Task Force Action Fund grants $20K more and dispatches four more organizers in campaign to block anti-marriage measure in California
The Task Force Action Fund has donated another $20,000 to support Equality for All, which has launched a statewide campaign to stop the “Limits on Marriage” initiative from qualifying for the November 2008 ballot. The Action Fund previously contributed $50,000 to the effort. In addition, the Task Force has sent four additional field organizers from the East Coast to join our four California-based field organizers to help coordinate work in targeted regions throughout California.
If passed, the “Limits on Marriage” initiative would change the state Constitution to permanently ban same-sex couples from marrying. Proponents of the discriminatory measure are working furiously to gather the necessary 700,000 valid signatures by the April 28 deadline. Many of those collecting signatures are being paid to do so.
The strategy for countering these efforts is straightforward: Equality for All supporters are positioning themselves at public locales where these signature-gatherers are and asking people pointblank not to sign the petitions. Every day, volunteers and paid staff are spending hours going toe to toe with the opposition at Wal-Marts, Targets and grocery stores, where they are stopping and engaging the public with a simple question: “Do you support the freedom for gay and lesbian couples to marry?” Shoppers are then given information about the harms of the “Limits on Marriage” initiative and asked to sign a pledge stating they won’t support it.
Last week marked the largest and most successful week of action yet: Task Force-led regions recruited and trained more than 450 new volunteers to talk with shoppers and gather more than 7,700 new pledges.
We know the campaign is making an impact. Over the past week, some paid signature-gatherers have stopped carrying the “Limits on Marriage” initiative altogether amidst the larger stack of other initiatives they’re circulating. When one volunteer asked a signature-gatherer why, that person replied that it was becoming too much of a headache to carry the marriage measure, as shoppers weren’t stopping to sign any of the petitions.
We still know that it’s going to be very close. The opposition has raised well over $1 million to hire 200 signature gatherers to work statewide. With close to a month left to gather signatures, every day and every volunteer counts. Equality for All needs your help!
Photo: Task Force organizers train volunteers in Palmdale before heading into the field to ask shoppers to decline to sign the “Limits on Marriage” initiative petitions.
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Commentary: Something special in Palmdale
“I’ll be honest. I was not excited about organizing here in Palmdale. Having gone through an awkward queer adolescence in this desert town, returning to it was not high on my wish list. But in this windy valley I have found dedicated, tenacious and stubborn volunteers who have stepped up again and again; volunteers who have said “Yes!” at every turn and who gather, glowing, in our donated SEIU office after every shift going toe to toe with paid signature-gatherers.”
— Trystan Reese, Task Force Field Organizer
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