but at my parents’ house, even though I’ve come out to my immediate family. For the sake of the fragile peace with my mother, I’m a hypocrite.
I believe in the importance of being out and used to speak about it as the most important component of changing the hearts and minds of Prop. 8 supporters. They assumed they didn’t know anyone who was queer and so they voted for Prop. 8. If they knew that their daughters, parents, children, friends, colleagues, and neighbors were queer, that would do more to change their minds about GLBTQI equality than anything else. That is what I said. For the sake of family, though, I’m not living what I believe: I’m out to my friends, out to my family, and have no problem talking with homophobes, but the stress of parental relationships makes me a hypocrite at heart. I’d rather keep the peace with my mother than live according to my principles and correct their friends when they assume I’m straight or go on about Prop. 8. I dread going to my parents’ house if I know that their church friends will be around. And it’s all my fault, of course, for having the temerity to think that I deserve equal rights and for thinking that I should be unashamed of who I am, rather than hiding in the closet.
I think P#1 knows I’m queer, given that I’ve mentioned working with Marriage Equality and local activists on Prop. 8 protests. There are also pictures of me wearing an “IN love with my girlfriend” t-shirt floating around on Facebook. If I were in his shoes, I would assume queerness, but I tend not to assume that someone’s straight unless ze explicitly says as much. Whatever way the ruling goes, it’ll open up a chance for conversation–either way, I’ll call him up for drinks, whether it’s, “CELEBRATORY DRINKS W00T!!” or, “I need to cry on someone’s shoulder.” I hope he understands.
The mess that is my mother’s uncomfortable relationship with my non-straight sexual orientation is a major part of why I haven’t told them about P#1 and don’t plan to either, in the foreseeable future. My mother would be relieved that I’m seeing a straight man and would assume that it’d mean that GLBTQI rights don’t matter to me anymore and would assume that it makes me not-queer enough to not care about GLBTQI equality. As much as she yells at me now for so much as mentioning Prop. 8 in casual conversation with family friends, it would be even worse if I told her about P#1, because she’d think that, since I’m seeing a man, Prop. 8 and homophobia have no relevance to my life.
I can’t deal with this. The Court is ruling on Tuesday.
I’m still bitter that when I organized a protest against Prop. 8, not only did my mother try to convince me that I shouldn’t and couldn’t do it, neither of my parents bothered to show up or even wish me good luck. I think that that action, right there, said everything I needed to know about how they feel about me, despite all my mother’s pretty words about how it’s okay that I’m queer. When I came out to her and my father, she said that, and then she yelled at me because she thought I was having a hard time with the conversation–”Is it so hard to talk to us about this? Are you so scared?” Yes, mother, I was scared, because your words say one thing and your actions say something completely different. You lie.
If I can’t feel safe and comfortable in my own skin with my parents, what else is left? We’ve never been close, but I guess I just need to get used to having this icy patch between us: we’ll skirt around it but never broach the topic directly, because it just won’t be productive.
A Thousand Words
*sigh* The same place where I saw this poster now has this poster up.
It’s a poster of an East Asian-looking person wearing what looks like a surgical mask and sterile gloves (an allusion to SARS? I don’t know.). Someone defaced the poster by writing “ChinK” and “Fag” and drawing an arrow between the word “Fag” and the person’s head. There are two Chinese characters on the poster and it’s unclear as to whether they were part of the original piece or added in response to the graffiti. If anyone knows what the characters mean, please let me know and I’ll edit this post.
[ETA] Thanks to OD in the comments and SYW, the characters mean “Air” and are probably a reference to air pollution and Yellow Sand. That would also explain the face mask. [/ETA]
It just makes me sad and angry, y’know? I love street art. I love how creative it can be, how it interacts with landscapes and whimsy to raise questions about public vs. private property, transience, and anonymity. And where someone put up this poster, someone else saw it as a canvas for expressing hatred.
Someone is so full of racism and homophobia, is so steeped in it as part of the garden variety background noise in their head, that when they saw a poster of someone who looked East Asian, they thought, “Chink.” It wasn’t enough to merely think it, though, they had to express their hatred by scrawling it out for everyone to see, a reminder to me and to every other stereotypically chinky-looking person that we are not welcome, that we will be judged by our presumed ethnicity, by the color of our hair and the shape of our eyes, and found wanting.
The graffiti reminds me of every time people have yelled at me, “Go back where you came from!” or played the “Where are you really from?” guessing game or opened a conversation with, “Are you Chinese?” or run around pulling slanty eyes while yelling, “Ching chong ching chong!” *
Racism isn’t just a joke. The questions, the insults, the taunts add up over a lifetime and the sum is a great big get back on the boat and go home, Chink, because you’re not welcome here.
Now for the “fag.” The poster looks androgynous to me, neither particularly feminine nor particularly masculine–it doesn’t have markers that meet stereotypical depictions of masculine or feminine presentation. Yet, it’s still got “fag” scrawled across it. So either “fag” is just a generic insult, because being gay means that you’re worth less than a straight person (or just worthless, full stop), or the vandalizer read the poster’s subject as male and the use of “fag” to deface the poster is tied to the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic stereotype of East Asian men being effeminate and therefore gay, because gay men are practically like women and that makes them worthless.
As a queer, chinky-looking woman, I say, “Fuck off.” I’m not leaving and I’ll never sit down and shut up.
*“Go back where you came from!” You mean California, you idiot
“Where are you really from?” I’m from America. Yeah, America. California. San Francisco. THE UNITED FUCKING STATES. No, really, I was born and raised in the U.S., and if I had to call any place else home, it would be Italy, so if you want to ask what ethnicity I am, that’s not the same question. Don’t assume that I’m “really” from somewhere else.
“Are you Chinese?” No, I’m not, and that’s not the way to start the conversation if you want to hit on me, jerk.
In Defense of Life
Womens’ lives, that is. Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two landmark cases that recognized that women are thinking, intelligent human beings capable of making decisions; autonomous human beings that have the right to bodily integrity, beings that own the flesh they inhabit. Women are human beings, not property, and it is their right to decide whether they’ll abort, prevent, or carry a pregnancy. No one else, not her pastor, her family, her politicians, or anti-choicers who’ve never met her, has the right to make or limit that decision.
Every year, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) introduces the Sanctity of Life Act:
H.R. 227: 1/7/2009–Introduced.
Sanctity of Human Life Act – Declares that: (1) the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human and is the person’s paramount and most fundamental right; (2) each human life begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, at which time every human has all legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood; and (3) Congress, each state, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories have the authority to protect all human lives.
I’m not linking to it,* but Broun posted this statement on Redstate:
As we ring in the New Year and begin the 111th Congress, the need to protect the unborn remains front and center in the national political debate. Each year, in keeping with my promise to my constituents, the first bill I introduce provides Constitutional protections to unborn children.
His first bill, his trademark, his symbolic opening every year, is a bill that proclaims that women have fewer rights to their bodily integrity than corpses; that women cannot and should not make decisions for themselves; that women are worthless and unintelligent. He stakes his commitment not to human rights, or fighting poverty, or helping children get a good education, or ending war, or making healthcare affordable, but to degrading and infantilizing women. Broun is a symbol of the stubbornly misogynistic anti-choice movement and their determination to destroy our rights wholesale, if we do not remain wary and committed to fighting for reproductive justice.
The 2009 Blog for Choice topic is “What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?”
My answer: Repeal the global gag rule immediately. I was hoping that Obama would do that via executive order today, as Clinton did on the 20th anniversary of Roe in 1993, or explicitly repeal the HHS rule change, but he’s failed to do so thus far.
You have to be pro-choice every day, or the anti-choicers will win. This Saturday, 1/24, the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) is staging a pro-choice, pro-GLBTQI, pro-immigrant rights rally at Market & Embarcadero, to protest the Walk for “Life” WC.* The Walk for “Life” brings tens of thousands of anti-choice misogynists to San Francisco’s Embarcadero to demonstrate against the humanity of women. The anti-choicers have historically outnumbered the pro-choicers, so please come out! There will also be a pro-GLBTQI “Pieces of 8″ performing arts street fair along Embarcadero, celebrating creativity, love, and civil rights.
* As part of general SEO strategies and not driving traffic/revenue to offensive sites, I’m not going to link to sites I find offensive. In the interests of citing and being accountable, though, I will provide enough information that anyone interested in doing so will be able to find the original post or image herself.
Protesting
One of the things I like about SF is its active activist (ha!) culture…in other words, don’t forget about the marriage equality rally this Saturday at SF City Hall. Looks like stuff is going on all over the Bay Area, nationwide, and INTERNATIONALLY O_o, actually!
I’ll be at the rally this Saturday, hope to see you there, although I doubt we’ll be able to find each other in the crowd. :/
Protest8SF: Prop. 8 Protest 11/15, 10:30 A.M. City Hall
JoinTheImpact (their servers have been overloaded, so the site might be down) is organizing a national day of GLBTQI rights protests: Saturday, Nov. 15, 10:30 A.M. Pacific / 1:30 P.M. Eastern at your city hall. There’s quite a long list of protests at the site and lots of people are stepping up to organize protests in various cities and states across the nation. Check it out – there might already be a protest in your city and if there’s not, you can start one! I think this could be really powerful. The anger and energy coming out of the GLBTQI + allies community is astounding and although it’s in immediate reaction to the anti-marriage equality bans, we can make it much bigger than that: marriage equality, a fully inclusive ENDA, a GLBTQI hate crimes act (that absolutely must include transpeople, since they are so often the victims of vicious violence that is ignored or turned into joke fodder), the repeal of DADT, insert your hopes and dreams here. This movement is our movement: yours and mine and everyone else’s. This is a big grassroots movement and grassroots movements are led by ordinary citizens-turned-activists that grab megaphones and take a step forward, leading everyone else with them.
As Redstar points out, one of the side effects of the Obama campaign and, indeed, the many political campaigns that just concluded is that there are now thousands, if not millions of people that are trained in grassroots organizing. There are people that know what a campaign needs, people that know how to organize people, people that know how to organize events, people that know how to organize publicity, people that know how to phonebank and distribute fliers and spread publicity online and go door to door and fundraise. All of these people can take their skills and turn them to social justice and civil rights causes. I got my training from recruiting volunteers in person and phonebanking for the No on 4 and No on 8 campaigns and seeing how they organized their statewide and local strategy. The Yes on K campaign did an amazing job of building coalitions with local political parties, clubs, social justice causes, reaching out to minority communities, and getting their message out in local, national, and alternative media. Years ago, I managed online and offline publicity for a nonprofit cause. I can use these tools and experiences and so can the many people that got their first tastes of activism in this election cycle. The question is how to harness their energy, knowledge, and experience for social justice causes? Personally, I’d like to get more involved in the immigrant rights movement and I’ll have to look into that. But I digress.
In my own fabulous city of SF, on Friday night there was a great, spontaneous, grassroots & netroots march from Hallidie Plaza through the Castro to Dolores Park and then back to the steps of City Hall, where drag queen Pollo Del Mar spoke and charged everyone present to go back into their communities and spread the word. I have lots of great pictures from the march and I’ll put them up sooner or later. Probably later and probably on Picasa or flickr – uploading a lot of photos to WordPress is both timeconsuming and annoying.
Upcoming protests: I mentioned JoinTheImpact at the beginning of this post, and I’ll end with them. There is a JTI protest scheduled for 11/15, 10:30 A.M. at San Francisco City Hall (google map address). The folks at Protest8SF.wordpress.com are working on organizing it: they have a preliminary to do list, fliers for publicity, and a googlegroups list serv that anyone can join to help with the organizing. If you’re in SF, check out the website to see if you can help and definitely come to the rally! If you’re not in SF, please pass the links along and spread the word.
Web organizing techniques + community organizing techniques + campaign techniques = much easier to organize social justice movements? Y/N? I’ll have to think about this.
ETA: thatonegaykid says that there is a JoinTheImpact protest 11/15 in Orange County, 1 P.M. at Irvine City Hall. Please get in touch with her (thatonegaykid.wordpress.com)to find out more!
Prop. 8 Protests
The Equality California calendar has protest events listed:
Today, Friday:
Costa Mesa
9 p.m. | South Coast Plaza
Bristol Street & Town Center DriveLong Beach
6:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Broadway and RedondoMerced
6 p.m. | Veterans Park, M Street
Contact: Leslie or Eileen, PLFLAG Merced 209.725.1140Mission Viejo
4 to 7 p.m. | 200 Civic CenterPalm Springs
5 p.m. | Palm Springs City HallSanta Barbara
5 p.m. to 6 p.m. | De La Guerra Plaza Street
700-756 De La Guerra PlazaSan Diego.
9 p.m. | Laurel and Sixth Avenue
March to City Hall (202 C)San Francisco
5:30 p.m. | Civic Center
Market and 7th to Dolores Park
Saturday
Beverly Hills
6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. | LDS Temple
10777 Santa Monica BoulevardHuntington Beach
2 p.m. Huntington Beach PierLaguna Beach – Faith has more information
5:30 p.m. | City Hall
505 Forest Avenue
Marching to Main BeachLos Angeles
6 p.m. | Sunset Junction
Silver LakeRancho Cucamonga
11 a.m. | Heritage Park
5546 Beryl Street
Please bring a chair with you! You may also bring a dish or desserts, drinks, cups, paper plates, etc. if you want.
RSVP: patrickmilliner@yahoo.comSacramento
7 p.m. | Capitol Building (west steps)
Bring Signs, Wear Protest Shirts. People from SF will be showing up at the West Steps to show support with us.San Diego
12 Noon | Hillcrest
1st & University
Marching to 30th in North Park.
Sunday
Rancho Santa Margarita
5 p.m. to 8 p.m. | Lake Santa Margarita
Santa Margarita Pkwy
Please bring candles.
Contact: teenageanthem@gmail.comVilsalia
5 p.m. | College of the Sequoias
915 S. Mooney Boulevard
March down Mooney Boulevard to Caldwell Avenue and back.
Park in Lot 3 off Meadow Lane.
Leave signs at home and bring a candle instead.
This is history in the making. This is civil rights. This is standing up and publicly showing support for GLBTQI people, marriage rights, fairness, and equality for all. Come and be present.
Yes on Prop. 8: The Aftermath
Yes on Prop. 8: the Aftermath
Yes: 5,387,939 / 52.5%
No: 4,883,460 / 47.5%
Difference: 504,479
Total: 10,271,399
I’ll put up county-specific data later.
Via Spectrum Blue, Protest 8, a blog organizing protests in SF. There’s one tonight at 5:30 at Market and 7th. Be there and bring your old window signs.
BBC Video of LAPD beating an anti-Prop. 8 protestor – via someone, I lost the link.
Faith is pulling together a list of Yes on Prop. 8 donor-run businesses to boycott. Before anyone gets all het up about freedom of speech, let me say this: I absolutely support peoples’ rights to vote yes on Prop. 8 and for any other Godforsaken, appalling initiative or campaign. I absolutely support their right to donate as much money as they like in accordance with their bigoted, disgusting beliefs. The corollary to that is that I have every right to boycott their establishments and remove my support from their businesses. This is not censorship. This is freedom of speech x 2 – their freedom of speech and my freedom of speech. There is nothing that requires me to give my money to people that turn around and give that money to causes I find reprehensible. A boycott is an act of free expression counteracting another act of free expression, and banning, censoring, or repressing boycotts is the true instance of repression and censorship.
Besides, a lot of you Yes on 8 voters are probably free market types. Boycotts in response to the political donations of businesspeople are a classic example of consumers freely exercising their abilities to choose where to take their business, after a particular establishment proves unsatisfactory. It’s the invisible hand at work! Wrap your head around that.
Pam on the Religious Right’s probable next steps. From the President of the Christian Coalition of America:
“It will be the goal of Christian Coalition to ensure that the other 20 states adopt similar amendments banning homosexual “marriages” including the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut which also had two judicial decisions, by one vote margins, legalizing these abominations.”
Robert @ Calitics: Pledge to Repeal Prop 8: Restore Marriage Equality
Via aaa, a press release from CAMPAIGN for Children and Families: they intend to make sure the initiative applies retroactively.
“Today, marriage licenses can only go to whom they were originally intended — a man and a woman, a bride and a groom. The people of California have successfully overruled the judges and politicians and restored marriage licenses to a man and a woman. Now the false marriages done this summer must be declared null and void. California law now says the only valid or recognized marriage ‘is’ between a man and a woman. The ballot arguments specify that the only marriages are between a man and a woman, ‘regardless of when or where performed.’ It is time for all Californians to respect the new marriage law, which has restored an age-old institution, whether they voted for or against Prop. 8.”
They are also pissed off about losing on Prop. 4. I will post my thoughts about Prop. 4 later.
Via Elena Perez, the CA NOW blog has two posts up on Prop. 8: Prop 8 Postmortem, Part 1: Dissecting History covers the legal arguments behind the SF, LA, Santa Clara County, Lambda Legal, and National Center for Lesbian Rights lawsuits.
“But, Meredith,” I hear you say, “this is a constitutional amendment — aren’t the Supreme Court’s hands tied?” Actually, due to the approach the plaintiffs are taking, the CA Supreme Court does have the ability to consider this. The legal reasoning behind the lawsuits is interesting, and if you live in California, it’s worth your time to understand it.
Prop 8 Postmortem, Part 2: Dissecting the Present: looking at the impact of Prop. 8 on married couples.
ACLU Press release on the lawsuits. Includes a link to request for a stay on Prop. 8.
ACLU Press Release: argues that Prop. 8 does not apply retroactively. Fortunately, State Attorney General Jerry Brown is on our side.
SFChron: Same-sex marriage issue back to state top court. More on the lawsuit. I hope to God that this doesn’t come up before the SCOTUS anytime soon and stays in the state courts. I do not trust Kennedy on this and it’s going to be a 5-4 vote at the best, with three strict constructionists and one follows-Scalia-ist on the court. Korematsu has been much on my mind of late – another civil rights case originating from California – and it stands as a stark reminder that the court is not infallible, it is not all-knowing, it is not always just, and it most certainly is not always liberal or non-partisan. If anything, Bush v. Gore should remind us all of that.
SFChron: 2,000 gather in SF for same-sex marriage vigil – article about the Wednesday protest.
Julia @ Calitics: Prop 8: Questions about what went wrong, so we can fix it for next time. I do have to say that during the campaign season, I thought the No on Prop. 4 campaign was much more organized than the No on Prop. 8 campaign, although it had much less money and much fewer volunteers (the biggest day of phonebanking for No on 4: 150 volunteers statewide. A regular No on 8 phonebanking night in October: 110 volunteers in the SF office alone.).
Dear Speaker Pelosi
What are you declaring off the table now? Progressivism? Liberalism? Reform? (SFChron)
“the new president must take the country down the middle”
In other words, women, GLBTQI, non-millionaires, vets, members of the military, and the environment: don’t bother trying to crawl out from underneath the bus. Pelosi intends to keep steering it right over our bodies.
A Democratic candidate just won the popular and electoral votes and the Democrats picked up seats in the House and the Senate, and you use your bully pulpit as a leading Democratic politician and Speaker of the House to essentially concede the strength and PR capital of those victories? Shame on you. Shame.
Sincerely,
PD
The results of CA Congressional District 8:
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage |
| Nancy Pelosi (D, Incumbent) | 126,073 | 71.6% |
| Dana Walsh (R) | 16,149 | 9.2% |
| Philip Z. Berg (Libertarian) | 4,024 | 2.2% |
| Cindy Sheehan (Green) | 29,951 | 17.0% |
Looking at those results, it appears that Cindy Sheehan got crushed in a landslide. Well, she did. However, Sheehan ran a grassroots campaign without the backing, guidance, and infrastructure of an established political party. She was a stranger to the political landscape of San Francisco, with its many political clubs, groups, and unions. She was almost completely ignored by the mainstream press, except when they wanted to paint her as unhinged, paranoid, and dare I say it, hysterical candidate on a vanity run, completely overlooking and hiding her policy goals and criticisms of mainstream Dems, Pelosi, and the media. And yet, despite all those obstacles, Sheehan received nearly twice as many votes as the Republican candidate and far more than the Republican and Libertarian candidates combined.
Cindy Sheehan received a mere 17.0% of the vote, but here’s the kicker: until yesterday, Nancy Pelosi had never received less than 76% of the vote in any general election race for Congress. Cindy Sheehan received 29,951 votes, which is more than any of the non-Dem/Repub candidates have ever garnered against Pelosi. It’s more than seven out of Pelosi’s 11 Republican challengers have ever received, including Dana Walsh. Jennifer DePalma received 31,074 votes, which was 12%, back in 2004, and in 1994, Elsa Cheung received 18%, with 30,528 votes.
It’s hard to say what will happen next and what this election means. Most likely, it means nothing as far as making Pelosi realize that a large number of her constituents are liberal and pissed as hell with her performance. As far as Sheehan is concerned, according to an email the CindyForCongress campaign sent out a few weeks ago, she’s renewed the lease on her office and is planning on continuing her antiwar advocacy work and running again in 2010. As far as I’m concerned, Sheehan’s candidacy is terribly inspirational. It’s a reminder that although this country was not founded on the ideal of participatory, equal democracy, where any citizen theoretically has the right to mount a campaign and take an active part in the governing of her society, it has evolved so far as to think that it was founded on that ideal. Sheehan reminds me of Senator Murray and former Governor Madeline Kunin, women who were just ordinary women–”just a mom in tennis shoes,” and a professor and mom that entered her first political race by accident–until they believed that they could do a better job of running their states than the people in power at the time, and went on to be great public servants and politicians.
To me, Cindy Sheehan’s campaign represents faith in the people, in the democratic process, and in participatory democracy, and a burning desire to make the world a better place. Although she lost, she put her ideals into action through her campaign and that’s fully something I can understand and get behind.
Yes on Prop. K Town Hall!
Yes on Prop. K is holding an historic town hall and discussion panel today, 7 P.M. – 9 P.M., at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin St. (Franklin between Geary & O’Farrell).
Already support Prop. K? Come out and show your support! Meet the organizers and learn about easy ways to volunteer during the days of the campaign. Undecided about Prop. K? Come out and listen to sex worker activists, criminal attorneys, public health experts, local politicians, labor activists, and members of church, LGBTQI, and neighborhood communities speak for themselves about Prop. K. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions and get answers straight from the source, unfiltered by journalists (and bloggers, heh!).
For the last century, year after year, sex workers in SF have been hounded, arrested and jailed, evicted, raped and even murdered, their children taken away. Those of us who have least – often women of color – have received the brunt of this persecution. Why has our city famed for being open minded allowed this injustice to continue? Now we can make a change and win greater protection, well-being and safety for all. Join a cross section of communities who want to make this happen!
Speakers include: sex workers and sex worker organizations, criminal attorneys Nedra Ruiz, Stephanie Adraktas, Stuart Hanlon and David Bigeleisen, Conference of Delegates of California Bar Association, Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, SF Green Party, neighborhood residents, church representatives, candidates for board of supervisor and other politicians, the LGBT community, labor representatives, and others.
- Prop K was put on the ballot by more than 12,000 San Franciscans to ensure that basic human and civil rights are extended to sex workers. It follows the recommendations of the path breaking SF Task Force on Prostitution.
- Prop K calls on the police to prioritize sex workers’ safety by vigorously enforcing coercion, extortion, battery, rape and other violent crimes.
- Prop K will end the criminalization of sex workers, many of whom are mothers trying to support their families in increasingly hard times. Criminalization traps sex workers in prostitution, increases vulnerability to violence and sets sex workers apart from the rest of the community.
- Prop K is an anti-racist initiative. Women of color are disproportionately arrested under the prostitution laws and make up the majority of women in prison.
- Prop K will not stop the prosecution of traffickers but will protect immigrant women from being targeted for arrest. According to the Public Defender, not one trafficker has been prosecuted in SF. However, many sex workers of color have been rounded up and deported.
Hope to see you there!
“I Want You To Be Nice To Sex Workers”
Last September, sex worker, pleasure activist, and artist Sadie Lune (NSFW) took first place at Tony Labat’s I Want You project at SFMOMA. As part of the contest, the five winners had their images and slogans turned into posters. I’d actually forgotten about that, but I can’t wait to see them go up all over the city. For one thing, it’s great, free publicity for Yes on Prop. K. For another, Sadie Lune’s poster looks fabulous and combines the personal, the political, and the artistic into a provocative political request:
I love that line, “I want you to stop punishing me because you can’t imagine being me.” I think a lot of the prejudice in society comes from a lack of imagination and an inability or an unwillingness to empathize with other people. That ignorance and lack of understanding results in fear of the unknown and then hostility, trying to keep the unknown as far away as possible. When it comes to sex work, that hostility manifests as criminalization, which drives sex workers underground and tries to lock them into jails, where they’re kept out of sight and thus out of mind. It’s the attitude of, “I can’t imagine being a sex worker and so I’ll punish them for making me think about it and feel uncomfortable–I’ll push them away so I don’t have to think about them–I don’t want to think about the issues and so I’ll just vote no on K to preserve the status quo.” “I want you to stop punishing me because you can’t imagine being me” looks that attitude of hostility, fear, ignorance, or just plain apathy in the face and says, “Stop. Think.” The combination of the image and the slogan says, “Stop. Think. I’m a real person, and your decisions affect me.”
“I want you to be nice to sex workers” is another powerful line, because it raises the question of what exactly it means to be nice to sex workers. How does one go about it? Does it mean being a good customer, respecting a sex worker’s rules and paying them well? Does it mean not harassing them? Does it mean not making dead hooker jokes? Does it mean supporting programs that help sex workers transition out, if they want to? Does it mean giving a damn when someone murders, rapes, or robs a sex worker and gets off with a slap on the wrist? Does it mean advocating for sex workers’ rights? Does it mean realizing that sex workers are no more a monolith than any other group of people? Does it mean not privileging the voices of non-sex workers over the voices of sex workers?
Does it mean listening to sex workers when they say what they want?
Questions, questions. The poster challenges the viewer and raises lots of questions. I love that.
Sadie Lune’s “I Want You,” video by activist, artist, and sex worker Scarlot Harlot (video NSFW):
Transcript:
[Organ grinder music]
[Applause]
I want you. I want you to listen to me, even if you think you’ve heard it before or don’t think I know how to speak for myself. I want you so bad, so bad right now–to respect me, and pay me, and understand that I do not sell myself, because I’m still here, and I’ve always been here.
I want you to know that I have your money. And your coworker’s money, and your father’s money has fed my family, and my rent, and my studies, and my habit, and my poverty, and my extravagance. And you might think that you don’t know me, but it’s more likely you just don’t know that you do.
I might want this job or hate it, but your condemnation and your ignorance and your accusations and your locking me down for my living, and your turning your back on my rape, and your knocking me off because you think no one cares, and your using me as the inhuman butt of your jokes–I want you to stop.
I want you to stop punishing me just because you may not be able to imagine being me.
I want you to be nice to sex workers. I want you, I really do. Please vote yes on Prop. K.
[applause]
———————————
I’m not a sex worker, and so although I can write about Prop. K, I’m trying to navigate the boundaries of privilege such that I don’t appropriate the sex worker activist movement or claim to speak for it. On the one hand, I’m writing about Prop. K the way I would write about any other ballot initiative–opining, navel-gazing, and analyzing–but I realize that in our anti-sex work society, my voice is privileged over the voices of actual sex workers. That’s wrong and I’m trying not to replicate that same power structure when I write, so if I fuck up and put my foot in it, please call me on it and I’ll fix it (I realize that asking for that guidance is in itself an act of privilege, but I’m not sure how else to say that I will inevitably fuck up, despite trying not to, and I welcome being told how I’ve fucked up. Perhaps the writer’s tag, “constructive criticism always welcome” would work?)
Random Silliness: 8 Homes
Renee tagged me for random weekend silliness, which was sorely needed this past weekend (I cannot wait for the election to be here, counted, certified, and over). Er, so much so that I didn’t actually get to it until the weekend was over. But Monday is a good day for random silliness, right?
Where Would Your 8 Homes Be?
List them. You don’t have to list your reasons, but if you do at least for a few of them, it would be more fun. And remember that the only rule is: the homes must be within the borders of the United States of America or else, within the borders of the country you live in, so as to utterly emulate the McCains. When you’re done, tag 8 people, so that they may join in the self-indulgence, forgetting about the crappy property market and the equivalent of The End of Pompeii on Wall-Street. You could spend your time hammering your doors and windows shut in preparation for the apocalypse instead, but it would be much less fun.
The John McCain meme was actually more difficult than I thought it would be, because most of the places I’d want to live are either abroad or where I’m currently living.
1. San Francisco, CA. I love SF, possibly more than any place I’ve ever lived before. I love the liberal culture, the activism, the street fairs, the weather, the architecture, the SOLE restaurant culture, the farmers markets, the diversity, the opera, the symphony, the walks, the neighborhoods, etc.
2. Boston, MA. I have friends there, which is the primary draw. That and the Harvard Book Store.
3. Ashland, OR. I would like to go to the Shakespeare festival. We visited years ago and it was a very cute, walkable town, with lots of trees and plants. There was also a used bookstore and an ice cream shop.
4. Hardwick, VT. Well, I guess I wouldn’t just want a flat there, I’d want to live there and participate in the SOLE agriculture-based economic revival.
5. Somewhere around Tahoe, close enough to a lake to walk there. Swimming and bathing in a freshwater lake is refreshing and the air up there is amazingly clear. There are plants and wildlife everywhere and although it’s not silent, the distinct lack of electronic humming is soothing and relaxing.
6. Hippie town, NC. I forget what it’s called, but a friend used to live in this small town in NC that’s very liberal. He’d wait tables and save up some money, then take off to go camping until the cash ran out and then he’d wait tables again. Lots of environmentalists, potheads, musicians, and artists.
7. Washington, D.C. In order to more easily attend protests and demonstrations. Honestly, mostly because I’m running out of ideas. The museums are great and free and the WNO is decent.
8. Chicago, IL. It’d be nice to have somewhere to stop over on cross-country flights. I haven’t spent much time there, so it’d be nice to get to know the city.
I tag tarigwaemir and sahiya.
Out and About: More Signage
More photos of political signage.
“YOUR VOICE VOTE REGISTER AND VOTE” advertisement on the side of a bus stop in the Mission, with the deadline for registration prominently advertised. The Mission is a rapidly gentrifying but still lower-income and predominantly Hispanic neighborhood–people that typically are very affected by politics–so I’m happy to see the SF Department of Elections making an effort to reach out to the inhabitants.
Out and About: Political Signs
A cafe window at Market and Castro.
Yes on Prop. K fliers on a pole on Market, near Embarcadero
Ferry Building Farmers Market: complete with McCain and Palin cutouts!
Ferry Building Farmers Market: opposite the McCain-Palin table, Obama-Biden (sadly, no cutouts).
Cindy Sheehan for Congress sign in an apartment window on Carl and Hilway.
I wanted photos of signs and political materials from around the city, but since I haven’t seen any No on Prop. 4 signage anywhere, here’s my window.
No on Prop. 8: Conversations with Homophobes
A few months ago, a junior high school friend friended me on Facebook. She’s one of the Mormons that is against same-sex marriage, against recognizing that everyone, GLBTQI or heterosexual, has the right to marry. Loving v. Virginia recognized that
Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” [sic] fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.
and this former classmate and her spouse exercised that civil right last year. It is remarkably hateful, narrow-minded, and selfish for someone that writes in her profile that marriage and her hubby are wonderful to deny that right and joy to someone else, based on sexual orientation. Behind all the excuses about religion, the separation of church and state, “God said marriage is sacred,” “marriage is traditionally between a woman and a man” (false), Yes on Prop. 8 is about homophobia. It’s based on the idea that same-sex couples just aren’t right, just aren’t the same as straight couples, just aren’t really in love … and even if they weren’t, recognizing their right to marry would somehow dilute straight marriages. Those ideas are homophobic. And if your straight marriage would be rendered unstable by my same-sex marriage, you have problems in your relationship that won’t be solved at the ballot box.
Last night, this junior high school acquaintance (JHSA) posted a video on FB with this note, “Please view this video of the removal of parental rights that will happen if gay marriage is legalized in CA.”
Any person with a minimal grasp of the legal framework of parental rights and marriage would realize that there is no logical connection between same-sex marriage and removing the parental rights of straight couples. Amending the state constitution to define marriage as being between a woman and a man and explicitly denying the right of same-sex couples to marry does nothing to preserve, destroy, or otherwise affect the parental rights of straight, married couples. The only possible connection between parental rights and same-sex marriage is that if same-sex couples can marry, then they will, logically speaking, have parental rights over their own children. They will not be out in the streets ripping straight, married couples’ children away from them. Since same-sex marriage has been legal since June 16, if the disaster scenarios that Yes on 8 dreams of were valid, they would already have occurred. I’m looking around and seeing a distinct lack of straight couples losing their parental rights due to same-sex couples marrying.
Not being one to put up with stupidity and illogic of this order, let alone homophobia, I commented,
Have you _read_ the text of Prop. 8? It doesn’t affect married, straight couples’ parental rights at all. It only removes the rights of same-sex couples to marry and thus codifies bigotry and prejudice in our state constitution. If you’re going to take the side of homophobia and hatred, at least do it without resorting to outright fabrications and lies.
JHSA invited me to join a Yes on Prop. 8 FB group a few months back; I declined and then wrote on her wall and politely asked her not to invite me to anymore homophobic groups, as I would be voting no on Prop. 8 and did not support bigotry and prejudice. She deleted my comment without responding, so I figured that she would probably do so with this comment as well.
Oh-ho! I woke up this morning to this gem, not from JHSA, but from one of her in-laws:
Excuse me [Pizza Diavola], but if you are going to try to resemble some form of tolerance and the higher road then make your arguments based on logic rather than personal slamming. Honestly.
I responded,
Excuse me [in-law], but if you are going to try to endorse homophobia and hatred, be honest about it. Prop. 8 codifies hatred. Is it hard for you to own up to that? Then perhaps you should reconsider your position. Honestly.
and then added,
By the way, I’m amused and appalled that a homophobe would preach about “tolerance and the higher road.” I’m sorry, I have no tolerance for homophobes that try to take away other peoples’ rights.
JHSA and family, I have no problem with you exercising your religion in your church and in your lives. I do have a problem with you extending the reach of your religion to the public square and into my life. I hate intellectual dishonesty; if you’re going to endorse bigotry and hatred, be honest about it. Say, “I believe that GLBTQI people are wrong and inferior to me, and that’s why I’m voting yes on Prop. 8.” Have the honesty to own your homophobia and stop hiding behind fear-mongering lies about same-sex marriage.
JHSA tried to convert me to Mormonism in 8th grade; I read the Book of Mormon she loaned me and politely returned it. It is appalling that she can’t grant me the same respect that I granted her.
A short message from Mayor Gavin Newsom and No on Prop. 8:
Transcript:
I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that this is the second most important election in the United States of America. Let’s not look back and say, “We coulda shoulda, woulda.” We know this is going to be close. I’ve got polls, they’ve got polls that are very good, and I’ve got some polls that have this right on the bubble. So as far as I’m concerned, this thing is a dead heat. So we are gonna have to work harder, and absolutely are going to have to work smarter, than our opponents. If we succeed, we will not only change history in California, we will change the tone and tenor of this debate across not only America, but the rest of the world. [Applause] People are counting on us. This is a big deal! This is a big deal! We have done so much, we have come so far. We have changed the way people feel and the way people view members of the LGBT community. But we have not finished the job.
Donate and help close the $10M fundraising gap between No on 8 and Yes on 8. Phone bank and talk with undecided voters. Write and talk with everyone you know, and explain why we must defeat Prop. 8.
Fight for equality. Fight for love.
No on Prop. 8: The Greatest Of These Is Love
Via Sarah in Chicago:
The election is in 26 days. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME ARGH -RUNS AROUND IN CIRCLES-
Okay, first things first. California voters: you have until Oct. 20 to register to vote. You have until seven (7) days before the election request a vote by mail/absentee ballot. If you vote absentee, you can return your ballot to any polling site or you can return your ballot by mail. If you mail your ballot, do so before Nov. 4, because it has to arrive by the end of the day, Nov. 4, in order to be counted.
Everyone else (sorry, I’m not looking up voting requirements for the other 49 states): you can find your state’s voting deadlines, forms, and contact information at Project Vote Smart’s state voter registration information page.
Read the rest of this entry »
Historic Sex Worker Campaign Event Lit Launch Party: Yes on K
Prop. K kickoff event this weekend in SF! Show up to show your support for sex workers’ rights! Info below:
Dear Friends,
This is not JUST a party or campaign lit launch. This is a crucial media event where we very much need your presence so that the public understands that we are a truly strong movement in San Francisco! Please attend if you are able.
Sincerely,
Carol LeighHistoric Sex Worker Campaign Event Lit Launch Party
Sex workers and their friends and allies will soon bring our message to the people of San Francisco. After a kick-off event featuring speeches and performances by sex workers and our allies, the Yes on Prop K campaign will hit the streets on October 4th to distribute our new literature.
This is an historic launch and a very important event. After seeing us turn out at Democratic County Central Committee and hearing from us through the campaign, many people are beginning to see that we are a thriving community and we are getting more and more organized as we join together for this historic campaign. Your support is most important for this event, to help us show our strength and passion as we work for the end the criminalization of prostitution in San Francisco.
If you want to volunteer to get the word out to invite others, please email us at propkvolunteers@gmail.com. We need help sending emails around and posting our notice around the web. But if you can’t volunteer in advance, just come down for the lit drop and we will plug you in!
DECRIM SEX WORKERS IN SF!
Saturday, October 4, 2008 1:00-2:00 (Please come close to 1:00, as many will be leaving en masse)
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St., San Francisco
(between 11th St. & S. Van Ness)Join us for the kick-off of our flyering campaign for a party in support of Proposition K! Enjoy tasty treats and good company before heading off to spread the word on sex worker safety, public safety, and public health! Join our great supporters, folks from Center for Sex & Culture, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, SWOP, US PROS, BAYSWAN, IWW, The Harvey Milk Democratic Club and many, many more.
You can RSVP or get info: propkvolunteers@gmail.com
RECENT MEDIA ABOUT PROP K
SF Chronicle’s Violet Blue praises Prop K (SF Chron)
Ballot measure to decriminalize prostitution divides liberal San Franciscoo (LAT)
KFOG Interviews (.mp3; right-click to save or click through)
The Bay Guardian is very excited abut Prop K. Listen to our discussion with the SFBG on their website. (Bay Guardian)
Yes on Prop K, Sadie Lune, Artist and Sex Worker wins 1st place at the Museum of Modern Art! (Youtube)
Seasonality: A Panegyric to Tomatoes. And Oranges. And Peaches. And Pomegranates. And Green Garlic and Persimmons and Clementines…
This summer, I didn’t cook as much as I did last winter. I’m not too surprised, since during the summer I tend to want bread and fruit rather than cooked produce, but I’m a little sad because the bounty of spring and summer will soon pass. Last year, my last fresh tomato was in November, because I picked it up at a farmers market in SoCal when I was down south for the weekend (talk about food miles!) and I made penne all’ arrabbiata with it. Most likely, the last of the fresh tomatoes will be at the end of October, less than a month and a half away. I think about that and regret every week that I didn’t cook fresh sauces and celebrate the vibrancy and flavor of fresh tomatoes. Then I remember that in March, April, and May, I ate tomatoes by the (cooked) pound, thrilled at the extra dimensions of taste they added to spaghetti all’ amatriciana.
CA Elections: Voting Requirements and Referenda
Just because it all bears repeating, I’m cross-posting this H1K entry here: CA Elections: Voting Requirements and Referenda.
In the spirit of (a) fighting voter disenfranchisement shenanigans *cough* Orange County GOP *cough*; (b) recognizing that there are many, many voter referenda on the California ballot this year; and (c) recognizing that few people do more than skim the voter guides on the night before the election, here’s a brief overview on what you can do to prepare for the November election.
1. Register, register, register. You can register to vote in California if
- You are a United States citizen
- You are a resident of California
- You are at least 18 years of age (or will be by November 4, 2008)
- You are not in prison or on parole for a felony conviction
- You have not been judged by a court to be mentally incompetent
The deadline to register for this November’s election is October 20, 2008. You can find the registration forms here at the CA Secretary of State site. You will need to re-register if you have
- moved
- changed your name
- changed your political party choice
since the last time you registered. For instance, I registered as a Democrat in New England a few years ago. When I moved to SF, I re-registered because I wanted to vote in California, rather than absentee as a resident of CT. After the state primary, I re-registered again to change my affiliation to the Green Party.
2. If you are an immigrant and have received citizenship, YOU CAN VOTE. Any letters, mailers, fliers, emails, etc. you receive saying otherwise are NOT TRUE. Just make sure that you’re registered with your current name and address, otherwise when you go to the local polling site, you might not be on the voter rolls. If you receive any material saying that you cannot vote because you’re an immigrant, regardless of your U.S. citizenship, hang onto the material and call 1-800-345-VOTE, a toll-free hotline established by the CA Secretary of State, to report voter fraud. In the 2006 elections, the GOP sent a bunch of mailers to immigrant-sounding households in Orange County, trying to mislead voters into thinking that they were not allowed to vote. That is voter disenfranchisement and a CRIME.
