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Formation | November 3, 2006 [1] |
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20-4841338 [2] | |
Legal status | 501(c)(4) advocacy organization [2] |
Location | |
Membership | Over 1 million members [3] |
Jamie McGurk | |
Eddie Kurtz [4] | |
Affiliations | Courage California Institute, Courage California Super PAC [2] |
Revenue (2014) | $346,372 [2] |
Expenses (2014) | $479,610 [2] |
Employees (2013) | 15 [2] |
Website | www |
Courage California (formerly Courage Campaign [5] ) is a California-based 501(c)(4) progressive grassroots advocacy organization founded in 2005. [6] The organization claims an online grassroots activism network of over 1 million members. The group works on a variety of progressive causes including LGBT equality, gun control and healthcare reform, including support of single-payer health care. [7] [8] [9] The group has taken a role in various California statewide ballot measures, including supporting Proposition 30 and opposing Proposition 32 in 2012. [10]
Courage California's EqualityOnTrial.com was founded to cover the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial when the courtroom forbade live television coverage. Courage California is an affiliate of the ProgressNow advocacy network. [11]
In 2011, Courage California organized a flash mob protest against Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Over fifty people danced to Madonna’s hit "Like a Prayer" outside of the 2011 California Republican Party convention. The protest called attention to Bachmann's connections to conversion therapy. [12]
When the California Supreme Court decided it would take six months to rule on the next phase of the Proposition 8 trial, Courage California asked its members for testimony to back the legal challenge of Proposition 8 and other gay-rights litigation. More than 3,000 stories came in. [13]
The group also protested at a fundraiser featuring then-House Speaker John Boehner. [14] [15]
In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, Courage California worked to pressure large retailers, including Walmart, to stop selling assault rifles, joining with SumOfUs, MoveOn.org and MomsRising to deliver hundreds of thousands of signatures to their store in Newtown, Connecticut. [16] Courage California also lobbied Apple to increase the recommended age from 4 to 12 for an NRA shooting app. [17]
In March 2013, the group partnered with the Daily Kos and MoveOn.org to deliver over 100,000 signatures to the Los Angeles Times opposing a sale of the newspaper, owned by the Tribune Company, to Charles and David Koch. [18] Courage California and Daily Kos members also funded a newspaper ad to appear in the pages of the Los Angeles Times. After the advertising department rejected the ad, Courage Campaign staff revised the ad to add six footnote citations of the Los Angeles Times own reporting regarding the Kochs. Following the petition delivery, the advertising department relented and the advertisement ran on April 3, 2013. [19]
Playing on the “It Gets Better” campaign, Courage California worked with the American Bridge 21st Century to critique Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential elections. This was the first project to track Romney's record on LGBT issues from 1994 to 2012. [20]
Courage Campaign, as it was first called, was founded by Rick Jacobs. In 2013, Jacobs took a leave of absence from the group and was replaced by Paul Song. [21] In November 2014, Eddie Kurtz became the executive director. [22]
Courage California Institute is a separately incorporated 501(c)(3) charitable organization that educates, defends, and extends human rights and civil rights. [2]
Courage California Super PAC is a separately incorporated super PAC that supports and opposes candidates for federal office. [2]
The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization affiliated with the Republican Party which advocates for equal rights for LGBT+ Americans, by educating the LGBT+ community and Republicans about each other.
Michele Marie Bachmann is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for Minnesota's 6th congressional district from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party, she was a candidate for president of the United States in the 2012 election, but lost the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney.
John J. Duran is an American municipal politician and a former mayor of West Hollywood, California.
David Benjamin Mixner was an American political activist and author. He was best known for his work in anti-war and gay rights advocacy.
Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in court. The proposition was created by opponents of same-sex marriage in advance of the California Supreme Court's May 2008 appeal ruling, In re Marriage Cases, which followed the short-lived 2004 same-sex weddings controversy and found the previous ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Proposition 8 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by a federal court in 2010, although the court decision did not go into effect until June 26, 2013, following the conclusion of proponents' appeals.
The 2012 United States presidential election was the 57th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Incumbent Democratic president Barack Obama and his running mate, incumbent vice president Joe Biden, were re-elected to a second term. They defeated the Republican ticket of former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney and U.S. representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
The following is a timeline of major events leading up to the United States presidential election of 2012. The election was the 57th quadrennial United States presidential election held on November 6, 2012.
Protests against Proposition 8 supporters in California took place starting in November 2008. These included prominent protests against the Roman Catholic church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which supported California's Proposition 8. The proposition was a voter referendum that amended the state constitution to recognize marriage only as being between one man and one woman, thus banning same-sex marriage, which was legal in the state following a May 2008 California Supreme Court case.
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is an American non-profit political organization established to work against the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. It was formed in 2007 specifically to pass California Proposition 8, a state prohibition of same-sex marriage. The group has opposed civil union legislation and gay adoption, and has fought against allowing transgender individuals to use bathrooms that accord with their gender identity. Brian S. Brown has served as the group's president since 2010.
The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2009. The movement formed in opposition to the policies of Democratic President Barack Obama and was a major factor in the 2010 wave election in which Republicans gained 63 House seats and took control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Queer Liberaction (QL) is a Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas-based grassroots organization advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights. The group was founded in November 2008 following the international attention surrounding California's Proposition 8, which changed that state's Constitution to deny marriage rights to any LGBT couples who are not defined as "a man and a woman", passed by a slight majority. The organization is a proponent of same-sex marriage rights for LGBT couples, considering civil unions and domestic partnerships as less than full equality.
Hollingsworth v. Perry was a series of United States federal court cases that re-legalized same-sex marriage in the state of California. The case began in 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which found that banning same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the law. This decision overturned California ballot initiative Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex marriage. After the State of California refused to defend Proposition 8, the official sponsors of Proposition 8 intervened and appealed to the Supreme Court. The case was litigated during the governorships of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, and was thus known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger and Perry v. Brown, respectively. As Hollingsworth v. Perry, it eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which held that, in line with prior precedent, the official sponsors of a ballot initiative measure did not have Article III standing to appeal an adverse federal court ruling when the state refused to do so.
The NOH8 Campaign is a charitable organization whose mission is to promote LGBT marriage, gender and human equality through education, advocacy, social media, and visual protest.
Love Honor Cherish or LHC is a Los-Angeles based, non-profit, civil rights organization that advocates for the rights of gay and lesbian couples to marry in California and the repeal of Proposition 8 at the November 2, 2010 general election.
Fred S. Karger is an American political consultant, gay rights activist and watchdog, and former actor. His unsuccessful candidacy for the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election made him the first openly gay presidential candidate in a major political party in American history. Karger has worked on nine presidential campaigns and served as a senior consultant to the campaigns of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
Proposition 23 was a California ballot proposition that was on the November 2, 2010 California statewide ballot. It was defeated by California voters during the statewide election by a 23% margin. If passed, it would have suspended AB 32, a law enacted in 2006, legally referred to its long name, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Sponsors of the initiative referred to their measure as the California Jobs Initiative while opponents called it the Dirty Energy Prop.
The history of LGBT residents in California, which includes centuries prior to the 20th, has become increasingly visible recently with the successes of the LGBT rights movement. In spite of the strong development of early LGBT villages in the state, pro-LGBT activists in California have campaigned against nearly 170 years of especially harsh prosecutions and punishments toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
ProtectMarriage.com was a collection of conservative and religious American political activist groups aligned in opposition to same-sex marriage. The coalition's stated goal is to "defend and restore the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman." Beginning in 2001 as Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund holding the domain name protectmarriage.com, the organization reformed in 2005 as a coalition to sponsor California Proposition 8, called the California Marriage Protection Act, and was successful in placing it on the ballot in 2008. Proposition 8 amended the California Constitution, putting a halt to same-sex marriages in California for nearly two years until the proposition was overturned as unconstitutional. While it was in effect, ProtectMarriage.com defended the amendment in a series of legal challenges. Ron Prentice is the executive director.
The 2012 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses took place on January 3, 2012.
The start of the 2012 Republican race for president was shaped by the 13 presidential debates of 2011 beginning on May 5. Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer, both former Governors, were left out of most of the debates, leading to complaints of bias. On December 28, 2011, Johnson withdrew to seek the Libertarian Party nomination and on February 23, 2012, Roemer withdrew to seek the Reform Party and the Americans Elect nomination.