J Davis Standing Next to a Mountain: Big Issues (CA Marriage Equality)
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This is my presentation for the 10 NTC session entitled "Standing Next to a Mountain: How Do We Tackle the Big Issues?" I tend to rely on images rather than text in presentations. If you'd like the version of my presentation with my notes, shoot me an email at jay at eqca.org.
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J Davis Standing Next to a Mountain: Big Issues (CA Marriage Equality)
- 1. Restoring Marriage Equality in California Jay Davis Online Community Director, EQCA
- 4. Suggesting a Path Forward “Every day without marriage equality is another day that couples and families go without the respect, dignity and rights they deserve. We believe it is essential that we select an election and build a campaign for that election. We believe the 2012 election gives us the clearest path to victory.”
- 7. Organize Flickr: Andy.Birkey Flickr: Klearchos Kapoutsis’
- 8. Gay Marriage? Boring. Flickr: Mike Licht, NotionsCapitol.com
- 10. Shape the Debate Dan Nickhinson
- 12. Thank you!! “I have tasted freedom. I will not give up that which I have tasted. I have a lot more to drink. For that reason, the political numbers game will be played. I know the rules of their game now and how to play it.” -Harvey Milk, 1973 jay@eqca.org @jay_EQCA
Editor's Notes
- Prop 8 passed. It was awful and sad. I spent 16 hours talking to people in Fremont on the way to the polls, got in the car and listened to Obama’s acceptance speech as I was crossing the bridge back into SF, fell asleep tense, woke up the next morning and cried. People protested across the state, including me, marching all the way along the waterfront and back to Civic Center. I still have my sticker. Then EQCA created my position and I applied. Now here I am. The post-Prop 8 world in California is much different from what was here before, big time. New groups have sprung up. More people are motivated to take action than ever before. Everyone wanted to repeal Prop 8 immediately, including us.
- There were a lot of disenchanted, unhappy people following the loss of Prop 8. We had a lot of fences to mend. The org had been getting criticized sharply on a number of different blogs before I joined. When I came in they asked me what to do and if they could just ignore it. I said no, let’s join the conversation, right where it is at. We did, and it got better surprisingly quickly. Looking back, I don’t think the most important part of it was what we said. I think it is the symbolic nature of joining conversations in progress as a participant. With all the hurt feelings following the Prop 8 loss, giving people the power to call us down helped repair the damage. Had this conversation happened five years ago, it probably would have happened through traditional media, and it would have been a very different conversation with a harder resolution that was a longer time coming. If you find yourself in a tough place in your movement or community, be a participant. Let conversations happen, join them and learn from them. Criticism is a chance to grow. When you have a divide, fix it before moving forward on your issue.
- Next we had to figure out how to win on our issue. We talked with consultants and experts, our supporters and our peers with other organizations. We held town halls around the state. We poured over the research. We concluded that the best option was to plan for 2012. Voter turnout be more in our favor. Donors would be more able to give with the recession (hopefully) over. We really needed to do more work on the ground to convince voters that weren’t yet with us. And we knew it would be much easier to win them over between elections than it would be in the midst of a heated political campaign.
- With our 2012 announcement, we started soliciting input more often, with social networking and other online mediums as a primary place where these conversations happen. We held a well-attended livestream the week of the 2012 announcement that was attended by over 120 people and had a Q&A of between 60-90 minutes. Once a quarter we now have some kind of online event – livestream, roundtable, etc. – where people can hear what we are doing to build support for marriage equality, ask questions and share ideas. We’ve also started leveraging social networking more as a place to bring supporters into strategy. We’re just wrapping up a week of asking people questions on messaging about marriage, via Facebook, Twitter, a web form, an online roundtable and three live roundtables. Responses are being tabulated. The messaging ideas given to us that are the most promising will be tested this year through our field program, direct mail and other means. (The post above got 70 comments.) If you’re working on breaking down a big issue, don’t be afraid to use supporters, volunteers, etc. to check your gut on the best way forward, at the very least. Testing an idea with an audience on social networking or through other means can help you spot problems, make course corrections and develop a stronger plan. And an engaged audience is much more ready to take action on your issue and feel positive about outcomes.
- We had our big goal: a winning campaign in 2012 by convincing 300,000+ voters to change their minds on marriage. That left us with three years in which to build support for marriage for same-sex couples. It can be helpful to have a critical date to work towards, but even if you don’t have that for your issue, you’ve got to set do-able near term goals that build up towards your larger goal. These goals should be built with the input of those who will help you to carry them out, and you need to share the goals you’ve set and report back often. I’m going to center the rest of my presentation on my goals for the next year, roughly.
- The 2008 elections saw some big changes to organizing campaigns. While we’ll never have the Obama campaign’s budget, allowing more bottom-up organizing and using the power of the web to connect people quickly with the campaign and situate them into roles that have an impact are lessons well learned. We’re in the process of beta-testing some new online organizing tools being developed by Civio, a company started by some of Obama’s campaign techies in California, with a Bay Area test planned to start soon. Our massive field campaign, which is spread across nine offices and has had more than 709,000 conversations in the past year, needs volunteers and an easy way to plug them in. Our online organizing tools will also let people self-organize their own teams – allowing people to try out their own ideas and making it possible for people in areas where we don’t have organizers to work with us in building support in their area (phone from home, canvassing, etc.). We’re also working on improving the experience of new volunteers with our website and web presence. The organization historically hasn’t been as dependent on continual volunteer labor, so this is a big shift. We’ve grown quite a bit over the past year (VAN integration, social networking, etc.), but there’s still some room to improve. Which brings me to another point about reckoning with a big issue: plan ahead. If you know you’ll need online infrastructure for a hectic campaign in two years, build it now and be used to using it well in advance. You might feel like you can’t take the time to plan, but the reality is if you don’t, you’re going to have problems to fix down the road.
- When you’re tackling a big issue, scan for assets. California is unique in that gays married here. We’re in the process of creating a large speaker’s bureau composed of same-sex couples who married before Prop 8 passed. The point? To show people how boring gay couples are. When people see the similarities to other families they know, they stop worrying about the impact same-sex marriage has on society. These couples will also help to make the case for why civil unions aren’t enough – a case that hasn’t been made sufficiently to a lot of people who aren’t yet with us. We’ll be leveraging the couples online as well as in person, primarily through longer-form communications like blogging and video. We’ll share their stories via social networking and encourage people to use the stories to reach out to people they know who don’t yet support marriage equality. We may also use them in online ads and other online media. We’re also planning out some other online efforts to move moveable people. Our partner Freedom to Marry just released a meta-study bringing together years’ worth of data, and like I mentioned earlier we’re doing some message testing. We’ll base some new efforts on that intel.
- Sometimes the best tests of our ability to achieve our goal are brought about by things outside of our control. The federal case against Prop 8 was filed stealth just a few days before the CA Supreme Court ruling. It took a lot of people by surprise. We were the first organization to file a brief in the federal case against Prop 8. We’re not a party in the case, but we are heavily vested in its success. We also want to keep people’s energy up around repealing Prop 8 – if the federal case fails, or if it takes a while to work its way up through the courts, we have an initiative campaign to win in 2012. And if the court case comes through first, we want to create the kind of environment where the court can feel comfortable releasing its ruling, through building support. We’ve got close to 100,000 signatures for a petition we started asking the Obama administration to file a brief asking the court to overturn Prop 8. We’re planning to submit those signatures when the case goes up to the Ninth Circuit, as that will be the next chance for additional parties to file briefs. Something will always arise that you didn’t plan for. It may be major. It may be minor. Regardless, you’ll need to figure out how it fits into your plan. Be flexible and be sure to think through how the development impacts you, and you it. Ideally, you’ll be able to make it into an opportunity that will benefit everyone.
- We’re also doing some work to shape the debate. Last year we passed a bill establishing Harvey Milk Day in California. This bill encourages schools to conduct appropriate commemorative exercises and creates a way for communities to remember and talk about Milk. One of our opponents’ favorite stories to tell is how same-sex marriage corrupts children. By creating tools to talk about same-sex couples with kids, we’re working to take this piece of the argument away from them. We’re also sponsoring a bill this year called the Civil Marriage Religious Freedom Act, which clarifies that clergy are not required to solemnize any union that goes against their faith. Another favorite argument of our opponents is that allowing same-sex marriage will take away religious freedom and force clergy to violate their faith. This bill is giving us a chance to talk about clergy who are supportive and to take another argument away from opponents. Both of these bills have online components. The Harvey Milk Day online efforts are still in planning stages for this year but will likely center around helping supportive parents and families reach out to other parents and families to be more supportive of LGBT rights. The Civil Marriage Act is something we’ll use as a hook to reach out to communities of faith online (via blogs, etc.). Take the time to play out the longer-term debate in your head, and figure out where you’ll need to be 12 months, 24 months, 36 months from now. What arguments will you need to counter? What perceptions will you need to change? Do these things need to happen in phases? A 3-year plan will almost always shift along the way, but there’s still value in drawing it up.
- Anything worth doing usually takes a long time to do. We’ve lost 31 initiatives on marriage in almost as many states in 12 years. It’s agonizing. Remember, it’s a BIG issue. It’s going to take time. In 2004, we lost 13 times in one election, with votes as high as almost 80 percent against our equality. Now, though, in California, Maine and other places, we’ve already made it into the low 50s. I strongly believe that within the next few years, the tide will start to turn. I still have my sticker from Nov. 4, 2008. I’ve taped over it with clear packing tape several times to preserve it. On tough days I take it out of the drawer and stare at it for a while. I strongly believe we can and will restore the freedom to marry. It’s a long road, but one we can travel.