Stand Up Sacramento!
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The fight for civil rights is not over!

America is supposed to be the land of the free, right? People in America have the freedom of religion, are free to worship how they want, and impose personal restrictions upon themselves, but not upon the general public creating a group of second class citizens and the continued oppression based purely on personal religious interpretations. We simply want the same rights, opportunities and freedoms as everyone else.

Our opponents are using religious interpretations and recent societal traditions, “norms,” to continue oppression of people that differ from themselves. Some local churches are fighting against gay marriage. They believe homosexuality is a choice, it’s a sin, and they believe laws should stop us from being free. They are WRONG! They have protested at our events, at the capital, at schools, and they are continuing their attack.

Oppressive and radical religious views should never be forced upon anyone in a free nation! This is not an argument over the meaning of a religious book. This is an argument over religious views being incorporated into Law and imposed upon others that don’t share the same views. America is not and should not be a theocracy. Religious beliefs and interpretations do not justify murder, mistreatment, oppression, or denial of freedom to others. When we set aside any group within our society to be treated differently, we put ourselves on a slippery slope endangering America as a whole; simply look at what Hitler accomplished in Germany.

African-Americans today are allowed to marry freely, have their history taught in schools, and have mostly a better life than they did in recent American history. If it was left up to the voters of the time, the African-American Civil Rights Movement may never have made it forward. The African-American Civil Rights Movement owes its success to the protesters from Rosa Parks to M.L.King, intelligent use of courts, and to the Constitution.

Today, the GLBT community still faces many of the discriminations that the African-American community did decades ago. That is why the GLBT community has picked up our Civil Rights torch and is carrying it into the GLBT Civil Rights Movement.

With recent advances in the Gay Rights Movement, many in our community have become complacent and have not finished the fight for complete and equal rights for our community. Recently in California a number of political groups, individuals, and especially fundamentalist churches have organized protests or taken action against the advancement in equality for the GLBT Community. They have caused a great amount of damage to the GLBT Civil Rights movement, with the most recent being Arnold’s veto of laws that would have given the GLBT community the right to marry in California.

Its now up to the next generation to continue fighting for the last of our rights.

Marriage is important to our community, just as to the heterosexual community. It is extremely hurtful legally, financially, emotionally and socially to be denied the rights that so many others take for granted. Marriage has a vast number of benefits that no other legal or social arrangement can replace and is one of the cornerstones of binding a family. We are not fighting only for our right to marry, but until this is resolved, many other issues seem to be frozen in time. Our community, just as many others, needs to work on the issues of our elderly, childcare, education, healthcare, social stability, and societal acceptance.

With so many issues facing our community and country, why is gay marriage a focus of the media? It seems to be that the now the cold war is over, the GLBT community has become the new communists. Without something to rally the voters, the political climate would be very different in america. gay marriage "issue" has been almost completely concocted by right wing politics. With all the arguments against gay marriage, none seem to be based more than bias, societal traditions, and religious interpretation.

Although the Republican Party has been making overtures to the Russian Slavic communities for about fifteen years, it was about 4 years or so the Reverend Louis P. Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition prevailed upon the pastors of several Russian/Slavic churches to become active in opposing gay friendly legislation as it made its way through the California legislature.

Often it has been the members of these churches that have provided the bulk of the attendees for rallies at the Capitol sponsored by Religious Right organizations such as Capital Resource Institute, Campaign for California Children and Families, Concerned Women for American, California Family Council, and Pacific Justice Institute.

Each protest seems to become more organized and vicious in its attack. Local news has not covered the underlying loathing for the gay community extruded by some of these groups at our events with signs, spitting and slurs. The power of their movement is in their numbers, visibility, fear, hate and the power of their fanaticism to move mobs.

In April 2006 these churches stepped up their opposition to the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered (GLBT) communities by turning out between 300 and 400 people at two Sacramento City Unified School Board meetings to oppose a resolution supporting gay youth, their friends and their schools who were participating in the annual Day of Silence.

They also packed the San Juan Unified School District Board meeting protest the suspension of several students who wore T-shirts with the slogan “Homosexuality is Sin” and refused to take them off when asked by school officials because the officials felt the message was hostile to GLBT students. It’s no wonder when people are allowing or encouraging such intolerance to children why 1/3 of all teen-age suicides are related to sexuality.

On June 10, 2006 about 100 church members picketed the Sacramento Pride Parade and Fair with virulent anti-signs and chants. Nathan Feldman along with many other GLBT people confronted for the first time directly the attacks from the anti-gay movement. These confrontations brought about the creation of StandUpSac.com

On June 12th, 2006 about 600 church members held a rally on the South Steps of the Capitol Building to oppose AB 606 and SB 1437, two proposed bills that would help gay youth in their learning experience and environment.

On July 9th, 2006, a demonstration was taken to the footsteps of one of the contributing churches involved in these protests. The protest was covered by the television news media and helped to bring attention to the situation to the public.

Today, the our opponents are planning more protests against our community.

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