Take the Fine-Levinson Challenge

Today, both NCLR's and EQCA's NO on 8 PACs received a very generous pledge of $100,000 to defeat Proposition 8 -- if we are able to match it with donations. This incredible contribution comes from a local San Francisco family who is a long-standing supporter of NCLR and EQCA, and who knows all too well the significance of this battle.

 Kathy Levinson and Naomi Fine are challenging our community to match their donation by Monday, September 15 - for every $1 given to either NCLR's or EQCA's NO on 8 PAC, they will match it dollar for dollar up to $100,000 ($50,000 for each organization).

So we need you! Please help us reach this goal.

We couldn't capture how important the outcome of this ballot is any better than Kathy and Naomi did in their own words. We hope their generosity and sacrifice inspires you to join them, as it has me, to do everything possible to ensure Prop 8 is defeated on November 4. When we come together as a community like this we can accomplish more than we can imagine. And right now, we need absolutely everyone to help make this dream possible.

With hope,

Geoff Kors Equality California

Kate Kendell National Center Lesbian Rights

A message from the Levinson-Fine family

We are hard-working parents and professionals in a committed relationship, yet we are treated differently. We are very blessed in our lives - we are healthy, capable and professionally successful, with well adjusted children who are doing amazing things in their lives. We are engaged in our community and active in philanthropy. In spite of our many blessings and successes, our relationship is not treated with the dignity and respect afforded to heterosexual couples who enter into the institution of marriage. A domestic partnership is not honored, respected, understood or treated as a marriage.

Denying us the right to marry is to discriminate against us, and our love and our commitment to one another. Though we make our home and create a family together for our children, we must pause when we travel and are handed an immigration form-are we one family? And what box should we check on the form when the choice is "married or single"? To be safe, we carry around our healthcare power of attorney forms wherever we go, to ensure that we will be allowed to make medical decisions for one another if needed. We challenge our lawyers and accountants, at great financial cost to us, to make sure that, as we enter our retirement years, we have completed the necessary legal documents to financially protect the surviving partner, children and our assets.

We want to be married under the laws of the state of California so that our loving commitment to one another and to our family is witnessed and recognized here and anywhere we may go. If Proposition 8 passes, we will be denied what the California Supreme Court recently confirmed is a fundamental right accorded every adult citizen in the state of California. We must not let this happen. If we are successful in defeating Proposition 8, we not only affirm the right of every adult California citizen to marry, we also put another crack in the wall that blocks all of us from the freedom to be full and equal participants in society, expressing and contributing our talents and gifts toward making the world better. We hope you will join us in stretching to do, and give, everything you can to defeat Proposition 8.

Thank you.

Sincerely,


Kathy Levinson & Naomi Fine