In the wake of Proposition 8's passage last week, criticism against the No on 8 campaign that started before Election Day has grown. Among the frequent issues are that there was a lack of outreach to communities of color and people of faith and the campaign staff wasn't responsive to community members' concerns.

Everyone seems to agree there were lessons learned during the campaign that will be helpful in future work toward marriage equality.

As thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in cities across the state, the No on 8 campaign has stepped aside, allowing participants, who until the election had either been busy trying to defeat the measure or had chosen not to get involved, a chance to take over.

Prop 8, which eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry in California, passed with a vote of 52.3 to 47.7 percent as of Tuesday, November 11. In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter , Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a key member of No on 8's executive committee, said that as uncounted ballots are processed, the gap's likely to come down to 300,000 – that's out of about 13 million votes.

Kendell said if that's the case she would be "sick about it" and wondered, "What didn't we do?"

Kendell and Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California and another member of the No on 8 executive committee, said the campaign initially had trouble raising money from a community that didn't seem to believe there was any danger of Prop 8 passing. That was compounded by the Yes on 8 campaign's insistence that Prop 8's failure would harm school kids, and focus groups who didn't respond as well to TV ads with gays and lesbians as they did to more straight-oriented ads.

The reliance on focus groups is part of the reason why people like Robin Tyler, who along with her wife, Diane Olson, recently filed suit against Prop 8 with the state Supreme Court, say they're upset about the No on 8 campaign's failure.

In a post to the Bilerico Project blog in which she called the campaign "incredibly weak," Tyler also singled out the black community, launching into the kind of tirade that's not unheard of among some same-sex marriage supporters these days.

Immediately after the election, a CNN exit poll put support for Prop 8 by African Americans at 70 percent.

Addressing black voters, Tyler wrote, "Seventy percent of your community sided with the same kind of bigots who supported slavery ... You got in bed with your enemies, the very people who have fucked you again and again."

Outreach

Many feel a focus on the black community is unfair, and racist. Though they say blacks and other minority groups shouldn't be blamed for Prop 8's success, they also say more outreach to the communities would have helped.

Blacks make up a small portion of voters.

With a small sample base, the Field Poll determined in October that only 6 percent of the state's likely voters are black.

A larger sample base showed that 67 percent of the state's voters are white, and according to CNN, almost one of every two whites voted in favor of Prop 8.

In a joint statement with And Marriage for All, the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club said, "Given such a close race, it is neither factually accurate nor fair to blame any segments of the electorate for this outcome. It is especially wrong and biased to single out African Americans ... The sad truth is that we lost in several key segments of the California electorate," such as Los Angeles County voters and church members.

Starting in the summer, the And Marriage for All coalition began working to educate the black community about marriage equality. Andrea Shorter, the group's campaign director, told the B.A.R. that because of their tax filing status, the coalition technically couldn't work with the No on 8 campaign, "but that didn't necessarily prohibit the campaign from fashioning its own strategy for intensive outreach to the African American or other communities."

Former San Francisco Supervisor the Reverend Amos Brown, with Third Baptist Church, doesn't perform same-sex marriages at his church, but said, "I felt it was morally my responsibility" to get involved in the fight to defeat Prop 8.

Brown said Prop 8's passage should be blamed on the Mormon Church and evangelical fundamentalists whose members were largely responsible for the Yes on 8 campaign's financial success, rather than the black community.

"The 'yes' folks outspent [No on 8] and out-organized them, that's what happened," said Brown.

He said, "The No on 8 folks were not that sophisticated, and not that organized."

Luke Klipp, an openly gay member and past president of the San Francisco Young Democrats, volunteered with the No on 8 campaign on phone banking and at the polls and said he had "amazing experiences" talking to people he wouldn't have thought of as being supportive, and the campaign seemed to assume that reaching out to those people would be futile.

Klipp suggested No on 8's poor outreach efforts was more to blame for the failure than the Mormon Church. He said as he volunteered at an East Bay polling place on Election Day, "I felt like I was the first person people were hearing from directly from No on 8," Klipp said.

"We had so many leaders in the African American community on our side," Klipp said. "There's no reason we couldn't have been out there making our case and reaching out to the African American and Latino communities much, much earlier."

Luz Villa, a Latina lesbian, also did phone banking with the campaign. While she thought it was helpful, she said many other Latinos, who according to CNN voted for Prop 8 by 53 percent, were getting messages in their churches to vote for Prop 8, and the No on 8 campaign didn't appear to be joining with pastors or other community leaders to educate people.

"We didn't take that route, and I wish we would've," said Villa.

Gloria Nieto, campaign coordinator for San Jose's Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center and head of the Silicon Valley LGBT Democratic Club, organized phone banking and visibility efforts in San Jose – where support for Prop 8 was fairly strong.

Nieto, who helped produce signs in Spanish and Vietnamese, said, "I didn't see anything in different languages until way, way, way late in the game."

Kors said the campaign did work to educate other communities, especially with the help of Yvette Martinez, No on 8's political director, who was based in Los Angeles, doing work in the Latino community.

Christine Chavez, the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, who co-founded the United Farm Workers, frequently used public speaking engagements to encourage people to vote no on 8, and the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent mailers to its members.

Kors said Let California Ring, a coalition of groups associated with Equality California designed to educate people about same-sex marriage, has helped educate the black community and others since even before the No on 8 campaign began, and that effort will continue.

"Clearly, there's a lot more work to do in every community," said Kors.

Many also felt that the No on 8 campaign's ads weren't helpful, especially since they made very little use of same-sex couples. [For more on the No on 8 ads, see story on page 1.]

Shut out

Molly McKay, media director for Marriage Equality USA, noted her group has chapters throughout the state, including the Central Valley, where there are very limited LGBT structures and resources available, and the majority of voters favored Prop 8. However, she said, MEUSA, which encourages same-sex couples to share their stories, was not given a seat on the executive committee.

McKay said she's grateful for No on 8's hard work, but the campaign wasn't open to suggestions from outside.

She said the campaign was "very fear-based" and was "missing some of the heart and soul of the real-life people who were directly impacted, and they should have had a say in the decisions that got made."

"We did not feel enfranchised," McKay said. "We were just told, 'Let the experts handle it, and we'll let you know if we need you.'" She said her group's help wasn't used until the last 10 days of the campaign.

McKay said they were told by No on 8 not to have any media contact, to run everything through the campaign, and "if you want to help, do a phone bank."

Nieto said, "From the beginning, I didn't think it was going to be a good strategy to just call people, especially considering the Yes on 8 people were out walking everywhere." She said many people came to her saying "they're out walking. Why aren't we doing that?"

Nieto said she tried to share her concerns about No on 8 with the campaign, but she didn't get anywhere.

"Forget trying to get a hold of Sarah Reece," said Nieto of No on 8's field director. There was "no response to e-mails, no response to phone calls." Nieto said many people came to her also saying they couldn't get anyone from No on 8 to return phone calls.

In an e-mail to the B.A.R., Reece wrote, "With more than 51,000 volunteers and field staff, we worked hard to be responsive to the many calls and e-mails we received each day."

Kors and Kendell said that for their part, they were under an enormous amount of pressure to raise money and lacked time to respond to every contact the way they would have liked to.

Kors said the e-mails that included ideas for ads got forwarded, and everyone was open to hearing ideas, but "ultimately, you have to empower people to make decisions."

"We made a real effort to forward ideas ... but you can't implement every idea," Kors said.

Kendell said she got dozens of e-mails a day making suggestions for ads and she tried to respond to everyone, but she and Kors were "under the gun every day to raise money, return an enormous amount of media calls," and respond to requests for speakers at public events.

Moving forward

McKay said her group would probably implement town hall forums across the state in the next couple weeks, including in targeted groups such as the black and Latino communities and members of faith communities, so people can talk and express their frustrations, and coalitions can be expanded, before the momentum is lost.

Shorter said And Marriage for All's work will continue, and said the community needs "to have an honest discussion moving forward about the need to build on the coalitions" and work more to reach out to blacks, Latinos, Asians, and other groups.

As far as continuing efforts, Kendell said it's hard to build a movement and educate people in the midst of a political campaign.

"What the vote showed was that you can't do sustained work to change hearts and minds in the midst of a campaign," Kendell said. She said it's important to engage and mobilize groups such as the black community year-round, rather than just rushing for help when there's a crisis.

Kors also said more work needs to be done to build coalitions with other communities at the grassroots level, and there's a need to "dust ourselves off, go out and continue doing the work, particularly in places where the numbers weren't good," such as in the Central Valley.

But Kors also noted that, despite the campaign warning people of complacency, many in the community were reluctant to give time or money until early October, when the Yes on 8 campaign was ahead by millions of dollars in fundraising and also beating No on 8 in the polls. He estimated the campaign eventually got 100,000 donors, but it's going to take even more people, and money, to win marriage equality in the future.

Kendell agreed with the idea that the grassroots movement that's taken shape since Prop 8 passed should take over from the No on 8 coalition, which she said will still operate, but under a different, not-yet-determined name.

Kendell said the executive committee would be meeting to figure out how they might be able to assist the current movement, but "I don't feel like we need to be or should be directing that."

Kors announced Wednesday, November 12, that EQCA is launching an effort to repeal Prop 8 in 2010. EQCA is working to get more than 1 million petition signatures. For more information, visit http://www.eqca.org.

Kors said he thinks the Supreme Court case will be successful, but if it's not, he said, "I don't think there's any question this will go back to the ballot."

Openly gay state Senator-elect Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), who's responsible for two marriage equality bills that have passed the Legislature only to be vetoed by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said, "When we fight our last battle in this war is what we don't know, but we do win the war, and I say that because you can just look at the growing support from those under 35," compared to shrinking opposition from people over 65. "As the demographic shift occurs, the debate literally evaporates," he said.

Leno said Prop 8's passage is a "huge disappointment," but also a temporary setback.

"Do not lose faith," he said. "We do win. There will be equality."