Gays Plan Election Offensive

The director of the country’s leading grass-roots gay and lesbian coalition rallied nearly 2,000 activists at a national conference Friday in preparation for a bruising battle over same-sex marriage and domestic partner benefits on California’s 2006 state ballot.

Flashing a grim map of defeats on the gay marriage front in the last two elections -- most recently the sweeping passage Tuesday of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Texas -- National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman cast the coming fight as one of basic rights.

“It’s time to stop running away from the moral values issue and seize it and go on the offensive,” he said to rousing applause. “Let’s start by claiming our moral values -- liberty and personal freedom for all.”

Behind the scenes, a coalition that includes the NAACP, the United Farm Workers, more than 250 clergy, and dozens of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations has already begun door-to-door campaigning and street corner canvassing to take the gay and lesbian equal rights message to neighbors, churches, PTA meetings and backyard barbecues across California.

The groups are countering a multipronged effort to bring at least two ballot measures to voters next year. The initiatives would amend the state Constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman while undoing many of California’s recently granted domestic partner rights and obligations on issues of property, custody, healthcare and more.

One measure could also pave the way for the types of restrictions on gay adoption and foster parenting that have recently been proposed in more conservative states.

In California, the ProtectMarriage.com coalition -- supported by the national Focus on the Family and Family Research Council -- has submitted 200,000 signatures and has 300,000 additional petitions in circulation to qualify its measure for the ballot by Dec. 27.

The group needs 598,000 signatures for the measure to qualify.

“We are very pleased with the grass-roots efforts of churches and organizations in terms of getting the message out,” said California Family Council Executive Director Ron Prentice, whose group is behind the measure.

The competing VoteYesMarriage.com-- endorsed by the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition and others -- last month reworded its measure and will begin a massive signature-gathering effort next month to qualify by March.

That measure’s creator, Randy Thomasson of the Campaign for Children and Families, has called same-sex marriage unnatural and damaging to children.

“Marriage has been a special relationship that states have traditionally honored and recognized,” he said Friday. “This is not like a national battle on marriage. This is protecting the good and natural institution of marriage in California as California voters have demanded.”

His group’s most recent initiative would bar existing government benefits for gay and lesbian couples that resemble marriage benefits and are granted through the domestic partner registry.

It would forbid the government from requiring private entities to offer any such rights normally bestowed by marriage -- reversing existing law.

It also declares that “it is in a child’s best interest to have a mother and a father, and that marriage rights for one man and one woman should be protected for the well-being of children, families and society.”

Although many polls have shown Californians to be in favor of domestic partner benefits, a majority of overall respondents oppose same-sex marriage.

In the coming campaign, those issues will be intermingled.

“It’s going to be a tough fight,” Foreman said after his plenary speech, estimating it would cost $15 million to fight the measures -- well beyond anything the gay and lesbian community has ever raised.

On Friday, recent victories of the gay rights movement flashed on a screen next to Foreman. There was a win Tuesday in Maine, for example, where voters defeated an attempt to overturn gay rights legislation.

The truth, Foreman and other speakers told the crowd, is that the fight is long-term -- and will probably be peppered with setbacks for years.

Lesbian activist and journalist Helen Zia noted that, 50 years ago, it was illegal in California for two or more homosexuals to congregate.

“Creating change doesn’t always happen in a straight line,” she said to hoots of approval. “There are often zigs and zags. All of us in this room must take care of each other because it is a long haul. But look how far we’ve come.”