Call to Action in California – How to Win Marriage Back

August 13, 2009
By Evan Wolfson
Executive Director of Freedom to Marry and author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality and Gay People's Right to Marry

As someone 100% committed to winning the freedom to marry nationwide as soon as possible, I am very excited by Equality California’s report on the work already underway to restore the freedom to marry in California in 2012. To win marriage back, we have a lot to do, using every precious day between now and the election. EQCA’s roadmap to victory in 2012 offers everyone committed to winning marriage back a chance to pull together and tackle the tasks without wasting a moment.

Winning marriage back is not just about getting a measure on the ballot. It’s about enough conversations enough times over enough time to move hearts and minds. It’s about organizing that empowers diverse messengers to speak to the people and win over a slice of voters in their circles and communities. It’s building a campaign that is strategic, smart, and run with the right combination of expertise, efficiency, transparency, and buy-in. It’s raising the money, early and ongoing, to support and sustain these efforts over the needed time before the vote; and persuading people, as we began doing in the Let California Ring public education effort, to think anew about how the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage hurts families and helps no one.

Equality California’s plan to win is not a call to “wait.” It is a call to action, and the work is at hand now. I hope that everyone committed to undoing Prop 8 and restoring the freedom to marry in California as soon as possible will seize this opportunity to sign up, join in, donate, contact friends and families, and be part of the early and sustained affirmative work to win every day between now and the vote in 2012.

And while we’re on the subject of early action and sustained work, I hope everyone goes to http://www.mainefreedomtomarry.com and joins me in making (another) contribution to NO ON 1 / PROTECT MAINE EQUALITY to help avoid another Prop 8-style undoing of the freedom to marry we have won there. Let’s win in Maine in November 2009, and take that momentum into the conversations to move more people and states to our side, including California in 2012.