Chapter 10: This is an Effing Disaster

Chapter 10: This is an Effing Disaster

Matt Baume

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The crowd that gathered outside the California Supreme Court in May of 2008 let out a cheer that you could hear clear across the city when they got the news: the court had  just overturned the state’s marriage ban. Same-sex couples could finally marry.

What followed was a summer of sheer bliss, with 18,000 couples typing the knot. But looming on the horizon was Proposition 8. The idea that anyone could take marriage equality away was simply too painful for many people to confront.

But leaders like Kate Kendell were doing everything they could to sound the alarm. Faulty polling, lackluster fundraising, and a backwards campaign strategy were just a few of the red flags. Longtime grassroots organizers like Molly McKay were aghast to see a campaign that wanted nothing to do with them or their years of experience.

While the campaign sputtered and organizers struggled, the clock was counting down to what was looking increasingly like the end of marriage.

Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Chapter 9: Zero Regrets

Chapter 9: Zero Regrets

Matt Baume

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Gavin Newsom was mayor of San Francisco for just one month before he pissed off the President of the United States.

But that was the goal. After President George Bush called for a constitutional marriage ban in his State of the Union, San Francisco’s newly-elected mayor racked his brains for an appropriately defiant response. He was sure he’d hit on the perfect solution: let gays and lesbians marry.

To his surprise, the plan encountered strong resistance from queer leaders, including those within his own staff. The timing was wrong, they told him; it was too risky; as a straight man, it wasn’t his fight.

But he stuck to his guns, and soon there were lines of same-sex couples ringing San Francisco City Hall, broadcast internationally and propelling marriage equality into the spotlight.

Then came the backlash, both in the form of more marriage bans across the country and repercussions to Newsom’s career. Was it worth it?

“It's never the right time to do the right thing when it comes to politics and politicians,” he told me years later. “Which means it's always the right time to do the right thing.”

Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Chapter 8: You’d Think They Had Won

Chapter 8: You'd Think They Had Won

Matt Baume

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March 7, 2000: Election night. Proposition 22 had just passed by a landslide, banning marriage equality for same-sex couples across California. So why were the gay and lesbian couples at the No on 22 headquarters celebrating?

Campaign Manager Mike Marshall knew from the start that the odds were stacked overwhelmingly against him, but he hadn’t realized just how badly until he was deep in the campaign. (It probably should have been a warning sign that he was the only one who applied for the job to run it.)

In 2000, marriage equality advocates weren’t just out-gunned and out-financed — they barely even existed. Disorganized and exhausted by the AIDS crisis, the LGBT community had zero infrastructure in place to fight for marriage.

But if anyone could change that, it was Mike. He’d come out as gay while working in Eastern Europe for an organization that builds political infrastructure in countries decimated by the collapse of the Soviet Union. If he could help rebuild Romania, how much harder could it be to organize a bunch of California queers?

Mike adopted a strategy that, at the time, sounded nuts: winning the election wasn’t his top priority. Instead, the campaign would provide cover to build statewide infrastructure so that they could run again, and hopefully win, a decade later. 

But explaining the secret plan to an incredulous community wasn’t going to be easy.

Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Chapter 7: There’s No Marriage Without Engagement

Chapter 7: There’s No Marriage Without Engagement

Matt Baume

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Banning marriage in California wasn’t just a political ploy for Senator Pete Knight. It was personal.

His brother had died from AIDS-related illness. His son David had come out of the closet in 1996. 

“I don’t know how these things happen,” Pete Knight told a reporter who asked about his family. “I don’t know how it happened to my brother, and I don’t know how it happened to David. I don’t know how you explain it.”

And so he put fourteen words before voters: “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

At the time, there was virtually no state leadership in California to stop him. But there were some scrappy grassroots organizers who could at least put up a fight: Mark Levine, who employed sly stagecraft in Los Angeles to give the appearance of a unified front. And in San Francisco, there was Molly McKay and Davina Kotulski, turning heads as they rode down Market Street on a motorcycle in full wedding garb.

They may not have been able to marry yet. But they were ready to get engaged — not just with a person, but with a movement.

Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/