Author Archives for Moya Watson

New Ways of Organizing: Lessons in Online Activism from Prop 8

We witnessed a building of tremendous momentum — particularly online — around and immediately after the passage of Proposition 8 last year in California. This momentum built worldwide, despite the local nature of the proposition. In the wake of Prop 8, civil rights and LGBT organizations as well as nonprofits in general may questioning their role in online organizing. In the extreme case, organizations may be asking themselves: Are we becoming irrelevant?

This was exactly the question posited in last week’s panel at CompassPoint Nonprofit Day in San Francisco:  New Ways of Organizing: Lessons Learned from the Proposition 8 Battle (download the slides).

I had the privilege of participating on the panel, moderated by CompassPoint’s Sierra Catcott, and was joined by Greg Rae and Kristina Loring from the @NoOnProp8 campaign, and Charlie Bufalino, a marriage equality activist who currently canvasses for EQCA.

It was a great panel and I’m thrilled I had the opportunity to participate. My only wish is that we had enough time to take more questions. About 40-50 people attended the session and I could tell there was a lot of interest and a lot of questions left unaddressed. Please chime in in the comments if you have any follow-ups or questions!

In the end, though I don’t believe organizations and leaders become at all irrelevant, there can be little doubt of the power of online activism.  To me, the key lies in bridging the gap between “organizationlessness” and organization. If you’re a nonprofit — or any — organization wondering about building an online presence, my advice would be don’t wonder: begin today, and try to integrate it with your cause.

Thanks again to CompassPoint and Sierra for the opportunity!

The best way to protect and raise kids…

… is in a loving and committed family.

If you have a minute, take a look at the first ad released today in the Maine fight for marriage equality:

As Joe Mirabella in Seattle writes in today’s post Equality Maine released first television ad today to protect marriage equality: 

The same forces that ran the Yes on 8 campaign that eventually changed the constitution in California to exclude gays and lesbians from marriage have focused all they have on Maine.

And Washington’s under threat too, as Mirabella points out:

Washingtonians eagerly await the final results of the referendum 71 petition verification process to see if the domestic partnership expansion bill will face voters this fall.

Advocates for equality made tremendous progress in protecting safe and loving families across the country during this last year, and conservatives are out to do everything they can to try to repeal all the relief families — like mine — have felt about our new legal protections. Yet as Mirabella’s comments underscore, this fight is not about just whether to use the word “marriage” for loving couples in committed relationships — or to use some other word.  Seems some folks just don’t want us to be together at all, and are not stopping at anything to try to drive that home.

In the meantime, kudos to the real people from all types of different families that came together to get the word out above.  You honor all loving families.

Transition

Today at work, a colleague originally from Russia told me the reason nobody uses those templates we spend lots of time creating is because they are temporal – from the root of “template” – never meant to be permanent. I responded with two or three feeble words in Russian — “spassiba” and the rest.

It’s with this in mind that I consider the word “transition” and attempt, in my mind, to make it into some sort of fun trip – like “transit” – to somewhere fun instead of through an awkward and perhaps scary time (unless you’re on Muni, which lately has taken to a more peculiar usage of the transitive form).

Nothing, we’re told, is permanent, but to my daughter, embarking in a couple of short weeks on a major transit from preschool to kindergarten, I want to represent nothing less than my permanence to her. If you’re scared, hold fast: it’s an exciting time and you will do so well, and Mama and Mommy will always be there for you.

As I even think this her body grows an inch, she skyrockets, learns more in one minute than I have all year, sees things anew, and has in fact permanently brightened my life.

There is no template I can create for this. In one single instant, flashing by, I understand life.

The Rhinoceroses -- in 2008