Final Story: Fighting Prop 8 from the Personal to the Professional

It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Frank and Joe Capley- Alfano’s apartment, where boxes full of Christmas decorations were waiting to be strung up around the apartment. That wasn’t the only thing that filled the apartment- excitement, as well as champagne, filled glasses as the two plus their roommate toasted. “It’s a win for the community,” Joe Capley-Alfano said. The victory he was referring to was that, after five years of fighting his husband's labor union, Joe Capley-Alfano now has healthcare. Why the delay? Their married relationship status.

Once Prop 8 passed in the November 2008 election, it seemed that the issue of marriage equality dropped off the political radar. Just because the bill was passed, however, does not mean the fight was over. Groups such as One Struggle, One Fight, and the International Socialist Organization have been doing their part to help raise awareness and support for equality, which recently has taken place in the Castro.

Proposition 8 is cited as the “California Marriage Protection Act”, stating that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid in California. San Francisco issued marriage licenses to same sex couples on Feb. 12, 2004, and, almost 4,000 marriages later, ceased on Mar. 12, 2004 after the California Supreme Court ordered San Francisco officials to stop producing marriage licenses to same sex couples. On Jun. 2, 2008, Proposition 8 qualified for the November 2008 election ballot.

“We stood in line in two and a half, three days in the rain,” Frank Capley-Alfano said. Before he went on Capley-Alfano chimed in smiling, “it was the best three days ever.” The two got married back in 2004 during the Winter of Love when Gavin Newsom allowed gay marriage in San Francisco. “That kind of love was erupting through the city,” Capley-Alfano said. They married at 3:34 in the afternoon on Feb. 17, 2004. Once the California Supreme Court lifted the ban on gay marriage in 2008, the two were one of the first couples to set a date. Both being big on tradition, they got married in the exact spot where they said their “I do’s” back in 2004.

After their marriage, Joe and Frank Capley- Alfano became very active in their community, as well as the state, in rallying up support against Prop 8 by telling their story. It was at this point in time when the two met with the people of One Struggle, One Fight.

Capley- Alfano attended a meeting in San Francisco about grassroots organizing that people were working on to fight against the newly passed Prop 8. “I remember a lot of blame going on and lots of finger pointing and also lots of grand standing,” Capley-Alfano said. During the meeting he noticed Kip Williams. “[Kip] was talking about moving forward and intersections in the communities and building allies outside the LGBT community all these sort of ideas that really were refreshing,” Capley-Alfano said. Capley-Alfano especially liked the idea of direct action and taking the movement back to the streets and the effectiveness of grassroots organizing. They exchanged numbers and started organizing the six day march to Sacramento.

Along with Williams, Flik Huang was one of the founders of the group One Struggle, One Fight. Huang explained that OSOF “work[s] with many different organizations, on a local, state-wide and national level. We have close ties with the labor community, a bond which goes back in the LGBT community as far as Harvey Milk's time. We strive to build coalitions with as many different and progressive groups as possible, for we believe that our struggles are fights for human and civil rights, rather than separate issues [labor, LGBT, immigration, health care]. Hence our name, which comes from an LGBT rights chant from the 70's: "gay, straight, black, white: one struggle, one fight."

Huang remembered how she felt when she heard that Prop 8 Passed. “The next day I cried for a long time. I'd never believed it could pass; who on earth votes to revoke other people's rights? How is that even remotely legal? And felt blindsided and horrified that this had been allowed to take place. I could feel very deeply my friend's - and the LGBT community's - pain and anger, and I had to do something,” she said.

Although a fairly new group, OSOF has become a force with organizing for marriage equality as well as other human rights causes. “In under a year we became one of the most active and recognized grassroots groups in [Northern California], and within the LGBT grassroots community we have a lot of supporters nationally. It's been an arduous, breakneck, often painful and excruciatingly difficult journey, but worth it in so many ways for all we've accomplished and everyone our work [has] had an effect on,” Huang said.

Both the OSOF and International Socialist Organization have done events in the Castro. “Although we often are criticized for ‘preaching to the choir,’ it must be pointed out that many of those who live in and frequent the Castro district, though supportive of our goals, are complacent or indifferent to actually participating in even the most basic ways. We are hoping that our presence in the Castro can help to motivate and mobilize members of our very own community who at the moment are often not even aware that their rights are threatened or what they can do about it,” Huang said.

Recently OSOF, with the help of the ISO and Equality California, held a rally on Nov. 4 at Harvey Milk Plaza noting the one year anniversary of the passing of Prop 8. The night started out with various speakers from each organization, as well as members from the public, talking about how Prop 8 has affected their lives.

“All of us working on the event thought the Castro and specifically Harvey Milk Plaza would be the best place for it. It has significance for the LGBT community and we wanted to draw folks in from off the street who would have common cause,” ISO member Ashley Simmons said about the Nov. 4 rally. “I don't think the Castro is by any means the only place to be having LGBT rallies,” adding, “I think for the political moment it was the appropriate place although OSOF has planned, with many ISO comrades taking part, many actions in the Castro.”

“Whenever we get attacked, we meet at Harvey Milk Plaza,” Capley-Alfano said. Frank Capley-Alfano added, “Historically it has always been a place for community.” He continued to explain that it’s a great common spot to meet and organize, but, depending on the situation, it would be very beneficial to move the protests elsewhere to draw attention to instead of just staying in the Castro.

Capley-Alfano suggested that a creative way to do this is through flash-mobs. The idea of the flash-mob originated on the internet but basically it’s setting a time and event online and on a certain day and people come together for whatever cause it may be- even silly ones like no pants days. Capley-Alfano mentioned that a good example of this would be something called Guerilla Queer Bars; it’s when a group of LGBT members would go to relatively straight bars at a certain time and interact with them showing the patrons that gay people aren’t very different than they are.

Now, this is not to say that the efforts in the Castro have been in vain. “It’s hard to engage people who have politically been beaten down so many times… that they just want to have fun,” Capley-Alfano said, and added that “in terms of engaging our community we need to start being creative.”

Another supporter of marriage equality who has been documenting the various movements is photographer Geoff King. Since the passing of Proposition 8, King has documented various events and rallies in the Bay Area that have taken place since then. He plans on bringing the various images and stories together in a book called “Such a Bittersweet Day”.

King has grown up in the Bay Area. His parents met in San Francisco in the 70s and told him about San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk at an early age. He grew up with the understanding of San Francisco’s colorful past that got him interested in documenting the aftermath of Prop 8. He has been photographing various protests and other human rights events since the Iraq War started.

While attending a candle lit vigil on November 5, the day after the election, King overheard someone say it was “such a bittersweet day”, a black man was voted president but gay people were denied the right to marry. “I have to document this going forward,” King said. To him, it was an important civil rights matter; although he wasn’t affected directly by Prop 8, his friends were. He said that it seemed irrational and foreign and wanted to explore the topic more.

A year later, King’s book, “Such a Bittersweet Day”, is a compilation of black and white photos of the demonstrations that have taken place in the past year with captions of an oral history of the movement by journalist Sunny Angulo. All proceeds from the book go to Transgender Law Center and Health Legal Services.

Desiree Aubry spoke at a rally that was put on by OSOF that King photographed in the Castro. She didn’t go up with a speech in hand, like the ones before had. Instead, she stood in front of the crowd and bared her soul for all to hear; it was one of the more emotional speeches of the night. “Hate cannot defeat love,” she said. “No matter how much it [hurts] our hearts… we are going to be strong.”

Aubry joined OSOF because she wanted to help. “It baffles me to this day how people can be so full of hatred and ignorance and how they can justify taking away our rights, taking away our happiness, demeaning us, telling us our lives and our love aren't worth a damn because it's different,” Aubry said when she heard about Prop 8’s passing.

Although Joe and Frank Capley-Alfano were part of the lucky group who got married, and more importantly got to keep their marriage, they had a long battle ahead of them; the couple still faced many financial hardships and discrimination. For five years they have been fighting to get Capley-Alfano put under his husband’s healthcare. Frank Capley-Alfano’s work could deny the joint health care because the federal law does not recognize the two as a couple. “As domestic partners we called the union to see if they could put [Joe] under healthcare as a domestic partner. Of course they said no,” Frank Capley-Alfano said. He works for the International Union of Elevator Constructors, who went with the notion that federal law supersedes state law and therefore did not need to offer domestic partner benefits; the union even sent out a letter defining what they saw as a married couple and what they considered a spouse.

After five years of back and forth with the union and various government officials and appeals, the two finally achieved the equality they worked so hard for. Their excitement was very apparent and contagious when speaking to them. It was a victory well worth celebrating, but it showed that there is still so much more to fight for. “Prop 8 took away and affected a lot more than people who wanted to get married. It opened the door for discrimination of all types in California… all communities to be attacked,” Capley-Alfano said. He then went on to say that “it’s not about marriage equality. It’s about civil equality and about equality for everyone.”

Many No on 8 organizations and supporters have been working hard on campaigning for the next general election in 2010. One Struggle, One fight is currently working on strategizing for their part in the effort to make a change with the California voters come November.

As for the future of LGBT equality, Aubry said she hopes “for full federal equality. I hope that the rest of the world not just the nation can accept us for who we are and who we love. I hope that when we get full equality, we don't forget the past and that we don't become complacent. Complacency is dangerous. If we become complacent we'll forget to fight for the rest of our rights… I want us to be able to be happy and free and truly live our lives, and be considered equal to others. My hope is that our hearts heal from all the breaks we've experienced, and that the anger dissipates. I hope the hate, more than anything disappears and that we can just celebrate love as it is.”