Nov. 2 was a wake-up call. Groups across U.S. Debate Slower Strategy on Gay Rights. – But don’t expect anyone in Georgia to listen to reason.
Excerpts from a 12-9-04 The New York Times article entitled:
Groups Debate Slower Strategy on Gay Rights
Leaders of the gay rights movement are embroiled in a bitter and increasingly public debate over whether they should moderate their goals in the wake of bruising losses in November when 11 states approved constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriages.
In the past week alone, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, has accepted the resignation of its executive director, appointed its first non-gay board co-chairman and adopted a new, more moderate strategy, with less emphasis on legalizing same-sex marriages and more on strengthening personal relationships.
The leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, at a meeting last weekend in Las Vegas, concluded that the group must bow to political reality and moderate its message and its goals.
"The feeling this weekend in Las Vegas was that we had to get beyond the political and return to the personal," said Michael Berman, a Democratic lobbyist and consultant who was elected the first non-gay co-chairman of the Human Rights Campaign's board last week. "We need to reintroduce ourselves to America with the stories of our lives."
The gay rights movement, like other battles through history over individual rights, has made progress in fits and starts, in the culture and in the courts, in legislatures and in families. And like most political movements, it has always been riven with dissension on strategy and tactics, on questions of how far and how fast the movement can push without provoking a backlash.
The Human Rights Campaign, which is based in Washington, was instrumental in the defeat this year of the federal marriage amendment, which would have defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. The group was not as active in the ballot initiative battles in the states this fall.
Some gay rights activists, including the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, said they believed that aggressively pursuing same-sex marriage only played into the hand of Republicans and religious conservatives, who skillfully used the issue this fall to energize their voters.
Steven Fisher, the campaign's communications director, said the group's emphasis in coming months would be on communicating the struggles of gays in their families, workplaces, churches and synagogues. The story of gay men and lesbians in the United States is often told through the prism of sensationalism and stigma, Mr. Fisher said.
"When you put a face to our issues, that's when we get support," he said. "We're not going to win at the ballot box until we start winning at the water cooler and in the church pews."
Lawyers representing some gay groups have concluded that challenging antimarriage amendments in individual states is a losing proposition even if they win in some courts because American society is not yet ready to accept the idea of same-sex partners sharing the same rights as heterosexual couples.
"The legal strategy to win marriage rights is a decade ahead of the political strategies to educate the public and the legislatures," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Putting a fundamental right up for a popular vote is always extremely difficult to win, no matter what the cause. And when you are talking about something as recent as marriage equality, the bar gets raised even higher."
Pragmatists and politicians are more inclined to support the Human Rights Campaign's measured approach. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said it was important for the movement to sensibly pick its fights. "You take risks for your gains," he said, "but you don't take risks for no gain."
In recent weeks Mr. Frank has been particularly critical of Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco for his decision earlier this year to allow thousands of gay couples to wed at City Hall. The marriages, which Mr. Frank called "spectacle weddings," were later invalidated by the California Supreme Court.
Representative Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin who, like Mr. Frank, is openly gay, said the gay rights movement was caught unprepared for the ballot initiatives this year. She also endorsed an incremental approach to winning rights for gay couples, securing the "component parts" of marriage benefits one at a time.
"When you look at the civil rights that make up the civil institution of marriage, there is significant public support for extending those protections to same-sex couples," Ms. Baldwin said. She also said she would continue her support for an end to workplace discrimination against gay men and lesbians and support efforts by unions to extend benefits to same-sex partners.
The Human Rights Campaign has shown itself to be an effective lobby on Capitol Hill and successful in raising money to work for and publicize gay causes. The group's annual budget is about $30 million. But it finds itself in a difficult environment, with larger and more conservative Republican majorities in Congress and a White House that knows how to use same-sex marriage to its political advantage.
Trevor Potter, a Republican elections lawyer and a member of the Human Rights Campaign's board of directors, said the group's new approach was not a retreat but an acknowledgement of changed circumstances.
"It's a wake-up call," he said. "Just continuing to do what we were doing would not be productive."
_______________
Hello Chuck Bowen, the new executive director of the statewide gay-advocacy group Georgia Equality. Did you miss the wake-up call with regard to the timing of the lawsuit and 2006? Did you not go to Las Vegas last weekend? Have you even considered the pleas of reasons to please drop the lawsuit?
Or do you not care that if this shortsighted and selfish challenge (because of the timing issue of 2006) goes forward, and you win, you will have nothing more to show than a fleeting and Pyrrhic victory that will be lost in Nov. 2006 at great expense to our Party as it seeks regroups? And does it not bother you that other than such Pyrrhic victory, the only winner if the challenge is successful at this time is a law firm that takes great pride in winning regardless of the price that will be paid?
If the suit is not dropped and you are successful, I predict that having ignored the expressed wishes and pleas of many of us in the non-gay community who have stood by and with you in the past, during the next election season many Democrats will let it be known that – as alluded in The New York Times article – they too firmly believe in the wisdom and legality of conventional wedlock. (See 11-28-04 post and posts linked therein for background to this post.)
Groups Debate Slower Strategy on Gay Rights
Leaders of the gay rights movement are embroiled in a bitter and increasingly public debate over whether they should moderate their goals in the wake of bruising losses in November when 11 states approved constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriages.
In the past week alone, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, has accepted the resignation of its executive director, appointed its first non-gay board co-chairman and adopted a new, more moderate strategy, with less emphasis on legalizing same-sex marriages and more on strengthening personal relationships.
The leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, at a meeting last weekend in Las Vegas, concluded that the group must bow to political reality and moderate its message and its goals.
"The feeling this weekend in Las Vegas was that we had to get beyond the political and return to the personal," said Michael Berman, a Democratic lobbyist and consultant who was elected the first non-gay co-chairman of the Human Rights Campaign's board last week. "We need to reintroduce ourselves to America with the stories of our lives."
The gay rights movement, like other battles through history over individual rights, has made progress in fits and starts, in the culture and in the courts, in legislatures and in families. And like most political movements, it has always been riven with dissension on strategy and tactics, on questions of how far and how fast the movement can push without provoking a backlash.
The Human Rights Campaign, which is based in Washington, was instrumental in the defeat this year of the federal marriage amendment, which would have defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. The group was not as active in the ballot initiative battles in the states this fall.
Some gay rights activists, including the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, said they believed that aggressively pursuing same-sex marriage only played into the hand of Republicans and religious conservatives, who skillfully used the issue this fall to energize their voters.
Steven Fisher, the campaign's communications director, said the group's emphasis in coming months would be on communicating the struggles of gays in their families, workplaces, churches and synagogues. The story of gay men and lesbians in the United States is often told through the prism of sensationalism and stigma, Mr. Fisher said.
"When you put a face to our issues, that's when we get support," he said. "We're not going to win at the ballot box until we start winning at the water cooler and in the church pews."
Lawyers representing some gay groups have concluded that challenging antimarriage amendments in individual states is a losing proposition even if they win in some courts because American society is not yet ready to accept the idea of same-sex partners sharing the same rights as heterosexual couples.
"The legal strategy to win marriage rights is a decade ahead of the political strategies to educate the public and the legislatures," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Putting a fundamental right up for a popular vote is always extremely difficult to win, no matter what the cause. And when you are talking about something as recent as marriage equality, the bar gets raised even higher."
Pragmatists and politicians are more inclined to support the Human Rights Campaign's measured approach. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said it was important for the movement to sensibly pick its fights. "You take risks for your gains," he said, "but you don't take risks for no gain."
In recent weeks Mr. Frank has been particularly critical of Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco for his decision earlier this year to allow thousands of gay couples to wed at City Hall. The marriages, which Mr. Frank called "spectacle weddings," were later invalidated by the California Supreme Court.
Representative Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin who, like Mr. Frank, is openly gay, said the gay rights movement was caught unprepared for the ballot initiatives this year. She also endorsed an incremental approach to winning rights for gay couples, securing the "component parts" of marriage benefits one at a time.
"When you look at the civil rights that make up the civil institution of marriage, there is significant public support for extending those protections to same-sex couples," Ms. Baldwin said. She also said she would continue her support for an end to workplace discrimination against gay men and lesbians and support efforts by unions to extend benefits to same-sex partners.
The Human Rights Campaign has shown itself to be an effective lobby on Capitol Hill and successful in raising money to work for and publicize gay causes. The group's annual budget is about $30 million. But it finds itself in a difficult environment, with larger and more conservative Republican majorities in Congress and a White House that knows how to use same-sex marriage to its political advantage.
Trevor Potter, a Republican elections lawyer and a member of the Human Rights Campaign's board of directors, said the group's new approach was not a retreat but an acknowledgement of changed circumstances.
"It's a wake-up call," he said. "Just continuing to do what we were doing would not be productive."
_______________
Hello Chuck Bowen, the new executive director of the statewide gay-advocacy group Georgia Equality. Did you miss the wake-up call with regard to the timing of the lawsuit and 2006? Did you not go to Las Vegas last weekend? Have you even considered the pleas of reasons to please drop the lawsuit?
Or do you not care that if this shortsighted and selfish challenge (because of the timing issue of 2006) goes forward, and you win, you will have nothing more to show than a fleeting and Pyrrhic victory that will be lost in Nov. 2006 at great expense to our Party as it seeks regroups? And does it not bother you that other than such Pyrrhic victory, the only winner if the challenge is successful at this time is a law firm that takes great pride in winning regardless of the price that will be paid?
If the suit is not dropped and you are successful, I predict that having ignored the expressed wishes and pleas of many of us in the non-gay community who have stood by and with you in the past, during the next election season many Democrats will let it be known that – as alluded in The New York Times article – they too firmly believe in the wisdom and legality of conventional wedlock. (See 11-28-04 post and posts linked therein for background to this post.)
posted by Sid Cottingham | 6:05 AM
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