The San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (SAME) is inviting all San Diegans interested in the future of the marriage equality movement to come to The Center on Tuesday evening for a program featuring, among others, Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, activist and author Ann Menasche, Marriage Equality USA’s Fernando Lopez and SAME’s Zakiya Khabir.
Here are the details:
What’s Next for the Marriage Equality Movement?
Activist Forum featuring Robin Tyler and Diane OlsonEngage! Debate! Decide!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Center, 3909 Centre Street, San Diego, CA 92103
- 6:30 – Refreshments and Meet and Greet with other San Diego Activist Groups
- 7:00 – Speaker’s Program
- 8:00 – Open Discussion
Topics include Winning Against the Briggs Initiative, Coalition Building, and Public Outreach
Speakers include:
- Robin Tyler and Diane Olson — the first lesbian plaintiffs to sue the state of California challenging the ban on same sex marriage
- Ann Menasche — author of Leaving the Life: Lesbians, Ex-Lesbians and the Heterosexual Imperative
- Fernando Lopez (Marriage Equality USA)
- Rev. Harry Cooper
- Powell DeGange (UNITE-HERE)
- Zakiya Khabir (SAME)
- M.C. Chuck Stemke (International Socialist Organization)
Robin Tyler is a pioneer within the grassroots movement of the gay civil rights fight. She has played a seminal role in the struggle for equal right both in her current role as Executive Director of The Equality Campaign and as the first lesbian plaintiff to sue the state of California challenging the ban on same sex marriage. She has fought California’s Proposition 8 professionally by producing PSA’s and personally when she and her wife filed a brief to the state Supreme Court on November 5th challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8.
Diane Olson is the grand daughter of the first California Democratic Governor elected in the last century, Culbert Levy Olson. (1939-1943). Governor Olson ran and won on the platform “separation of church and state.”
Ann Menasche has been an activist for forty years in struggles for gay & lesbian rights, women’s rights, social justice and peace. In 1978, she was involved in San Francisco’s grassroots coalition that lead the fight to defeat the anti-gay Briggs initiative. In the late 1980′s, she founded a lesbian-feminist organization in San Francisco called “Lesbian Uprising” that was politically active for several years. In 1999, she published a book on lesbian oppression, “Leaving the Life: Lesbians, Ex-Lesbians and the Heterosexual Imperative.” Last August, Ann married her partner of 18 years, Rochelle Glickman. Currently, Ann spends her days working as a disability rights attorney, and her nights at SAME meetings as a member of the steering committee.
