The clapping started slow, grew  faster, stomping feet joined in and then the cheering became infectious. When the echo died away,  I knew I had become part of a new gay movement for social change.

Packed into a weekend and aptly named Camp Courage after its namesake organization, the COURAGE CAMPAIGN, I was one of approximately 150 civil rights advocates who gathered  Saturday morning at 9 a.m. at the Handlery Hotel in San Diego. Black and white, gay and straight,  participants ranged in age from their 60's into their teens. Upon arrival we were randomly assigned into groups of six, and this group became our home base for the weekend.

Here  we  told each other our stories, and like others in their own groups I quickly bonded with my own special gang that included Buddy, a gay man whose partner was in anther group; Nii, our gay black facilitator; Paul, a straight white guy who just didn't think we were getting a fair deal; Anita, a mother of a gay boy, motivated by love for her son to embrace a whole movement; Shelby and me, two white  older lesbians; and our other facilitator, Scotti, a young white guy from Fresno and proud of it.

Together, we comprised a powerful mixture of black and white, gay and straight and this zinged right inside the hard places where I had harbored hurt from the passageof prop. 8.  The black lesbian and gay facilitators and leaders as well as the  black particpants swiftly erased the blame after Prop. 8's passage that I had been harboring against all black Obama supporters [I had been for Hillary after all]  And happily, within hours I could see that this view had been wrong and stupid. I gave it up gladly.

On Saturday we listened to Cleve Jones, union organizer, advisor on the film MILK and rabble rouser extraordinaire. Within our groups we wrote down our own life story, then   we listened to each other, talked to each other, and all the while we cried and laughed and felt more empowered with each passing hour. Both days ended  in breakout sessions on canvassing, using the internet, house parties, phone banking, volunteer recruitment, leadership 101, and retention.

The training is powerful, and the organizers were clear from the start: an army of gays and their friends will win gay rights once and for all. Isn't it time? YESSS!! We all roared back.

Camp Courage is part of the Courage Campaign led by Rick Jacobs. It was founded by and is  led by gay veterans of the Camp Obama campaign who were lacerated by the defeats for gay rights in California in November. Co-founders Torrie Osborn and Mike Bonin who are amply aided by Lead Facilitator and Trainer Lisa Powell are ushering in a new movement which is bringing much needed Change to  the LGBT movement. Gone is the top down structure of a handful of leaders  dictating to the foot soldiers--a sadly bankrupt model which had dominated the movement for decades.

In its place is an organization dedicated to empowering the grass roots, to  training organizers and to marshaling support for a gay movement.  

This movement as you read this is becoming networked, allied and well integrated into the progressive movement, maybe even  leading it. From labor unions to church organizations, from kids to grandparents, Camp Courage is providing gays, gay organizations and their straight allies with all the tools and help required to win full civil rights for gays in every sphere of life where prejudice and bigotry have prevailed. We are on the march now and nothing less will be acceptable other than Full marital rights, Full military rights  and Full immigration rights.

I'm wearing a little white ribbon for marriage equality as I write this. And arrayed in my heart are the faces and voices of all I met this weekend. I fell a little bit in love with All the Camp Courage participants. We listened to each other and we loved each other. And we are on the march.

http://www.couragecampaign.org/

There's more...

(Proudly cross-posted at C4O Democrats)

In a typically rare occasion, I had to cross "The Orange Curtain" last weekend to attend two major LGBT civil rights events in Los Angeles, Equality Summit and Camp Courage. And even though I hardly got any sleep Saturday night, I'm glad I did both. One helped me understand what went wrong with the No on H8 campaign in California last year, while the other helped me realize what needs to be done to make it right in 2009 and 2010.

There's more...

Since Prop 8 passed in California on Nov. 4th, a marriage equality movement has been building both in California and throughout the country, one that my friends at the Courage Campaign have been nurturing and now hope to turn into actual boots on the ground through a series of community organizing trainings they're calling "Camp Courage." To make these trainings a reality, Courage needs our help.

Rick Jacobs elaborates via e-mail:

To help us build a well-trained grassroots army to repeal Prop 8, our labor movement friends at United Healthcare Workers (UHW) and the California Nurses Association (CNA) are also stepping up to help us fund Camp Courage trainings across California. UHW and CNA have pledged to contribute $5,000 each if we can meet our $25,000 Camp Courage Challenge by this Friday, January 16.

The hard deadline is tonight at 11pm. Can you help? Please donate what you can HERE.

The first training is on Jan. 25th in Los Angeles but the fact is the more areas of California that we can set up these camps in the better. You and I know there are marriage equality supporters in the red districts as well as blue districts of California but those areas are largely ignored by the party and by progressive groups for all sorts of reasons. The more money Courage has to run these camps, the more of California the camps will be able to cover.

As Rick says in a follow-up e-mail today:

I want to expand the map -- to hold trainings in as many California communities as possible. Our first Camp Courage will be in Los Angeles on January 25. But we don't want to have to make a choice between places like Fresno, San Diego, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, and San Francisco.

It's up to you. And we've only got a few hours left before tonight's deadline. Will you help us expand the map and build a bigger army of well trained grassroots activists to repeal Prop 8?

Can you help expand the map and build an on the ground army for marriage equality? Give what you can by 11pm tonight HERE.

There's more...