Equality California hires marriage, outreach staffers

Equality California, one of the key groups behind the much-maligned No on Prop 8 campaign, has hired a marriage director and coalition coordinator in an effort to increase public support ahead of a possible ballot fight to repeal the same-sex marriage ban.

The news comes as an EQCA board member resigned last year over the Prop 8 fiasco.

Marc Solomon, who led a successful fight for marriage equality in Massachusetts as the executive director of MassEquality, will join EQCA as its marriage director.

Andrea Shorter, co-founder and director of And Marriage For All, a public education campaign that engages communities of color in dialogue about same-sex marriage, will serve as coalition coordinator. Shorter's job will include strengthening coalition building efforts and helping to bring resources to LGBT organizations, especially those concentrating on issues impacting communities of color and faith.

One of the chief criticisms of the No on 8 campaign was that efforts to reach out to those communities were meager, at best.

"We are thrilled to have such extraordinary, accomplished leaders join our team as we continue our efforts to achieve full equality for LGBT people and to keep doing the long-term work of changing hearts and minds," Geoff Kors, EQCA executive director, said in a statement. Kors was also a member of the No on 8 executive committee.

EQCA is also hiring regional field organizers in locations statewide, including the Central Valley, Inland Empire, and Orange County to support and expand its volunteer efforts on marriage, legislation, and electoral work and to partner with other organizations committed to achieving equality for LGBT people, according to a statement.

The new hires were announced just as a new Field poll report was released this week showing that the state's registered voters remain "sharply divided" over Prop 8.

The state Supreme Court is set to decide within the next three months whether to overturn the measure, which changed the state's constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.

If the court allows Prop 8 to stand, same-sex marriage supporters are expected to introduce a ballot measure to repeal it.

Asked if they would support such a measure and restore same-sex marriage rights, 48 percent of Field Poll respondents said they would, while 47 percent said they would oppose it. Five percent were undecided.

The random sample survey of 761 registered voters in California was conducted by phone between February 20 and March 1, before the high court heard oral arguments last week. The maximum sampling error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

Prop 8 passed in November with 52 percent of the vote.

'Door-to-door'

Many are preparing for what to do in case the court upholds Prop 8.

Referring to the fight in Massachusetts, Solomon said, "Front and center in our efforts were always personal stories and people talking to their friends and their neighbors."

He said what he brings to California is "some real knowledge of how to change hearts and minds on the issue of marriage equality. It's about real people telling their stories about who they are, and what their families are all about, and their kids and their parents and their friends and family members doing the same. It's about creating a word-of-mouth, door-to-door, neighbor-to-neighbor campaign."

Many have criticized the No on 8 campaign for not doing more along those lines before the election. Asked about that campaign, Solomon, who's 42 and gay, said, "I'm not going to look back, I'm only looking forward."

Amy Mello, a colleague of Solomon's from MassEquality, will join him in California as field director. Both will start their new jobs April 1 and be based in Los Angeles. Los Angeles County was one of the many Southern California counties where a majority of voters favored Prop 8.

Initially, six field organizers will be hired. They'll be based in key parts of the state, such as the Inland Empire, San Diego, Orange County, the Central Valley, and Sacramento, said Solomon.

The No on 8 campaign did a poor job of reaching out to those parts of the state, where the measure was widely supported. Solomon said EQCA staff also plans to use some of the same technology that President Obama used during his campaign in order to help people get organized. Obama's presidential campaign was admired for its ability to coordinate grassroots activists through the Internet.

"It's going to be a smart, bottom-up campaign," said Solomon.

He said while Prop 8 opponents are hoping the Supreme Court overturns Prop 8, they're also getting ready in case they have to put forward a state ballot measure to do that.

Solomon said future ballot plans will require analysis of which ballot would offer the greatest chance of success. He said that won't just be EQCA's decision, it will also involve the input of the LGBT and allied community.

If the court lets Prop 8 stand, EQCA will work to gather input in places such as Fresno, Bakersfield, San Diego, and San Bernardino, said Solomon.

Town halls are a possible way to gather that input, but "honestly, I start in two and a half weeks. I don't have it all figured out."

Asked if groups like Marriage Equality USA, which built a statewide network of same-sex couples before the No on 8 campaign even started, would be included in the effort, Solomon said everyone's help will be needed. (Molly McKay, MEUSA's media director, has said they were largely shut out of the No on 8 campaign).

And since Prop 8 passed, numerous other groups supporting marriage equality have been created.

"Everybody needs to be involved and play a role," said Solomon. "That doesn't mean we can have 80 different strategies or 80 different ballot measures ... but a grassroots-based campaign by definition needs the involvement of many, many organizations."

Referring to the Field poll, Solomon said if Prop 8 stands, "We have our work cut out for us, but the thing I know is that movement only happens in our direction ... once people support marriage equality, they generally don't go in the other direction."

Coalition coordinator Shorter, who's 43 and lesbian, said she's starting out with one-on-one discussions.

"One of the ideas would be to soon have some sort of more public forum where we can engage a number of people," she said.

Shorter would not disclose her salary.

Solomon would not disclose his salary, referring the question to Kors. "I'm not a public employee, so it's not public," said Solomon.

But the 2007 Form 990 tax filing for MassEquality, the latest year available, lists Solomon as the campaign director with a salary of $58,558.

Mello, who's 30 and straight, did not respond to questions about her salary.

Responding to a request for the salary information of the three new hires, Kors wrote in an e-mail, "We do not give out private information without permission of the individuals." He said he could request the information but would not have responses by press time.

Kors noted that EQCA will be hiring for some positions. Asked last week how the new staff positions would be funded, Kors said that EQCA's board would need to raise the money.

Board member resigns

Even as Kors touted the new hires, he was confronted with the news that Jim Abbott, a longtime EQCA supporter in southern California who married his partner in August, resigned from Equality California's board over the No on 8 campaign. His resignation was effective last December 12, two years after he joined the board.

Abbott said he felt strongly that the campaign's approach to the November election was wrong.

"My decision to resign came because I really felt immediately after the election we should have all stood up and apologized and taken ownership for the failure, and they would not do that," said Abbott, who said he has made apologies.

"There's no reason we should have lost," he said. "We certainly can't say we didn't raise enough money."

The No on 8 campaign raised about $47 million.

"I really had advocated for a stronger tone," said Abbott. "I thought this was a really stark civil rights issue, and it should have been played that way."

Abbott recalled when he brought bumper stickers that said "Prop 8 means Hate ... Keep HATE out of California" to a board meeting. He said he was rebuffed by Kors, who was polite but told him that the best experts in the state had decided on a softer approach. The campaign has been widely criticized for relying on campaign consultants.

"The issue for me was that all of the decisions had been made before the full board of EQCA had a chance for input," Abbott wrote in an e-mail.

In his e-mail, Kors said that Abbott printed the stickers "on his own, without consultation with EQCA's board or staff, and I told him he was free to use them and pass them out and I would be happy to show them to the political experts running the campaign and let him know what they thought."

Kors wrote that consultants hired by Equality for All, the main No on 8 campaign, had decided that since the majority of Californians did not support same-sex marriage, "the campaign should not demonize the very voters we were trying to reach out to by labeling them as hateful or bigoted."

"All board members were aware from regular board meetings and conference calls throughout the past three years that EQCA did not have decision making authority for the campaign since the campaign was run by a totally independent organization, Equality for All, that the EQCA board approved allowing me to serve on and that we raised money for," he wrote.

Kors reiterated what he has said at town hall meetings. "Giving so much authority to consultants was a mistake that we will never make again." He also added, "Ultimately, though, as an executive committee member, I take responsibility for my role in the campaign's shortcomings."

There are 54 people altogether on the boards of Equality California and the Equality California Institute, EQCA's education branch. Six of them joined the boards after the November election. Abbott is the only member who has resigned due to campaign-related issues, according to Vaishalee Raja, EQCA's communications director.

Job descriptions for open positions at EQCA can be found at www.eqca.org/jobs.

Marc Solomon will bring skills he used to help achieve marriage equality in Massachusetts to California as EQCA's new marriage director. Photo: Marilyn Humphries

Andrea Shorter will work to build coalitions between the LGBT community and other groups, such as minorities and the faith community. Photo: Jane Philomen Cleland