Dear Members,

We got a huge wake up call this week. 60,000 people donated more than $25 million to write discrimination into the California Constitution.

With all that money the opposition is “swiftboating” and smearing us with television ads that tell lies — that we are attacking children and churches. 

We refuse to be swiftboated. 

We’ve launched our new ad, calling out their lies.

Now we need your help to flood the airwaves and make our case! Will you help us fight back by making a donation?

Research shows our messages beat their lies, but only if we can get them on the air enough to have an impact.

Now is the moment to make another donation if you can and to enlist your friends and family.  They will give only if you ask – they need to hear from you why this is so important.Tell them to go to http:/www.NoOnProp8.com/stopthelies to make a donation.

Only 30,000 people from the tens of millions of LGBT people and hundreds of millions of allies in this country have donated to protect our equality.  That is not acceptable.  We need anybody and everybody to do what they can.  Please donate today!

In solidarity,

Amos Lim, 林明利, Community Organizer

API Equality | www.apiequality.org

Please join API Equality and CAA on September 22^nd for a special screening of “Tongzhi In Love”, the new documentary by Academy Award Winner Ruby Yang. Come mix and mingle with staff and supporters at the El Rio Bar in the Mission and enjoy the documentary after sunset in the patio.

Click here for the Evite invitation.

This event will help us raise some much needed funds for API Equality to continue fighting to preserve the freedom to marry for all and raising awareness about LGBT Issues within the API Community. For more info, visit http://www.apiequality.org

In “Tongzhi in Love” (f.k.a. A Double Life), their latest and most lyrical film yet, the Oscar-winning team of director Ruby Yang and producer Thomas Lennon have captured an intimate, poignant portrait of three young men navigating the precarious dilemmas of living out and gay in modern China, torn between the lure of big city life and the powerful demands of generations of cultural tradition. Frog and his friends, Feng and Ze, live and work in cosmopolitan Beijing, reveling in a level of freedom that sophisticated urban life affords. Yet a Chinese son’s solemn duty is to produce a child and to carry forward his family’s line and name. Does their relative freedom and happiness come at the expense of their parents and centuries of cultural tradition? Can they live out and be happy and still be “good sons”? China’s laws limiting most families to a single child only compounds pressures on gay men, many of whom resort to sham marriages. – courtesy of Frameline

Fresh from its sold out West Coast premiere at the 2008 Frameline LGBT Film Festival, CAA and API Equality are excited to be able to hold another screening for our guests.

Date:                    Monday, September 22, 2008
Time:                   Doors open at 7pm, film screening starts at sunset
Location:             El Rio Bar – 3158 Mission St. (@ Cesar Chavez), San Francisco, CA 94110

Note: El Rio is a CASH ONLY bar.

Cost:                     Suggested donation of $25 to support API Equality.

Questions/RSVP:

Tawal Panyacosit, Jr.
Director, API Equality
tpanyacosit [at] caasf [dot] org
415.274.6760 ext 316

Host Committee Members:

Lenore Chinn

David Chiu

Cecilia Chung, Vice Chair, SF Human Rights Commission

Leo Chyi

Sandra Lee Fewer

Kevin M. Fong

Jane Kim, Commissioner, San Francisco Board of Education

Stuart Gaffney & John Lewis

Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA)

Robert Imada, Mr GAPA 2008

Emily Leung

Michael Lim

Eric Mar, Commissioner, SF Board of Education

National Center for Lesbian Rights

SFSU Cesar Chavez Institute’s Family Acceptance Project

Germaine Q Wong

Helen Zia & Lia Shigemura

Dear Supporters,

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself as the new Director of API Equality and provide an update of our activities. I have engaged in this work in communities as far ranging as Boston and Cincinnati to places closer like Portland and Los Angeles, but to participate in what may be the historic struggle of our era in the city and state where I grew up is truly a homecoming.

As you may know, the fight for marriage equality is at a crucial juncture in California. The struggle for LGBT acceptance has spanned across the nation, over state borders, throughout corridors of government, and has landed now in a proverbial firestorm at our feet. For Asian Pacific Islanders (API), this is a struggle with which we have been and continue to wrestle. Just four years ago, nearly 10,000 APIs rallied across the state in San Francisco and the San Gabriel Valley of L.A. County. And, just four years ago, API Equality was founded. Since then, API Equality has and continues to play a lead role in the efforts to open the hearts and minds of Californians with a particular emphasis in API communities.

With all that hard work, we NOW have marriage! But, the battle is by no means over. An amendment to ban same-sex marriage is slated for the November 2008 ballot. And, the opposition is at it again. WeÆve recently heard wind of API religious extremists planning a repeat performance of the 2004 rallies in the coming months. We desperately need to educate our fellow APIs and take a stand for justice and equality.

With a seat on the Executive Committee of Equality for All, the statewide campaign to win marriage rights, and my recent election as co-chair of the San Francisco No on 8 Local Action Committee, API Equality is well-place to continue this work. However, regardless of the outcome on Election Day, we must remain vigilant. Throughout the years, the targeting of the API community and proliferation of discriminatory ballot measures in California virtually guarantees that our community will soon face more onslaughts on the right to marry for the foreseeable future.

Please join us by pledging to vote No on Prop. 8, volunteering with us, or hosting a house party to educate your friends and family and raise important funds for the battle ahead!

For Equality,

Tawal Panyacosit Jr.
Director, API Equality

On May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled in a historic 4-3 decision that lesbian and gay couples deserve the freedom to marry under state law. API Equality and its coalitions of supporters are thrilled by this momentous decision, which is a victory for all Californians who cherish fairness and equality, and will ensure that every Californian will enjoy the dignity and respect that marriage provides.

The positive ruling will impact thousands of Asian American families. According to a study by the UCLA’s Williams Institute, Asian Americans form a highly visible portion of California’s population of same-sex couples and their children. Although the numbers are difficult to ascertain, a low estimate indicates there are at least 13,000 Asian American same-sex couples raising over 5,600 children in the state.

Read the California Supreme Court opinion and press release.

Read an FAQ about the Court’s decision and how to marry in California.

Read the Asian American amicus brief in support of the Marriage Cases.

Read API Equality’s press release heralding the Court’s decision.

Read responses by API Equality-LA, Asian & Pacific Islander Health Forum, Asian American Justice Center, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and National Korean American Service & Education Consortium.

View more videos and Subscribe to API Equality’s You Tube Channel

API Equality has a new website, and we couldn’t be happier. The process has been a year in the making, and we’re glad it’s done (well, almost done). There are still a few things that need to be worked out, but that’s to be expected. Make sure to check in often; the site will be updated frequently. Huzzah!