National DOMA Protest

January 10 is the National DOMA Protest, a day to stand up against the Defense of Marriage Act and urge President-Elect Obama to repeal DOMA.

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) denies same-sex marriage at the federal level:

1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
2. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.

During the primary campaign, Obama pledged to completely repeal DOMA, and he reaffirmed in his Civil Rights Agenda after the election:

Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.

On January 10, people in cities across the U.S. will hold a Nationwide DOMA Protest and collect over 1,000,000 signatures urging President-Elect Obama to repeal DOMA. The nationwide goal: 1,000,00 signatures. San Francisco’s goal: 100,000 signatures! These one million signatures in support of marriage equality will be delivered to Barack Obama on his first day in office.

Join The Impact has an Open Letter to Barack Obama. On Saturday, there will be a rally at Harvey Milk Plaza (Castro & Market). Speakers will discuss DOMA and at the end of the rally, volunteers will lead groups to different neighborhoods in SF and the Bay Area to collect signatures.

PLEASE BRING (If You Can):

• 2 or more pens
• Clipboard or 8.5″ x 11″ cardboard with clip/rubber band to hold petition pages
• Printed official Open Letter to Barack Obama (PDF) and ten official petition signature pages (PDF)

We will provide these supplies for those who are unable to bring them.

After collecting signatures: We are working on a drop off location in the Castro neighborhood to drop off the signed petitions and open letter copies, along with the borrowed clipboards and pens. Please check back for more information.

What: National DOMA Protest and Signature Gathering: Collect 100,000 signatures to repeal DOMA! RSVP at Facebook
When: Saturday, January 10, 11 A.M.
Why: Show President-Elect Obama and the world that GLBTQI people and our allies support repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and fighting homophobia. Hold Obama accountable and urge him to turn his campaign promises into reality.
Where: Harvey Milk Plaza, Castro & Market (Castro Muni Stop)

Join us on January 10th for One Million Signatures to Repeal DOMA!

For more information on the nitty gritty of the petition,

Light Up The Night

On December 20th, we ask that you join us again for a nation-wide demonstration for LGBTQI rights. Candlelight vigils will be held at commercial centers in cities across the country in remembrance of the rights that once were for 18,000 marriages, and in honor of the rights that one day will be again – for EVERYONE.

Light Up The Night San Francisco
Location: Union Square San Francisco
Date and Time: Saturday, 12/20, 5 P.M. – 6 P.M.
RSVP at Facebook: Light up the Night for Equality – San Francisco and at Light Up The Night San Francisco

Come to Union Square without signs, without posters, without your voice. Bring candles (for you and to share) and plan on silently holding your candles, demonstrating your support for same-sex marriage equality across the nation. Make or buy a “2nd Class Citizen” T-Shirt and wear it in solidarity with your fellow demonstrators.

Fliers are available in English (PDF) and Spanish (PDF).

Event Information

Event: Marriage Equality and GLBTQI rights Rally
Location: San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl.
Time: 10:30 A.M. – 12:00 P.M.

The rally this Saturday will feature speakers from all parts of the GLBTQI community and its supporters, including local politicians, civil rights leaders, and religious leaders. We are committed to being an inclusive, anti-racist event. The event will be a peaceful rally in support of marriage equality and full equality, and we welcome everyone to attend that supports equality for all!

Speakers will provide perspective and action plans for restoring the rights of all people to marry, as advocated by millions of Californians including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The rally will provide our movement with a huge local network on which we can organize future protest actions.

A handicapped-accessible area will be reserved for persons with disabilities on the sidewalk in front of the City Hall steps, and there will be ASL interpreters present.

We encourage people to make signs to express their support for marriage equality and civil rights. Against8 and wistfuljane have downloadable flier designs in a variety of sizes.

Via Protest8LA, Shepard Fairey, designer of the Obama Hope poster, has generously created this image for people to use as signs and fliers:

(Click image for full size image).

We encourage people to bring video cameras and cameras to record the event. Put your rally photos up at the protestprop8 flickr and your video footage up at YouTube (and link it in the comments here)!

Fliers Available!

Heads up:

Clubcard Printing in the Castro will have english and spanish posters and fliers ready for anyone to pick-up.

If you need a specific language version please call us at 415-865-1930 or email mikew or juan
@ clubcardprinting. com

We are easy to get to on Market & 16th street between (J-line streetcar, and we are between the Castro and Church Muni stations)

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Flier DISCOUNT: Express Print has agreed to give us discounted rates for flyers. To get the discount, say that you’re copying fliers for the protest this Saturday.

For black and white: 5 cents each (100 for 5 dollars) For color: 35 cents each. The shop is located at 1410 Franklin Street (between Sutter and Fern), 94109. Phone Number: (415) 928-7865 Email: ep1410 AT sbcglobal.net

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Thank you very much to Clubcard Printing and Express Print!

More Fliers

If you want to put up fliers in any other language, email your translation and the area you plan to flier to protest8jon AT gmail .com. Requests must include translations of these phrases:

FIGHT THE HATE
Rally Against Proposition 8
More info at
Join the Impact // National Protest

Clicking on the images below will take you to the full-size PDFs.

From Nathan, Winson, and Jon:

A Japanese flier.

From Tim:

For more fliers, click this link:

Publicity: Prime Volunteer Opportunity

We have fliers in English, Chinese, and Spanish here for you to download, post online, print, and post up all over the city and your neighborhoods. Please be respectful of public and private property and avoid posting fliers on bus stops and historic lamp posts. Comment with your name and area and if you can print fliers for other people, leave your email, too. The more publicity, the better, so even if someone is already putting up fliers in your neighborhood, please volunteer!

Alamo Square – serafina (can print for others, serafinak AT gmail .com)
Ashbury Heights – Kristen
Bayview / Hunter’s Point – Raul H.
Bernal Heights – Lisa (can print for others), Sony
Castro – John, Luis, Christo
Chinatown HAVE CHINESE FLIERS
Civic Center
Cole Valley – Eva
Cow Hollow
Diamond Heights
Downtown / Embarcadero & Market area – Steve
Fillmore – Eva
Fisherman’s Wharf
Glen Park – Jennifer
Haight-Ashbury – Kristen
Hayes Valley – Todd
Japantown WAITING ON JAPANESE FLIERS
Laurel Heights – Ryan
Lower Haight
Marina
Mission HAVE SPANISH FLIERS – Lisa (can print for others)
Nob Hill – Lindsay
Noe Valley
Nopa – Briana
North Beach
Pac Heights – Kristie
Panhandle – Kristen, Briana
Polk Gulch
Potrero Hill
Presidio – Andrea
Presidio Heights
Inner Richmond – Ryan, Sarah (slgonzales AT usfca .edu)
Outer Richmond
Russian Hill/Polk St. – Kristie
SoMa – John, Todd
South Beach
Inner Sunset – led (the_jade_greene AT yahoo .com) needs fliers
Outer Sunset
Telegraph Hill
Tenderloin – Evyan
Twin Peaks
Western Addition

East Bay – Amanda, Jessica, David L., 2blackcats, Barbara, Wolfi
South Bay – Jen, 2blackcats, Melissa, Angelina
Northern Peninsula –

Academy of Art
UC Berkeley – David, Jillian
Cañada College (Redwood City) – David
CCSF – Angelina
Golden Gate University – equalitynowsf AT gmail .com
Hastings
SFSU – Eva, Chris
UCSF
USF – Ryan contacted LGBTQ caucus, Sarah (slgonzales AT usfca .edu), Lindsay

Please tell me if I’ve left out a neighborhood. It’s a long list, but this blog has gotten over 4,000 hits in less than 48 hours. There are people here living in every single neighborhood and around the Bay Area, so if you can print a few fliers and commit to putting them up, leave a comment with your email and neighborhood. Not everyone has access to a printer, so if you’d like to distribute fliers to other people to put up, leave a comment with your email and neighborhood so people in your area can get in touch. To kick things off, led is willing to flier in Inner Sunset (hang on until we can get some Chinese fliers up, though) but needs fliers. Someone want to help out?

More Fliers

More fliers from Kristen:

Right-click and save as to download the full-size version of the flier here (PDF).

Right-click and save as to download the full-size version of the flier here (PDF).

From Ryan:

Click on the image to get the full-size version of the flier.

Take these and print them, put them up around your neighborhood, leave them at stores and community centers, hand them out on the street, give them to your coworkers, friends, family, and classmates. Put the fliers on your own sites or link to them here.

Fliers Fliers Fliers!

Courtesy of JoinTheImpact and Kristen, we have fliers for publicizing the protest!

Right click to download the full-size, 8.5 x 11 version of the flier here (PDF). Download it, print it, and put it up everywhere you go. Personally, I’m thinking the bulletin boards at every one of the 432,587 coffee shops in my neighborhood could use a flier.

Black and white flier coming soon!

For the viral spread, John put together a widget version of the flier that you can share on FB and all the social networking and page-sharing sites (thanks for the reminder, John!).

Organizing: To Do

Alright folks, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to it. The protest last night was fantastic. It was a spontaneous, grassroots and netroots uprising that resulted in thousand of people peacefully marching through the streets for the cause of equality and GLBTQI rights! And the best thing is, it’s just the beginning. We, the GLBTQI and allied denizens of SF, need to raise our voices and bring our cause to national attention and make sure that everyone knows that marriage equality is about civil rights and full equality under the law!

To that end, here’s a short list of things to organize for the Nov. 15, 10:30 A.M. rally at City Hall:

1. Get permits: Edited: We are getting a permit, thank you for all your help!

2. Speakers: Edited: Thank you all for your suggestions and emails, we have a full list of people to contact for speaking and have leads on getting ASL interpreters for the event.

3. PA System: Edited: We have leads on sound systems, thank you.

4. Publicity: There are a few ways to get the word out, and to be effective we need to use all of them:

• Community Outreach: The need for publicity coincides with the outreach to all our communities. We need to contact GLBTQI organizations, political organizations, religious organizations, minority organizations, schools, etc. (any suggestions for the list? Please comment.) and ask them to contact their members. These requests for publicity and attendance are the most effective when they come from community members, so if you belong to a religious group, an activist group, a political group, etc., please talk to folks in your community about coming to the protest.

• Schools: college and high school students, particularly members of GLBTQI organizations, that are interested in volunteering with publicity or organizing – contact your organizations for publicity, put up fliers around campus, etc. If you’re interested in organizing your school’s club for publicity or have familiarity with organizing events, please check out the fliers page and spread the word with your organization!

• Fliers: We need to get fliers up and out, which is where everyone with access to a printer and a stapler or tape come in: print the fliers and put them up at your community centers, dorms, apartment buildings, coffee shops, stores, libraries, and any place where you see a bulletin board. Please be respectful of private property.  Print some fliers, put them in your bag in the morning, and stick them up as you go about your day. This is a (non-comprehensive) list of the areas that need to be fliered.

• Internet: Go viral. We need as much publicity across the internet as possible. The Facebook event is Join the Impact – San Francisco. Link to this post and cross-post it to your blogs, your Facebooks and MySpaces and Orkuts and any other social network, add it to Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Newsvine, share it on Google Reader, and get the word out! If you are familiar with MySpace and want to create a page, email me.

5. Signs/Fliers: If you’ve designed fliers and signs for any anti-Prop. 8 protests and would like to share them, please send links or emails of the designs and I’ll link/post them here.  If you would like to make signs for people to print out and bring to the protest on Saturday, please send me links or emails.

Whew! Looking back at this list, it’s not all that long or hard. If everyone does something, we can easily take care of it all. However, that’s the key thing: everyone has to do something, whether it’s tell a colleague about the protest or stick up ten fliers or ask a leader to show their commitment to civil rights and speak at our protest. This protest is for our rights, it’s for our community, and it’s about our equality and dignity as human beings, which means that we need to step up and organize!

Join The Impact: National Day of Protests, Nov. 15

The folks at JoinTheImpact are organizing a national day of marriage equality, pro-GLBTQI rights protests on November 15, on the steps of every city hall at 1:30 P.M. EST / 10:30 A.M. PST. They say,

We all come together in the month of June to celebrate Gay Pride, but few of us are even aware of why Gay Pride exists. Gay Pride is a celebration to commemorate the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Many say that the Gay Rights Movement began in 1969, which means that we are still a young movement and have accomplished a great deal in such a short amount of time. The generation that fought for us in 1969 deserves our gratitude and respect. This is a generation of amazing people who fought for our ability to hold hands in the street, to speak out against hate, to dance to our own “thumpa thump”, witness television shows with a queer cast, and come together in the streets celebrating for an entire month! This is the generation that opened the doors for us to even have a conversation about gay marriage, and this is the generation that deserves our help and our voices now. On June 27th, 1969, this generation came together in protest, jumping from closets, taking to the streets, and mobilizing in ways this country had never seen before! And what happened? The country was forced to respond. The Queer identity was forced onto the front pages and coffee tables of people’s worlds and people had to once and for all accept that we are human too!

Now, almost 40 years later we NEED to come together again. We need to show this nation that we are ONE LOUD VOICE THAT DEMANDS TO BE HEARD! We need to be one organized unit. Our gay pride shouldn’t be something we celebrate one month out of the year. Our gratitude towards the ones who came before us shouldn’t be ignored and wasted away with one party after another. We beg to be given a right that requires responsibility and commitment, yet we, as one strong community, have not proven to this nation that we deserve to be taken seriously! The gay pride parade has become a great party, but it has lost the memory of Stonewall and therefor given the nation another reason to cast us aside as irresponsible. It’s time we come together for debate, for public recognition, and for LOVE! Let’s move as one full unit, on the same day, at the same hour, and let’s show the United States of America that we too are UNITED CITIZENS [EQUAL] IN MIND, BODY, SPIRIT AND DESERVING OF FULL EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW!

On the steps of your City Hall on November 15th at 10:30am PST / 1:30pm EST, our community WILL take to the streets and speak out against Proposition 8 and all of the other pro-equality losses that we have faced in our lifetimes, in our parents’ lifetimes, and for many generations before us. WE CAN’T DO THIS ALONE! WE NEED YOUR HELP! We need organizers in every major city to work with us and get out the protest! I know you’re all tired from all of the work you’ve done for this great election year, but I’m asking for one more push! Let the country hear our voices together. Let them see that we are a strong, adamant, and powerful community that deserves equal rights, and CAN’T BE DEFEATED!

Send this post to everyone! We have one week and must react to the pro-hate votes cast against us! Let’s help our LGBTQ friends, families, neighbors, and each other to IMPACT this country with a demand for our basic human rights! Join the cause, join the voice, and JOIN THE IMPACT! [emphasis mine]

In San Francisco and all over the state, GLBTQI people and straight allies came together last night, and every night since Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, to show that we are proud members of our communities and that we will not disappear.  We will not be passive and we will not accept being told that our love is not real, that our marriages are not real, and that we should be content with a state constitution that legally defines us as inferior human beings.  Proposition 8 is a horrendous, homophobic measure that stripped away our rights, and we will not be silent.  We will stand up and show that we are a vibrant, diverse community of equal human beings and demand our rights!

It is vital that we turn out all over the state and nation and show our friends, family, neighbors, media, and politicians that we exist and we will fight for our rights! Go to JoinTheImpact.com to find out more, volunteer, and organize rallies in your own communities! On Saturday, Nov. 15, 1:30 PST, come to City Hall with your friends, families, and signs!

The turnout at last night’s rally was absolutely fantastic! Thousands of GLBTQI people, straight allies, young, old, able-bodied, disabled, black, white, Latin@, Asian, poor, wealthy, Jewish, Mormon, Christian, and atheist–all of us turned out to support one another, our community, and our rights. Our demonstration was non-violent but implacable, so let’s keep up the energy and turn out on Nov. 15 to show that we’re here and we will NOT BE SILENCED!

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