The "Day Without A Gay" protest coming December 10 sounds like a good idea for gays in California who had their fundamental right to marry eliminated by a simple majority vote. When all the gay doctors, waiters, police officers, hairstylists and firefighters call in "gay" and don’t show up for work, maybe voters of Proposition 8 will regret having stripped rights away from a group of people they may depend on, but take for granted.

Beyond California, there are 47 other states where the government views gay and lesbian couples as strangers. A "Day Without A Gay" will be a nationwide protest. As for Connecticut and Massachusetts, the only states that afford full equality to gay citizens, the day seems like a nice reminder to not pull a California and write gays out of their constitutions.

As a gay man, I’m angry. But as good as a day without gays might make me feel about my anger, is it really a good idea? Would this kind of demonstration get gay and lesbian couples any closer to the equality we deserve?

Maybe not going to work and not buying anything on a given day would send a powerful message if enough gays and our allies participated. But what makes me uneasy is that by giving the country a day of no gays, we make ourselves invisible on that day. Isn’t invisibility and the closet what perpetuated our oppression in the first place?

It was 30 years ago this month that the first openly gay candidate to win elected office in the United States was assassinated. Harvey Milk, a supervisor for the City and County of San Francisco, famously said in the wake of multiple death threats: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."

He knew then what is just as relevant today. Society will not accept or afford gay people full equality until enough of society personally knows, likes and respects someone who is gay. The majority will continue to view gay relationships as less-than or icky until they actually know gay couples that live as busy and mundane lives as their own.

Many of my friends are eager to participate in the "Day Without A Gay" protest. Organizers are urging people to use the time off work to volunteer - December 10, after all, is International Human Rights Day. Volunteering certainly is a good way to spend a day.

So what happens after December 10? Imagine if the next day we all started a conversation with the family, co-workers and neighbors who might know or suspect we are gay, but who never ask about our relationships. Maybe they are afraid to ask, unsure what to say or how to react. Maybe we feel the same way, which is why we haven’t brought it up.

The result might be some awkward and uncomfortable holiday dinners this season, but these are necessary conversations to let people know we are not invisible, that we are productive and integral members of society and that our relationships and families deserve all the same legal rights and protections everyone else enjoys.

Beyond December 10, imagine if we initiated a conversation every day. These conversations could happen in every type of workplace, neighborhood and family. In every race, class, culture and religion. Because gay and lesbian relationships are everywhere — even if some wish to hide or deny that fact.

That Harvey Milk took an assassin’s bullet can be sobering. Gay-bashing of the worst kind still happens. And it is still legal in 30 states for gay workers to be fired solely for being gay. But when the majority gets to know gay people and their families, they won’t stand for such injustice. Gay will no longer be theoretical, the other or us versus them. It will be personal. Voters offered the choice to discriminate against gays at the ballot box will be forced to vote for or against someone they know on a first-name basis.

Conversations will get us there. Protests that antagonize or make us invisible may not.

The bullet that felled Milk did not destroy the closet as he wished. But a new movie about Milk with Oscar buzz will hopefully inspire a new generation to embrace his mantra. While alive, Milk spent much of his frenetic energy blasting one solid note everywhere he spoke: "You gotta give ‘em hope!"

It was devastating to lose Harvey Milk in November 1978 and the right to marry in November 2008. But the hope is how far we’ve come in between — just having the right to marry, however briefly, was unthinkable in Milk’s time. The hope is how energized gays and our allies have become in demanding equal treatment since the loss on Election Day. And the hope lies in how we reach out to that simple majority who voted against fairness and equality. Perhaps more than a "Day Without A Gay," what we really need is an ongoing "Days of Gays." That’s when we can be present and visible, having the conversations with the people who need to understand why we are no less deserving than them.

The lights of local TV cameras seeking gay-on-the-street sound-bites illuminated the darker part of Broadway on the Upper West Side where thousands of people marched the other night chanting, "Gay, straight, black, white, marriage is a civil right."

I was one of them, upset and disillusioned that a right could be so easily eliminated for an entire group of people that included me. Sure, New York has never allowed same-sex marriage. But it was a right granted in California until a simple majority of voters decided that gay relationships weren’t equal to their own.

I joined up with the march in progress at West 66th Street, in front of Manhattan’s Mormon Temple. The spot was significant because California’s constitutional amendment was bankrolled largely by the Mormon Church, which urged its members nationwide to donate tens of millions of dollars to stop gay couples and their families from receiving the same legal recognition and protections everyone else enjoys.

Read more…

Three couples. Three minutes. They show us the human cost of denying gay and lesbian couples the fundamental right to marry. All couples should be allowed to say “Yes We Can” to marriage.

Please join us in our ongoing effort to help gay and lesbian couples obtain the legal recognition and protections their relationships and families deserve.

Want to learn more about how to fight for relationship recognition for same-sex couples? Visit the ACLU LGBT Project’s online toolkit, Get Busy, Get Equal!

Three Couples. Three minutes. They show us in their video why marriage matters. Why we must save the fundamental right to marry in California on Election Day.

There is a human cost when gay couples are denied the fundamental right to marry. The stories of three couples from New Mexico demonstrate what thousands of couples in California stand to lose if their right to marry is taken away on Election Day. It is important that we save marriage in California so couples in other states can have the hope to marry, too. Please forward and share this video with everyone you know in California and ask them to vote NO on Prop 8.

Every autumn, just before the Supreme Court starts a new term, the ACLU invites the press corps to a briefing where our lawyers explain the relevance and impact of upcoming cases. Now you can be at the briefing, too. For the first time through online video, you can see what the reporters saw in Washington, D.C. We feel it is important that our members and the public get to learn firsthand what is at stake. We want you to know and understand what we’re working on, because we know defending the Constitution matters to everyone.

Steven R. Shapiro, the legal director of the ACLU, has moderated the Supreme Court briefing for 16 years, providing an annual overview of the current Supreme Court and comparing the current Court to its predecessors. This year, ACLU lawyers Laughlin McDonald, Jonathan Hafetz and Chris Hansen offer analysis of ACLU cases concerning voting rights, national security and the First Amendment, that are likely to be taken up by the Court. We hope you enjoy getting the “inside scoop” as much as we enjoyed providing it.

For easy online viewing, the event has been broken into four short videos. Each video stands alone as a theme. But viewed together, they paint a complete picture. We’ve bundled all four videos as a “playlist” on the ACLU’s YouTube channel. Our user name is “acluvideos.” Here is the link to the Supreme Court playlist.

Please share and forward the entire playlist or individual videos to your family, friends and colleagues.

Do you practice safe voting? The ACLU presents its top 10 “safe voting” tips. Voting is fun and exhilarating, but never to be taken lightly. Be sure to always act safely and responsibly when exercising your right to vote. It’s how to make your vote count.

UPDATE: Check out the ACLU’s Voter Empowerment Cards for specific information about voting in your home state. Go to www.aclu.org/vec.

The right of gay couples to marry in California will be lost on Election Day if current polling trends continue. Please watch this urgent message from Matt Coles, director of the ACLU LGBT Project, and forward widely.

What happened? The opposition mounted a $30 million TV advertising blitz that was able to define the issue before we could. The right to marry in California will be decided by a small group of “movable” voters who don’t necessarily like the idea of same-sex marriage but aren’t sure whether they want to discriminate, either. The only way to effectively reach these voters is through massive TV ad buys. We are behind by some $10 million, and now we are behind in the polls.

Those who want to eliminate the fundamental right to marry easily raised their $30 million through a nationwide appeal. They know that as California goes, so does the rest of the country. That’s why an all-out mobilization is happening to stop marriage in California. Meanwhile, many of us who believe marriage is a fundamental right have been complacent. Early polls showing we were ahead made us think Californians would do the right thing and vote no on this discriminatory Constitutional amendment.

It is important that gay couples, their friends, family and civil libertarians in every part of the country come to California’s aid right now. If the right to marry can stand in California, it will pave the way for marriage in more states. But if we lose in California, the tide will turn against us. Please, do this for the sake of freedom. Go to www.NoOnProp8.com to help, or make a gift here.

Do college-age kids care about the Constitution? Do they even know about it? See what some University of Mississippi students have to say about our nation’s founding document. They speak angst and hope, knowing their future depends on defending what the Constitution stands for.

Join us in speaking up, and pledge to vote your values. Join these students in telling the candidates, loud and clear: “You can’t ignore the Constitution.”

Are you a Constitution Voter? We were in Mississippi last Friday for the first presidential debate, and found the Ole Miss campus crawling with students who care about the Constitution. Many of them pledged to vote based on how well they think candidates will uphold the Constitution. See the faces and voices from the University of Mississippi and then sign the pledge yourself. Go to http://www.aclu.org/constitutionvoter.

Don’t forget, we’ll be sending these pledges to the presidential candidates in October. Let’s show them how much American voters care about the Constitution, and tell them to address the issues we care about, like torture, warrantless spying and closing Guantánamo.

Join these students in telling the candidates, loud and clear: "You can’t ignore the Constitution."

If Matt Coles, the director of the ACLU LGBT Project, is worried about losing marriage in California – we should all be worried:

Voters will decide in November on a state constitutional amendment that would take away the right of same-sex couples to marry there. It is too close for comfort, and too many are complacent thinking it can’t happen. Forty percent are firmly in favor of letting gay couples keep the right to marry. Forty percent are firmly opposed. The opposition plans to spend $20 million to reach the 20 percent of voters who are undecided. Whoever is able to shape the message for these undecided voters will win. An expensive TV ad campaign is the only way the winning message will be heard. So far, the forces who want to take marriage away from gay couples are vastly outspending those fighting to keep it legal.

Watch Matt Coles deliver this important “Freedom Alert.” Please forward it widely, because what happens in California will set the tone for the rest of the nation. And be sure to visit www.NOonProp8.com and www.aclu.org/getequal for more information about what you can do to preserve marriage for gay couples in California.