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August 7, 2008

Action Alert For California's Anti-Gay Marriage Proposition 8

Early this morning I recieved a comment to yesterday's post, "Be Careful Out There..." According to the comment by Chino Blanco, a demonstration is being planned for August 14th in Irvine California. It well be against the PR firm Schubert Flint Public Affairs which was just hired to handle the promotion for the Yes on Prop. 8/Protect Marriage campaign.

Although the comment didn't really relate directly to the article, I feel it deserves attention. From what I understand at this point, the Shubert Flint firm was one of the primary players in the public relations campaign to justify the Iraq war and has now agreed to take on Proposition 8 (for a hefty fee I'm sure).

You can read Chino's article about this demonstration at the website Pam's House Blend.

His comment is posted at "Be Careful Out There..."

If you live in California or you might be visiting there, the demonstration will be held August 14th at about 5:00 pm. The address is:

Schubert Flint Public Affairs
2020 Main Street
Irvine, CA 92614


I'll keep you posted as soon as I get more information.

UPDATE...

First, a correction - The Schubert Flint Public Affairs firm was not, itself, involved in the selling of the Irag war BUT its senior partner, Jeff Flint, was one of the people involved in that campaign. Chino Blanco, in an excellent report posted at DailyKos.com said that at the time, Flint was with Russo Marsh & Rogers who represented the pro-Iraq War group Move America Forward which was responsible for the very public campaign to invade Iraq instead of pursuing Usama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Just to give you a better idea of the kind of people that Jeff Flint and Jennifer Kerns (who was just hired by Schubert Flint as the Communications Director for the Pro-Prop 8 campaign) really are, consider the following statements they recently made publicly: Flint, in mimicking Barack Obama, said "I'm for change....blah blah blah...I's for bringing people together...blah blah blah...let me quote Obama some more....blah blah blah...." If that isn't a not so subtle stab at racism, what is.

And Kerns, in describing how she's going to handle the campaign, said: "One of our campaign cornerstones will be the fact that if the initiative [to ban gay marriage in California] doesn't pass that public schools will be forced to teach the difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage."

Back to the demonstration. They're still working out specifics but I am now in direct contact with Chino and will keep you posted on further details.

If you have any questions about the demo you can post a comment/question here. If you don't want your comment or question to be public you can still use my "Comment" link at the bottom of this posting. I screen ALL comments that come into my blog so I don't have to publish it if you don't want me to. Chino said that you could also go to his blog at chinoblanco.blogspot.com and post there as well. I'm not sure if he screens his comments before they're posted but I'll check with him and let you know.

One last thing - a comment left on one of Chino's postings made a very astute point. Many of the clients of Shubert Flint are, in all likelyhood, opponents of Prop 8 and probably don't know much about the firm's involvement to pass it. That's why this demonstration has an excellent chance of being very successful. Once they know just who is representing them, a lot of those clients just might start rethinking their association with Shubert Flint and very well might decide to change their representation.

2 comments:

Chino Blanco said...

Wow, thank you for graciously drawing attention to this action we're planning.

You're absolutely right that my comment was not on-topic, which makes me doubly appreciate DesertGaySpeak now helping to promote our Irvine event.

Maybe I can use the fact that I was born in Mesa and spent my early years in Gilbert as an excuse?

In any case, thanks again.

Chino Blanco said...

UPDATE: The local tel contact for this action is Vern Nelson at 714-235-VERN

Here’s a direct link to the flyer in 8.5 x 11 (PDF) print format:

http://www.echols.info/SF-Irvine-Aug-14-Flyer.pdf

The final announcement is now up at the blogs listed below.

http://www.theliberaloc.com/2008/08/13/action-alert-tell-the-right-wing-consultants-no-to-prop-8/

http://www.calitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6650

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/13/112550/273/228/567260

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6488

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/8/13/12561/8314

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7485

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2008/8/13/13922/1271

Thank you again for helping to promote this action!