What would YOU ask: Some No on 8 EC Members doing Q&A on Thursday, February 5

NOTE: Comments on this post have been closed in order to best aggregate all the input from this post and the others that were set up to solicit input. Another post will be published here that outlines the themes/topics to be addressed in the interview.

If you wish to watch/participate in the live stream on Thursday, February 5 at 2:00pm Pacific time, you can go to this link. The stream will be the main video on the page.

Regardless of the camp in which you sit, consensus pretty much confirms – the No on 8 campaign had problems … lots of them.

For starters, we lost.

Actually the “starters” lay within the snarled set of issues – call them mistakes, errors, miscommunication, snafus, misfires it doesn’t really matter – that led to the way in which this (not-such) comedy of errors played out. For the record, I fall somewhere just off center on this. I’m pissed at how things turned out. Who wouldn’t be? (Well, except for the Yes on 8 supporters, I suppose.) There were many points along the way where I saw things going the wrong way. There were points along the way where, through conversations with others who were more deeply engaged than I, it was clear that the campaign was in trouble.

Many people – both those who continue to speak out as well as others who at this point are silent in shades of disgust – want a public accounting by the No on 8 Executive Committee on what happened – accepting responsibility, identifying mistakes … that sort of thing. There have been posts calling out the members (once they were identified), demanding apologies and clamoring for answers. The dissenting voices, whose deeply persistent murmur rose to a particularly explosive cadence during last months’ EqualitySummit, call for a public forum.

While I do not disagree that such a thing *should* happen, I’m concerned that the reality of it is slim to none and that a lot of time may be wasted in trying to make it take place. As I understand it there are “a few” members of the EC who have already flat out refused doing such a public thing – whether a live forum or a public statement. (Personally, I’d like to know who those people are so that we can remove them from the process moving forward. Anyone who cannot take accountability has no business leading … but that is an issue for another post…).

So, I’ve been trying to think of ways to at least begin to mitigate this deep anger while trying to stay productive and forward looking at the same time. Participation in Equality Summit and Courage Campaign’s Camp Courage went a long way towards that end. In the time since then, I’ve witnessed an incredible array of coalition building, team efforts underway and a wonderful sense that this community may well pull itself together in a unified effort.

But people are still upset. So what to do about that?

With that, I have taken it upon myself to attempt something this coming Thursday, February 5.

At 2:00pm Pacific this Thursday, February 5, 2009 I am going to be sitting down with Kate Kendell, Geoff Kors and Tawal Panyacosit – three members of the No on 8 EC. It’s *possible* that one or two other EC members might attend as well, but I have confirmed these three.

The entirety of this conversation will be on a live stream and I’ll also have my various social network platforms open and fired up with the intention of giving as many people as wish to participate at least some open forum in which to talk with at least some of the EC members.

In the interest of trying to put at least a bit of structure around the questions (not to edit, but to manage what I’m hoping will be a lot of input!) I’m hoping to solicit as many questions as possible in the next 24 hours. My plan will then be to put those question up on a live poll and have people vote on those questions with the intention of asking as many of them as possible in the order that people have indicated is important to them …

My intention here is really to try and foster some sort of facilitated dialogue that can be productive. I may fail, but I feel that I must try.

One person to whom I reached out already has said that short of a complete and public (e.g. an in person Town Hall type) hearing they have no interest in helping spread the word about this Thursday’s discussion. If this is your perspective as well, I wholly appreciate and respect that.

If, however, you feel that having at least this virtual public gathering can help serve to forward the idea of gaining some more public closure (which was started at EqualitySummit), I would truly appreciate your help.

And doing so is very simple:

1) Please spread the word. Your assistance in forwarding the link to this can only mean more people have a chance to speak up.

2) Submit a comment here. The comments will close at 9:00am Pacific time on Wednesday, February 4. PLEASE MAKE SURE AND LEAVE ME A REAL EMAIL ADDRESS so that I can contact you for step 3.

3) I will aggregate the questions from here (as well as from my blog and Facebook – where I’ve also posted this) and then will publish a public poll. That poll will be open from 9am pacific time on Wednesday 2/4 through 12:00pm Pacific time on Thursday, February 5.

I’ll post a note and contact everyone who’s submitted questions with a link to the live stream for Thursday and hope you’ll not only forward that link liberally but also can take the time to participate.

Will this resolve the concern and angst in the community, that would be an awfully lofty goal. If that can be accomplished, great. That pragmatic voice in my head says that this is really only a start, but in taking a step, hopefully we can all begin to truly move forward.

— Cathy