Wednesday’s decision by the state’s largest gay rights group to wait until 2012 before trying to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage makes perfect political sense. The problem is, for many people, marriage equality is anything but a political issue.
Equality California backed up its announcement with a 32-page report showing why it would be a bad idea to put a gay marriage amendment on a 2010 ballot. The poll numbers haven’t budged since the last election, raising the $40 million to $50 million needed for a successful campaign will take time and political consultants, polled by Equality California, agreed that November 2012, with President Obama running for re-election, will bring out the voters most likely to support a same-sex marriage initiative.
The reaction to that tightly reasoned argument could be seen on the Equality California blog.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong,” was one comment. "Cowardly,” was another. "Shame on you,” said a third.
"We are extremely disappointed, but not surprised” by the decision, said a statement from the grassroots gay-rights group "Yes! on Equality," which already has taken the first steps toward putting a marriage equality initiative on the November 2010 ballot. "The ‘Coalition for 2010′ will be moving forward and will win back marriage equality next year.”
The Courage Campaign, a progressive political group that fought against Prop. 8, also is moving ahead with plans for a 2010 initiative.
"We want to win, and we think we can do that just as well in 2010 as in 2012, so why wait?” Rick Jacobs, the Courage Campaign’s founder, said in an interview Wednesday with the Queer Town blog at the LA Weekly.
The reaction shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s followed the same-sex marriage battle. Equality California members themselves voted overwhelmingly last May to get back on the ballot as quickly as possible.
The huge demonstrations that took place across California in the weeks after Prop. 8’s victory were less political rallies than cultural crusades. Opponents of the marriage ban blamed the election results on the political consultants who ran their campaign and argued that a grassroots effort that focused more on gay and lesbian families would have been a winner.
Facing a hall jammed with angry gay rights activists in Los Angeles last January, even Geoff Kors, the head of Equality California, shook his finger at the campaign effort.
"The biggest mistake is we turned everything over to professional consultants, and we would never do that again,” he said.
But now Kors and his allies are stuck with trying to convince those activists that they should hold off on a new marriage equality effort because, well, that same group of much-despised consultants says they should.
Ron Prentice of ProtectMarriage.com, the umbrella group for the gay-marriage ban, gleefully called the selection of a 2012 target date, "a crass political decision” that wouldn’t change the end result.
"They will lose (in 2012) just as surely as they would in 2010 or any other year,” he said.
For the gay and lesbian community, it’s now a question of passion versus politics. Activists have to weigh the extremely potent political arguments for waiting until 2012 against the grassroots passion, support and momentum that’s behind a 2010 campaign for marriage equality.
There’s going to be plenty of quiet – and not so quiet – discussions in upcoming weeks as the state’s many and varied gay rights groups try to hammer out an agreement they can all agree with.
But all the power is with the 2010 election crowd. If any group manages to collect enough signatures to put a same-sex marriage initiative on the ballot next year, all those thoughtful arguments for a 2012 campaign go straight out the window.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.