Well, it was to be expected. No sooner had Governor Jerry Brown signed state Senator Mark Leno's SB 48, the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, than the right wingers at Capitol Resource Family Impact announced that they would mount a referendum campaign to overturn the new law. The group stopsb48.com has a website up and was cleared Monday to begin gathering signatures to place a referendum on the ballot next year. According to the secretary of state's website, the proponents have only 90 days from the enactment of the law to request and receive a title and summary, print petitions, gather the required number of signatures, and file the petitions with county elections officials.
The clock is ticking, and the proponents now have only 77 days (state law allows 10 days for the preparation of title and summary). That's not much time to collect 504,760 valid signatures, but you can bet that proponents have hired signature gatherers and are mobilizing.
Equality California is sending out alerts asking for money and needs to raise $50,000 to begin its education effort in collaboration with other organizations such as GSA Network. It's going to take a lot more than $50,000, given the size of California and vast amount of work that must be done to counter the distortions and outright fabrications coming from stopsb48 about the FAIR Act, as it is known.
We met with new EQCA Executive Director Roland Palencia last week and, among other things, asked him about this referendum campaign and the fact that once again LGBT groups are on the defensive. Palencia said something telling about the anti-gay proponents: "It's important to know what their real motivation is."
We believe that the LGBT and allied communities know, like Palencia, that their motivation is to relegate LGBT people to second-class status by minimizing our contributions. Of course, this reality is obscured by the stopsb48 folks, who are attempting to whip people into a frenzy just like Yes on 8 did during the Proposition 8 campaign three years ago. You can see the same images on the stopsb48 website of "traditional" (read: opposite-sex) families and claims �" falsely �" that the new law "undermines the traditional family" �" just like the Yes on 8 campaign with its claims that same-sex marriage would harm traditional families.
The message that EQCA and its coalition partners must get out is the importance of the FAIR Act and how it will help all students, gay and straight alike. If the anti-gay groups have their way, educational materials will continue to omit LGBT people from textbooks rendering us invisible. Leaders like Harvey Milk should not be censored from the history books just because he was gay.
EQCA, GSA Network, and the other organizations involved need a strategy to combat the misinformation of the anti-gay groups quickly. In the aftermath of the Prop 8 campaign, EQCA has made progress working with the faith community. Now we will see if those efforts will pay off in increased visibility and in portions of the faith community standing with us.
Palencia told us that he wants to work with communities of color and build coalitions. That, too, is extremely important and must be accomplished if we are to be successful. LGBT issues are not issues in isolation. All of us face discrimination and bias. We must reach out beyond the confines of our comfort level. The LGBT community must work with communities of color and stand with them on issues such as immigration or health care.
The problem is it's going to be difficult to do all that while at the same time raising money to fight the referendum or to orchestrate a decline to sign campaign to encourage people not to sign those petitions.
That's the challenge that EQCA faces. It must act quickly, and LGBT people and our allies must help. We cannot be complacent this time around.