The room was intense and packed. Angry people from both sides stood up to give righteousness to their view on rather we should fight the ballot initiative coming up. Major donors said it couldn't be won and they wouldn't finance it. The leader of The Advocate said if they attempted to go for it he would destroy those who wanted to proceed. Polls showed that we couldn't win and the focus groups weren't much better. Those who wanted to proceed were neophytes and didn't understand politics. The overall tone in the opposition was that we can't win, "Not Now. Oh, Lord Not Now."
No, that wasn't this weekend's meeting in San Bernardino, California of activists discussing whether to place a repeal of Proposition 8 on the ballot in 2010. It was 1978 and it was whether to fight Proposition 6 (the anti-gay school teachers initiative) in California. Sounds familiar doesn't it.? The major leaders of the community at that time were strongly opposed to fighting Anita Bryant and State Senator John Briggs' efforts to ban gay schools teachers. After all, they loudly proclaimed, she already had initiatives that repealed LGBT civil rights law in Miami, Witchata, St. Paul and Eugene. David Goodstein, of the owner of The Advocate said he would oppose the campaign if we proceeded. Major organizations said that good ole Anita had won in Florida, Minnesota, Oregon and Kansas and that she was undefeatable. If we fought and lost what a huge setback it would be to the community. They said gay people couldn't run the campaign because we weren't talented enough or had enough experience.
Of course, a group of us proceeded anyway, unwilling not to fight and fight hard for our freedom. In order to get the money to start, the Rev. Troy Perry, the founder of the MCC Church, fasted until he raised $100,000 from the grassroots to get us started. We set up an office, disciplined ourselves, ignored the noise of protest and fought for our principles and values. It was only briefly lonely for us who decided to proceed because suddenly thousands of grassroots people joined the effort and others soon came aboard. We worked hard and ran a very professional campaign - Harvey Milk in the north and a group of us in the south.
On election night, after pulling a huge upset and defeating the initiative by 54% of the vote, we almost got knocked over by the people who opposed us who wanted to get on stage to take credit for their organizations.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Need I say more?
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