RENWL

It was a little over a month after the election of Barack Obama into the White House and the devastating defeat of No On 8 when we received Mike Bonin’s fateful email on Xmas eve, Dec 24th of 2008:

Oh, man!  I am so sorry I missed you — especially since you trekked so far.  Sounds like you had fun, although exhausting fun.  Do what I do void:  AVOID SHOPPING IN STORES.  I do almost everything online.  I just can’t deal with the crowds.
You’ll be happy to know the Obama campaign in California is morphing into an organization promoting causes and volunteers activities.  Go to communityorganize.com, register and sign up for groups as appropriate.  (The site is only a week old, so right now everything is geographic.  I am not sure which congressional district you are in.  I can’t remember if West Adams is Maxine (35) or Diane (33).  If a group for your CD does not yet exist, go ahead and start one.  In the next few weeks, the site will grow.

Also, I am working with Courage Campaign to organize a training Jan 24 and Jan 25 for folks who want to learn some grassroots organizing tools to help overturn Prop 8. I will keep you posted once we lock in a venue.
After the holiday madness is over, we really need to make a plan to grab coffee.
Merry Xmas

That’s how we ended up at the first Camp Courage. It was held at the West Hollywood Park auditorium. Read our account of the experience if you like that we posted on our soon to be resurrected old blog Uncle Fatlips: Camp Courage: Repeal Prop 8 Movement Unleashes New Power Soul.

The title of that post—can you get any dorkier than that? We can scarcely recognize the person who wrote those words. It’s as if he existed in another place and time. In truth, that’s what it was at the time the words were written. California gays had just come off of a shameful and needless defeat (hear that EQCA) with No On Prop 8. A good many of us were still reeling from that loss. We had nowhere to go, no place to get it out. No hope. The timing for Courage Campaign was more than perfect, it was a godsend. Over 200 people attended it. The experience—at that time a one-day event, was nothing less than amazing. We didn’t want it to end.

That was the beginning of our journey with Courage. It took us a while to get it though. The whole business of creating a neighborhood equality team; the concept of it all was beyond our comprehension—-initially it flew over our heads. Not that this is what one had to do after completing a Camp Courage; there were so many options provided by the Courage folks on what you could do in terms of being apart of this new movement to repeal Prop 8. And it was so exciting. At that time we were so green we’d never even heard of EQCA and didn’t know their relationship to the No On 8 campaign. That was to come later.

But first we had to learn how to become activists—-Courage Campaign style.

End of Part 1. Yes, we’re being a tease, here. Stay tuned for Part 2 on Tuesday as RENWL celebrates or reminisces on the one-year anniversary of Camp Courage. You’ll be glad you did:)

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