We knew this already...but now it's official.......

Report: Gay Rights Groups Ignored Religion on Prop. 8

By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Gay-rights groups made a major strategic error in their failed effort to stop California's Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage, by ignoring the faith community and trying to make their case purely on secular grounds.
That's according to a little-noticed paper released last week by a gay-rights group that is sharply critical of the gay community's campaign against Prop. 8. It says that gay-rights groups appear "significantly limited" in their ability to work in partnership with religious leaders and "unable or unwilling" to incorporate the leadership of pro gay-rights religious leaders.
During the Prop. 8 campaign, the report said. pro-gay religious leaders who opposed the measure were told not to use the religious language of their traditions to voice their opposition to the measure and, when they were finally encouraged to speak out as people of faith, it was too late.
The gay-rights community, the report concludes "has a problem with religion."The report is from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Task Force's National Religious Leadership Roundtable and is based on surveys of secular and religious anti-Prop. 8 organizers. (The report uses the rather formidable acronym "LBGTQQIA.." It stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and ally.")
Citing previous research, the report noted that much of the support for Prop. 8 came from conservative religious communities, most of them Christian. But the secular leaders of the "No on Prop. 8" effort ignored that fact and tried to argue gay marriage as a civil rights issue. The report found that few resources were devoted to outreach and education of communities of faith and communities of color. The strategy defined faith-based communities as expendable.
"Religious opposition requires a religious response," says the report, written by the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, program director for the Task Force's Institute for Welcoming Resources. "It is naïve to believe that a rights-based argument can trump the value-based arguments of conservative religious leaders. It is also naive to ignore the power and influence of the moral authority given to religious leaders within communities of faith. The voices of conservative religious leaders must be responded to by the voices of progressive faith."
It will be interesting to see whether gay-rights groups take this advice to heart. At least in the District of Columbia, they have. After a coalition of local pastors and same-sex marriage opponents requested a city-wide referendum to block the city from recognizing gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions, a competing coalition of more than 100 interfaith clergy members announced plans to oppose the referendum.
UPDATE: "Intersex" refers to people with sexual anatomy that mixes male and female characteristics.
By Jacqueline L. Salmon Report: Gay Rights Groups Ignored Religion on Prop. 8
By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Gay-rights groups made a major strategic error in their failed effort to stop California's Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage, by ignoring the faith community and trying to make their case purely on secular grounds.
That's according to a little-noticed paper released last week by a gay-rights group that is sharply critical of the gay community's campaign against Prop. 8. It says that gay-rights groups appear "significantly limited" in their ability to work in partnership with religious leaders and "unable or unwilling" to incorporate the leadership of pro gay-rights religious leaders.
During the Prop. 8 campaign, the report said. pro-gay religious leaders who opposed the measure were told not to use the religious language of their traditions to voice their opposition to the measure and, when they were finally encouraged to speak out as people of faith, it was too late.
The gay-rights community, the report concludes "has a problem with religion."The report is from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Task Force's National Religious Leadership Roundtable and is based on surveys of secular and religious anti-Prop. 8 organizers. (The report uses the rather formidable acronym "LBGTQQIA.." It stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and ally.")
Citing previous research, the report noted that much of the support for Prop. 8 came from conservative religious communities, most of them Christian. But the secular leaders of the "No on Prop. 8" effort ignored that fact and tried to argue gay marriage as a civil rights issue. The report found that few resources were devoted to outreach and education of communities of faith and communities of color. The strategy defined faith-based communities as expendable.
"Religious opposition requires a religious response," says the report, written by the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, program director for the Task Force's Institute for Welcoming Resources. "It is naïve to believe that a rights-based argument can trump the value-based arguments of conservative religious leaders. It is also naive to ignore the power and influence of the moral authority given to religious leaders within communities of faith. The voices of conservative religious leaders must be responded to by the voices of progressive faith."
It will be interesting to see whether gay-rights groups take this advice to heart. At least in the District of Columbia, they have. After a coalition of local pastors and same-sex marriage opponents requested a city-wide referendum to block the city from recognizing gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions, a competing coalition of more than 100 interfaith clergy members announced plans to oppose the referendum.
UPDATE: "Intersex" refers to people with sexual anatomy that mixes male and female characteristics.