Protest8SF is a blog for publicizing and organizing the San Francisco Join The Impact events. We started on November 8, 2008, to organize the Nov. 15 San Francisco protest, part of the National Day of Protests against anti-GLBTQI propositions in California, Arkansas, Arizona, and Florida. We are currently planning the Day Without a Gay (Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, & Straight Allies) demonstration for 12/10, 6:00 P.M. at 24th & Mission, and the Light Up The Night candlelight vigil for 12/20, 5:00 P.M. at Union Square.
For more information and to volunteer for upcoming events, join the protest8SF listserv (googlegroups, open membership).
The header is a photo I took at the protest against Prop. 8 in SF on Friday, 11/7.
Join The Impact SF: Defend Equality, Love Unites! 
Please tell me this is not being run by the same poeple who botched the No on 8 campaign.
I’d appreciate it if you’d write me back, or better yet, put a public message on your Website.
Kathleen, I volunteered with No on 8 but have no professional affiliation with them. The Join The Impact event is entirely grassroots- and volunteer- driven.
Additionally, it’s a lot easier to criticize than it is to do something–so whatever the flaws of the No on 8 campaign, I would appreciate it if you would stop attacking them here. I’m aware that there are areas where they could have significantly improved their campaign, but I don’t think it’s productive to decry the work of the hundreds of volunteers that gave up their time, energy, and money to work with the campaign.
Let me know how I can help…communications…getting the word out..etc…thanks for doing this!!
Just made t-shirts:
http://www.cafepress.com/motherdeuce/6177450
Hi Stephen, right now, we could use help w/publicity (putting up fliers, distributing fliers, contacting the media, making the protest go viral online) and especially with getting speakers. Outreach to minority and religious communities is particularly important – do you know of any groups, organizations, or people we could get in touch with? We’re keeping track of everything at the list serve, so please join us: http://groups.google.com/group/protest8sf
Thanks Abby, I’ll put up a link.
You left out the Diamond Heights and Twin Peaks neighborhoods–very gay!
Do you need nurses? Sevral of us would be glad to help out! Thanks Mike
I think a fruitful opportunity for a protest is coming up on January 24th. The Archdiocese of San Francisco (which did outreach to the Mormon church) organizes an anti-choice march every year in San Francisco.
If any of you have ever gone to this march, you’ll see lots of messaging aimed at the queer community, even though the ostensible purpose of the march is to criminalize abortion. The march is multi-purpose, basically. It’s also used to shore up anti-gay attitudes.
Lots of different groups involve themselves, and, given the lead time, I think a big counter response to Prop 8 could and should be a part of Jan 24th. Many of the supporters of Prop 8 will be on hand.
Organizers, if you are interested in getting the names of folks who are spearheading the organizing, let me know…
See below for todays SF Chronicle story about the organizing between the Catholic church and the Mormon church:
Monday, November 10, 2008
(11-09) 20:02 PST — Months before the first ads would run on Proposition 8, San Francisco Catholic Archbishop George Niederauer reached out to a group he knew well, Mormons.
Niederauer had made critical inroads into improving Catholic-Mormon relations while he was Bishop of Salt Lake City for 11 years. And now he asked them for help on Prop. 8, the ballot measure that sought to ban same-sex marriages in California.
The June letter from Niederauer drew in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and proved to be a critical move in building a multi-religious coalition – the backbone of the fundraising, organizing and voting support for the successful ballot measure. By bringing together Mormons and Catholics, Niederauer would align the two most powerful religious institutions in the Prop. 8 battle.
Ironically, it made San Francisco, center of the nation’s gay community, a nexus in the fight against the recently gained gay right to marry.
This Catholic-Mormon alliance was part of a broad pattern that underscored a critical difference between the rival campaigns: Yes on 8 sought to marshal support among many religions, while the No on 8 campaign often put religion on the sidelines.
“People of faith, really of every faith, believed that marriage was between man and a woman,” said Frank Schubert, political consultant to the Yes on 8 campaign. “They formed the core of our volunteer operation. They were largely responsible for the 70,000 contributions we got.”
Some clergy within the No on 8 campaign believed not enough respect was paid to religion.
“Their focus really wasn’t upon communities of faith,” said the Rev. Roland Stringfellow, who works with the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and was an active organizer in the No on 8 campaign. Stringfellow said No on 8’s relative neglect of religion had a particularly profound effect on Latinos and African Americans, who hold strong religious views. “I really didn’t note particular outreaches to communities of color.”
xit polls data
Exit polls show that religious views had a profound effect on the result, spanning racial lines:
— 84 percent of those who attend church weekly voted yes.
— 81 percent of white evangelicals voted yes.
— 65 percent of white Protestants voted yes.
— 64 percent of Catholics voted yes. Catholics accounted for 30 percent of all voters.
A late push by many churches to win over their congregations played a decisive role in increasing turnout and swaying opinion, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, who analyzed the figures.
The last Field Poll, conducted a week before the election, showed that weekly churchgoers increased their support in the final week from 72 percent to 84 percent. Catholic support increased from 44 percent to 64 percent – a jump that accounted for 6 percent of the total California electorate and equivalent to the state’s entire African American population combined.
The shift in Catholics alone more than accounted for Prop. 8’s 5 percent margin of victory.
“The Sunday before the election is just a very influential time for churchgoers,” said DiCamillo. For religious conservatives, “there was a lot of interest and attention and concern on this whole issue, but they brought it to a big conclusion on the final weekend.”
Stringfellow, who organized No on 8 religious events in the East Bay and San Francisco, said the No on 8 campaign’s talking points initially didn’t have language to address religious groups. In addition, he said, No on 8 campaigners were told by strategists not to discuss children, an issue that has particular significance for family-oriented religious groups.
issed opportunities
Stringfellow believes the campaign was afraid it would get smeared by allegations tying homosexuality to pedophilia. But he believes it was wrong to avoid the subject of children because gays and lesbians are just as capable as straight people of being good parents. “When the Yes on 8 folks talked about children, we really didn’t have anywhere to go with it,” he said.
Stringfellow said the No on 8 campaign was wrong to downplay lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples in advertisements. “It’s not going to be normalized if you hide over here in the corner,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with talking about love between two individuals.”
The future for the religious coalition that supported Prop. 8 is unclear.
“I don’t know if it could be assembled again,” said Schubert, the Yes on 8 consultant. “It came together because of the unique nature of marriage, and how it carries across every ideological and theological boundary.”
Mormon church members undertook a perhaps unprecedented mobilization, contributing an estimated 40 percent of the individual donations made to the Yes on 8’s $30 million-plus campaign. Yet the Salt Lake City church, which did not contribute to the campaign, sees its involvement in politics as unusual.
“I don’t think there’s any sense in the church that this coalition has more life beyond this one issue,” said Mike Otterson, a church spokesman. “We haven’t created a permanent alliance of churches here. What we did here was we came together to protect traditional marriage.”
E-mail Matthai Kuruvila at mkuruvila [at] sfchronicle.com.
As a veteran of the Briggs Initiative campaign in 1978 (No on 6), I am thrilled and amazed by this nationwide day of protest. (I am also jealous of the social networking tools you have access to. Wish we had had them back in the day; it sure would have made things easier.)
As for the criticism of No on Prop 8, the leaders (not the volunteers) they will have to answer for the piss poor campaign that they ran. This, however, is not the time or place to analyze what the leaders did wrong, but instead it is our chance to move the struggle forward.
See you at City Hall!
I’m setting up a similar site for the LA rally (protest8la.wordpress.com) and because we’re in a time crunch and because I really like what you guys put together I’m more or less copying what you guys have done here. I hope you take this as flattery and recognize the need for speed and know I’m not trying to step on anyone’s toes.
Anyway, whoever put the site together, I’d love to have just a couple of minutes to pick your brain – I’m a software engineer but unfamilar with the WP system and more used to working in the back end than the front end. In particular I could use some help replicating your CSS – I think it would show great solidarity if our sites looked even more alike, actually. Please drop me a line as soon as you can. Thanks!
Your 8 1/2 x 11 inch “National Protect Against Prop 8” promotional mini-billboards installed and maintained along the public right-a-way and attached with adhesive tape to traffic signal poles, and public and private utility poles, is a blatant trespass and harmful misuse, incompatible with our community goals and aesthetic standards and recognized by law as a public nuisance and criminal misdemeanor in particular instances. Your signs are not just illegal; they are more intrusive than junk mail or Internet spam. Like litter and graffiti they visually pollute and degrade our urban landscape; in so doing you victimizes the entire community. Furthermore your signs set an example others emulate, thus perpetuating blight and disorder while diverting our limited municipal resources to maintenance and code enforcement.
Please place your promotional material on neighborhood doormats and on bulletin boards in markets, coffeehouses and Laundromats. In addition place an ad in local newspapers and utilize the Internet such as CRAIGSLIST. While these alternatives may prove more expensive or time consuming, they are effective, more importantly, they do not infringe on the rights of others, blight our community, deface and / or damage property and violate the law.
Surely we must each realize that the methods we employ are far more important than the objectives we seek to achieve, since we must all live with the methods whereas one’s personal objectives may not be realized or be merely short-lived. If you grasp this simple fact you will see the significance of protecting community interests above that of advancing our own particular self-interest.
CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE, ARTICLE 2, SECTION 556: UNLAWFULLY PLACING SIGNS ON PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROPERTY: It is a misdemeanor for any person to place or maintain, or cause to be placed or maintained without lawful permission upon any property of the State, or of a city or of a county, any sign, picture, transparency, advertisement, or mechanical device which is used for the purpose of advertising or which advertises or brings to notice any person, article of merchandise, business or profession, or anything that is to be or has been sold, bartered, or given away. SECTION 556.1: It is a misdemeanor for any person to place or maintain or cause to be placed or maintained upon any property in which he has no estate or right of possession any sign, picture, transparency, advertisement, or mechanical device which is used for the purpose of advertising, or which advertise or brings to notice any person, article of merchandise, business or profession, or anything that is to be or has been sold, bartered, or given away, without the consent of the owner, lessee, or person in lawful possession of such property before such sign, picture, transparency, advertisement, or mechanical device is placed upon the property. SECTION 556.3 PUBLIC NUISANCE: Any sign, picture, transparency, advertisement, or mechanical device placed on any property contrary to the provisions of Section 556 and 556.1 is a public nuisance. SECTION 556.4. For purposes of this article, information that appears on any sign, picture, transparency, advertisement, or mechanical device such as, but not limited to, the following, may be used as evidence to establish the fact, and may create an inference, that a person or entity is responsible for the posting of the sign, picture, transparency, advertisement, or mechanical device. (a) The name, telephone number, address, or other identifying information of the owner or lessee of property used for an activity or event, or other identifying information of a sponsor or promoter of a sporting event, concert, theatrical performance, or similar activities or events.
Thank you for the kind heads up, Eugene. Our website already asks people to put up fliers in the types of areas that are permissible:
I have edited the website to emphasize, “Please be respectful of private property.”
If you would like to promote the protest on Craigslist and put ads in newspapers, please do.
thanks for all your efforts. If I may suggest, let’s start having signs depicting gay families to show the voters that eliminating same-sex marriage hurts children as well as the adults. Yes on 8 logo was brilliant, let’s turn their argument on its head!
Hello Good People,
My partner and I want to attend the ralley. We have a 10 month old son. Will this ralley be a safe place for children?
The event will be a non-violent, peaceful rally in support of marriage equality and full equality, and we welcome everyone, single, married, in a relationship, and families with and without children. It will be safe, but I suggest arriving earlier rather than later to get a good spot.
Hi there –
I’m doing photo coverage of the day– any way I can get in touch with organizers to document the getting ready process before the event? Thanks!
yes, please check out the signs on my blog
http://www.against8.blogspot.com
there are lots of great poster designs, pass them along to your friends!
Does anyone know how many people is expected at this protest this saturday? I dont want to drive all the way to SF for a flop??
Arg, where was this protest BEFORE the election? Sigh…
I’ve just returned from the protest at city hall. While it was great to see such a wonderful turnout I am feeling a lot of frustration at the event organization. We worked our way fairly close to the stage, but we still couldn’t hear the speaks. (Our exact position was at the front of the trees, not far from the stage at all.) If we’re going to have rally’s such as this, can’t we at least get a halfway decent speaker system? Are we THAT unorganized?? We gave up and left, and as we were leaving we noticed as many other people leaving as were heading to the protest.
Today was amazing. I’ve marched with ACT UP and Queer Nation but this – this was joyous and wonderful. I love my people! and we’re not alone – there is so much support from the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, the Mexican-American Legal Fund. And best of all – Wanda Sykes came out of the closet at a rally in Vegas!
Please let the community know for the next rally if funds are needed to rent a better sound system. We are here to help.
Standing near the trees in the shade on a warm day, my friends and I could not hear any of the inspiration from the people speaking. We could only clap when the people near the stage clapped knowing we needed to be involved with the protest.
A construction company in Walnut Creek, CA, called Critical Solutions donated a significant amount of money for the passage of Prop 8. Take a look at their clients below. Do you really want your municipality to support this company? I say NO ON H8!!!
The Asian Art Museum Foundation
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
Berkeley Central Library
CD Federal Credit Union
City of Alameda
City of Antioch
City of Burlingame
City of Fremont
City of Hercules
City of Lafayette
City of Lincoln
City of Milpitas
City of Moreno Valley
City of Morgan Hill
City of Redding
City of San Mateo
City of San Ramon
City of Santa Clara
City of Sunnyvale
City of Walnut Creek
City and County of San Francisco
Contra Costa Library
Levy Design Partners
Oakland Museum of California
Port of San Francisco
San Francisco Arts Commission
San Francisco Unified School District
San Jose/Evergreen Community College
Severson & Werson
Shasta County
Sonoma Valley Library
Windemere BLC
“CSI has been an invaluable resource to the SFUSD. I recommend CSI in the strongest possible terms and without reservation.”
John W. Bitoff, Executive Director, SFUSD Facilities Management
Hey everyone, Join the Impact is proposing an event called Take A Stand to protest DOMA nationwide on Jan. 10th, 2009. This is a really pivotal protest we need to organize quickly to get in on it. I haven’t heard any news in SF about this being organized yet?? I don’t live in SF city so I can’t promise anything other than my attending for sure on that date. Please let me know if anything is being organized or if we need help, I can see what I can do! -Blythe