Below, I’ll look at some information about how the religious right wing fought successfully for Proposition 8 in California, and about their plans for New York and New Jersey.

First, let’s look at the 2008 post-election news story Calif. win emboldens coalition of religious groups by Lisa Leff, Associated Press, via Fox News, Friday, November 07, 2008:

LOS ANGELES — Energized by a comeback win, conservative activists want to apply the same formula they used to outlaw same-sex marriage in California to prevent other states from recognizing gay unions and President-elect Barack Obama from expanding the rights of gays and lesbians.

Leaders of the successful Proposition 8 campaign say an unusual coalition of evangelical Christians, Mormons and Roman Catholics built a majority at the polls Tuesday by harnessing the organizational muscle of churches to a mainstream message about what school children might be taught about gay relationships if the ban failed.

Many people were surprised that the Proposition 8 campaign could succeed in California, of all places:

“Everyone told me it could not be done, people do not care about this enough, you will be overwhelmed and you will lose,” said Maggie Gallagher, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, a New Jersey group that provided seed money early this year to qualify the measure for the ballot.

“National Organization for Marriage” is a rather Orwellian name for an organization against certain marriages. Be that as it may, despite California’s reputation for tolerance, the success of Propostion 8 shows that there are still plenty of homophobic people there who could be stirred, by a sufficiently scary TV commercial, to vote for a state constitutional amendment outlawing marriage equality.

New York is next:

Unlike California, Connecticut does not have an initiative process that would allow voters to override the judicial decision there. So Gallagher said anti-gay marriage groups plan to focus next on New Jersey and New York, where the state legislatures are being lobbied to pass laws legalizing same-sex marriage.

The plan is to mobilize the same religious factions that joined forces in California to deter lawmakers from “taking on this divisive social issue while we are in the middle of a huge financial crisis,” Gallagher said.

Not only were there plenty of homophobes to whom the Proposition 8 campaign was able to appeal as voters, but the religious right wing also had access to a formidable organizational infrastructure: conservative religious groups of many different denominations.

Campaign operatives attribute their success to the churches, which served as voter registration centers, phone banks and volunteer recruitment hubs.

Religious institutions also gave Proposition 8’s sponsors an avenue to a range of ethnic voters, including many Democrats, said Mat Staver, who heads the Florida-based Christian legal group Liberty Counsel.

Catholic and evangelical Hispanics and African-American Baptists stood alongside conservative white evangelicals in arguing for traditional marriage. Exit polls showed 70 percent of blacks supported the ban, a far higher percentage than any other race.

Later studies have shown that the most likely reason for the high percentage of blacks supporting the ban is simply that a high percentage of blacks are churchgoing evangelical Christians.

Gay-right activists attribute their loss in California in large part to overconfidence among Proposition 8 opponents. Although polls showed the measure far behind in mid-September, the Yes-on-8 campaign was raising far more money than its opponents.

“There was a lot of complacency. People didn’t believe it could have been this close, so we had to scramble to raise money.” said Yvette Martinez, political director for Equality for All, the coalition of gay, civil rights and liberal religious groups formed to fight the initiative.

Actually, according to an Associated Press article cited in Wikipedia, “The campaigns for and against Proposition 8 raised $39.9 million and $43.3 million, respectively.” So it would seem that Yvette Martinez’s statement about complacency in California is not accurate. Then again, the above figures don’t distinguish between in-state and out-of-state contributions. A lot of the money on both sides poured in from out of state.

Whether or not complacency was a real problem in California, it does seem, to me, that complacency is a problem here in New York, which has a very high gay population yet, historically, has always trailed behind other relatively liberal states on gay rights issues. And, as far as I can tell, a lot of people here assume that the success of same-sex marriage here is inevitable.

Martinez also blamed a Yes-on-8 TV ad featuring a little girl telling her mother she had learned in school that she could grow up to marry a princess. Spanish-language ads were released on the same theme.

Proposition 8 says nothing about education, but gay-marriage opponents say allowing same-sex weddings would have affected what California public-school students are taught. Gay-rights groups disputed that, noting that the schools already are required to teach tolerance of gays and lesbians.

“Those lies penetrated,” said Martinez. “People believed that we were going to force gay marriage into the classroom, and there is no getting around people wanting to protect their children and to make decisions for their own family.”

If we had a similar referendum in New York, there are a lot of conservative folks - in rural areas and even in NYC’s own outer boroughs - who could all too easily be swayed by a similar message, alas.

Perhaps the most crucial faith-based ingredient of the California campaign was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon church was invited into the coalition by San Francisco’s Roman Catholic Archbishop George Neiderauer, who previously spent 11 years as bishop of the Catholic diocese of Utah.

Mormons make up less than 2 percent of the California population with a religious preference, but it is widely believed that church members around the country were responsible for a major share of the more than $36 million raised to pass the gay marriage ban.

No doubt the Mormons will pour lots of money into New York’s opponents of same-sex marriage too.

Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said she isn’t worried the Proposition 8 campaign has produced a new political juggernaut, noting that the religious denominations that worked together in California have deep theological and spiritual differences.

Kendell, who was raised Mormon, said she was astonished to see black pastors working alongside members of a religion that did not allow blacks to serve as priests until she was in high school.

“Any time a coalition is formed for the expediency of one issue, it is very hard to hold it together,” Kendell said.

I wouldn’t be so sure that the religious right wing coalition can’t hold together. In addition to the same-sex marriage issue, there are also plenty of other aspects of modernity that all or most conservative religious groups feel threatened by.

Let’s look now at the Wikipedia article on California Proposition 8 (2008).

In the section on Proponents, a sub-section on Religious organizations says:

The Roman Catholic Church,[42] as well as a Roman Catholic lay fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus,[43] staunchly supported the measure. The bishops of the California Catholic Conference released a statement supporting the proposition.[44] This position met with mixed reactions among church members: One priest in Fresno, Geoffrey Farrow, came out as a gay priest and told his parishioners to oppose Proposition 8. Farrow was promptly suspended from his duties by Bishop John Thomas Steinbock. Following the suspension, the bishops reiterated their position in a pastoral letter which was read aloud, prompting some parishioners to applaud, while others walked out of the church in protest.[45] When Farrow later applied for the executive director position at the interfaith organization Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles, the Archdiocese threatened to withdraw all funding, and Farrow’s interview process was terminated.[46]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,[47][48][49][50] whose members are commonly known as Mormons, also publicly supported the proposition. The First Presidency of the church announced its support for Proposition 8 in a letter intended to be read in every congregation in California. In this letter, church members were encouraged to “do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time.” Local LDS leaders set organizational and monetary goals for their membership—sometimes quite specific—to fulfill this call.[51][52] The response of the LDS membership to their leadership’s appeals to donate money and volunteer time was very supportive,[53] such that Latter-day Saints provided a significant source for financial donations in support of the proposition, both inside and outside the State of California.[54] About 45% of out-of-state contributions to ProtectMarriage.com came from Utah, over three times more than any other state.[55] ProtectMarriage, the official proponents of Proposition 8, estimate that about half the donations they received came from LDS sources, and that “eighty to ninety percent” of the early volunteers going door-to-door were LDS.[56] The LDS Church produced and broadcast to its congregations a program describing the opposition to the Proposition, and describing the timeline it proposes for what it describes as grassroots efforts to oppose the Proposition.[57][58]

Other religious organizations that supported Proposition 8 include the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America,[59] Eastern Orthodox Church,[60] a group of Evangelical Christians led by Jim Garlow and Miles McPherson,[61] American Family Association, Focus on the Family[62] and the National Organization for Marriage.[63]

Elsewhere on the page, not in the sub-section where it belongs, the Wikipedia article also says:

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, also endorsed the measure.[66]

The section on Opponents also has a sub-section on Religious organizations, which says:

All six Episcopal diocesan bishops in California jointly issued a statement opposing Proposition 8 on September 10, 2008.[90] Southern California’s largest collection of rabbis, the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, voted to oppose Proposition 8.[91] Other Jewish groups who opposed Proposition 8 include Jewish Mosaic,[92] the American Jewish Committee, Progressive Jewish Alliance, National Council of Jewish Women, and the Anti-Defamation League.[59] Los Angeles Jews were more opposed to Prop 8 than any other religious group or ethnic group in the city. Jewish Angelinos voted 78% against the measure while only 8% supported the measure; the remainder declined to respond.[93] The legislative ministry of the Unitarian Universalists opposed Proposition 8, and organized phone banks toward defeating the measure.[94]

In addition, the California Council of Churches issued a statement urging the “immediate removal of Proposition 8″ - saying that it infringes on the freedom of religion for churches who wish to bless same-sex unions.[95]

Good to see some religious groups on our side too. Alas, these aren’t the fastest-growing religious groups, which are on the other side.

We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged. But the struggle will be long and hard, and we will win only if we continue to fight.

First, find out who your State Senator is, and find out the phone numbers of your State Senator’s offices, by entering your street address and ZIP code in the text fields at the top left corner of the following page:

• NY State Senate website, main page

(Be sure to press ENTER after typing both your street address and your ZIP code in the appropriate text fields.)

Then, call at least one of your State Senator’s offices and leave a message asking him or her to vote “Yes” for S4401, “an act to amend the domestic relations law, in relation to the ability to marry.” The text of that bill is here:

• Copy of S4401 on State Senator Tom Duane’s site

In your phone message, please include your street address and ZIP code (to show that you are in the relevant State Senate district). And, if you are registered to vote, please say so (so that your State Senator will know that there may be consequences for not listening to you and others who support marriage equality). Please be polite.

Please pass the above information along to all friends of yours who are concerned about gay rights or who oppose the religious right wing in general.

As of Thursday, June 4, here is how the each of NY’s State Senators stand on the issue:

Overall breakdown:

Would Vote "Yes":	20 (All Democrats)
Would Vote "No":	29 (23 Republicans, 6 Democrats)
Undecided:      	9 (5 Democrats, 4 Republicans)
Wouldn't Say:   	4 (3 Republicans, 1 Democrat)

Would vote "Yes"

Eric Adams, D-Brooklyn
Neil Breslin, D-Delmar
Martin Dilan, D-Brooklyn
Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan
Pedro Espada, D-Bronx
Craig Johnson, D-Nassau
Jeffrey Klein, D-Bronx/Westchester
Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan
Velmanette Montgomery, D-Brooklyn
Suzi Oppenheimer, D-Westchester
Kevin Parker, D-Brookyn
Bill Perkins, D-Manhattan
Diane Savino, D-Staten Island/Brooklyn
Eric Schneiderman, D-Manhattan/Bronx
Jose Serrano, D-Bronx/Manhattan
Malcolm Smith, D-Queens
Daniel Squadron, D-Brooklyn/Manhattan
Toby Ann Stavisky, D-Queens
Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Westchester
Antoine Thompson, D-Buffalo

Would vote "No"

Darrel Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent
John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse
Ruben Diaz, D-Bronx
Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna
John Flanagan, R-Suffolk
Charles Fuschillo, R-Nassau/Suffolk
Carl Kruger, D-Brooklyn
Martin Golden, R-Brooklyn
Joseph Griffo, R-Rome
Shirley Huntley, D-Queens
Andrew Lanza, R-Staten Island
William Larkin, R-Cornwall
Kenneth LaValle, R-Suffolk
Thomas Libous, R-Binghamton
Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury
Carl Marcellino, R-Nassau/Suffolk
George Maziarz, R-Newfane
Michael Nozzolio, R-Seneca Falls
George Onorato, D-Queens
Frank Padavan, R-Queens/bronx/Nassau
Michael Ranzenhofer, R-Amherst
Joseph Robach, R-Greece
Stephen Saland, R-Pughkeepsie
James Seward, R-Milford
Dean Skelos, R-Nassau
William Stachowski, D-Buffalo
Dale Volker, R-Depew
George Winner, R-Elmira
Catharine Young, R-Olean

Undecided

John Bonacic, R-Mt. Hope
Brian Foley, D-Suffolk
Kemp Hannon, R-Nassau
Ruth Hassell-Thompson, D-Bronx/Westchester
Owen Johnson, R-Suffolk
Roy McDonald, R-Saratoga
Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens
John Sampson, D-Brooklyn
David Valesky, D-Oneida

Wouldn't Say

Joseph Addabbo, D-Queens
James Alesi, R-East Rochester
Vincent Leibell, R-Westchester
Thomas Morahan, R-Rockland

Source: Capital Tonight Exclusive: Does your state Senator support a gay marriage bill?, Capital News 9, Albany, NY, June 5, 2009.

A similar poll was taken by NY1: NY1 Exclusive: Survey Of State Senators Shows Gay Marriage Bill In Jeopardy, NY1 News, June 5, 2009.

New Yorkers Against Religion-Based Bigotry is launching a “Know Your Enemy” Project with the aim of educating GLBT people (and other people vilified by the religious right wing) about the religious right wing and its recent activities. The “Know Your Enemy” project’s first meeting in Queens (after the Queens Gay Pride parade) will be on Thursday, June 11, and its first meeting in Manhattan (after the big Manhattan Gay Pride parade) will be on Thursday, July 9.

“It is really encouraging to see what’s happening around the country in places where you really wouldn’t expect it, like Iowa,” says Quinn’s longtime partner, Kim Catullo. “To be in a place like New York and not have it just doesn’t seem to make sense.”

What’s wrong with New York? Three things:

1. Although enormous progress has been made in countering homophobia over the past several decades, New York still does have quite a few socially conservative neighborhoods upstate and even in the outer boroughs of New York City itself.
2. Contrary to popular belief, New York and New Jersey do have an organized religious right wing, which is generating political pressure against the same-sex marriage bill.
3. Too many GLBT people are not motivated enough to fight back against our local religious right wing, for three reasons: (a) Many New Yorkers are just too damned busy. (b) Too many GLBT people are not aware of the crucial historical role of the organized GLBT rights movement in vastly improving life for GLBT people around here these past several decades. Hence they simply do not appreciate the value of an organized political movement in the first place. (c) Many GLBT people, here in New York, are unaware that we do face organized opposition.

The GLBT rights movement needs:

1. More of an effort to educate local GLBT people about the history of NYC’s GLBT rights movement - its struggles, its successes, and the challenges it still faces.
2. More awareness of who and what our enemies are.

New Yorkers Against Religion-Based Bigotry is launching a “Know Your Enemy” Project devoted to the latter aim. Its first meeting in Queens (after the Queens Gay Pride parade) will be on Thursday, June 11, and its first meeting in Manhattan (after the big Manhattan Gay Pride parade) will be on Thursday, July 9.

Please see details and RSVP here.

But there is now some very good news: As of a month ago, I happened to find a very passionate assistant organizer, Noelle. So, hopefully, we can now, finally, begin to get this group off the ground.

Noelle, thanks very much for your enthusiasm and help so far.

1) To the collection of NYARBB position statements, I’ve added NYARBB’s position on “conspiracy theories”.

2) I’ve added a “Projects” page listing three ongoing major projects, with links to sections of the site for each project. The best-developed of these sections, so far, is the one for the Project Against Grand Conspiracy Ideology.

3) Two large and unique collections of links have been put together, one on grand conspiracy ideology and one on 9/11 (for our Committee for 9/11 Accountability).

4) The About page has been reorganized a bit, with a new section added on What is NYARBB doing that’s different from other anti-bigotry groups?.

This blog will be a type of blog that Wordpress.com doesn’t like to host on its server:  one in which most of the posts will have links back to the NYARBB main site. For example, some posts here will be about updates to the main site. Other posts will be about activities of NYARBB task forces and projects, with links back to the page for the relevant task force or project. So, I figured I had better move this blog off of Wordpress.com, because WordPress.com’s rules prohibit blogs containing lots and lots of links to another site owned by the blog author.

As an added bonus, I now have more control over the appearance of this blog. Alas, I don’t now have time to learn how to design a Wordpress “theme” from scratch. (I’m still using Wordpress blog software, though not on Wordpress.com anymore.) So, I’ll have to settle for modifying an already-existing “theme.”

NYARBB’s nascent Committee Against Satanic Panics will be distributing literature in the vicinity of the event and, hopefully, doing a little networking.

Summary of relevant dates/times:

• NYARBB meeting before event:   Thursday, September 27, at 7:30 PM
• The Pagan Pride event itself:   Saturday, September 27, at 11 AM to 5 PM
• NYARBB follow-up meeting:   Thursday, October 9, at 7:30 PM

Our literature will have the following aims:

1) To alert Pagans about the “Illuminati” claims (and their accompanying anti-Pagan bigotry, among other kinds of bigotry) and other religious right wing propaganda that is now being spread via pop culture, e.g. in some hip hop lyrics, and within otherwise secular political movements such as the 9/11 Truth movement and the antiwar movement. To invite Pagans to join us in opposing the spread of “Illuminati” claims.

2) To counter the tendency of some Pagans to scapegoat Satanists. (Exactly what we’ll be saying along these lines will depend on who is scheduled to speak at the Pagan Pride event, which apparently has not been finalized yet, according to their website. If the Pagan Pride website don’t announce their speakers within the next few days, we’ll prepare something generic.)

3) Do the above in such a way as to avoid undermining political causes we otherwise support (e.g. the call for a new investigation of 9/11). To those interested, we will also give copies of the literature we distributed at We Are Change’s 9/11 anniversary events.

To prepare for our action at the Pagan Pride event, we’ll be holding a meeting on Thursday, September 25. For details, see the announcement on our Meetup site. If you’re considering attending, please let us know by RSVP’ing “yes” or “maybe” on the Meetup site.

Also we’ll be having a follow-up meeting on Thursday, October 9.

Note: Our action at the Pagan Pride event will be strictly friendly and pro-Pagan. It will not be, in any way, a protest against the event, unless they happen to have a really obnoxiously anti-Satanist keynote speaker such as Isaac Bonewits (whom they had a few years ago). Even then, we will maintain a friendly and respectful attitude toward modern Pagan religions per se, while objecting to the tendency of some Pagans to scapegoat Satanists. NYARBB opposes religion-based bigotry of all kinds.

• NYARBB position against both Islamism and anti-Muslim bigotry
• NYARBB position on 9/11
• NYARBB position against “Illuminati” claims

Comments welcome, here on this blog, in response to all the above position statements.

A major focus of ours, for now, will be on opposing the spread of “Illuminati” claims, which are similar to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion except that, instead of Jews, “Illuminati” claims typically scapegoat Pagans, occultists, “Satanists,” and atheists, and typically also allege that modern social reforms, such as feminism and gay rights, are part of an elite conspiracy to destroy America. Though currently a fringe phenomenon for the most part, we feel that such bigoted claims, in the era of the Internet, should not be ignored, especially when they are promoted outside of the religious right wing circles from which they emanate.

Last week, our nascent Committee for 9/11 Accountability distributed literature at some of the 9/11 anniversary events held by We Are Change. We distributed the following:

• “Support a new investigation of 9/11. But let’s NOT endorse religiously bigoted “Illuminati” claims.” - 2-sided leaflet aimed primarily at people inside the 9/11 Truth movement - all too many of whom are fans of Alex Jones, who recycles a lot of religious right wing hate propaganda with a superficially more worldly populist gloss.
• “Why we need a new investigation of 9/11.” - pamphlet aimed primarily at people outside the 9/11 Truth movement, but also to show insiders that we support their central aim, in the hope that our leaflet against “Illuminati” claims will be taken as constructive criticism. (The pamphlet does not argue that “9/11 was an inside job” but, instead, just points to (1) undisputed evidence of coverups of some kind and (2) some relevant history of the U.S. government’s strange love-hate relationship with Islamist terrorism.)

We distributed literature at some of the events on Wednesday (September 10), Friday (September 12), and Sunday (September 14).

I got into some interesting discussions/debates with various people, especially on Friday. I didn’t do the best possible job of presenting my arguments, but it has been a very worthwhile learning experience, at least.

[This post last updated Thursday, September 18, 2008.]