ACT On Principles

Toward marriage equality for lesbian and gay families
-by Washington State Sen. Ed Murray

When voters approved Referendum 71, Washington became the first state in the nation to secure domestic-partnership rights for gay and lesbian families at the ballot box. Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, discusses the successful strategy that other states can use to follow Washington’s leadership.

By Ed Murray

WHEN Washington voters passed Referendum 71 to uphold domestic-partnership rights for gay and lesbian families last month, our state became the first to secure equality for these families at the ballot box.

Even though Washington has not yet reached full marriage equality, many observers in other states saw this as an important moment in the marriage-equality movement and are looking to Washington as a model for how to get there.

As we continue down the path toward marriage equality, our strategy has proved sound enough to draw diverse voters together to reject hostile efforts to repeal the progress gained in the Legislature. This strategy can indeed be a model provided the right lessons are learned.

Just 15 years ago, the movement for equality hit an absolute low point. A protracted, high-profile Hawaii court case was finally resolved that year with Hawaii’s ban on same-sex marriages ruled unconstitutional.

What should have been a moment of justice and triumph was instead the beginning of a long period of defensive fights against intolerant attempts to prevent gays and lesbians from ever being equal to their straight fellow citizens. Because the national gay-rights organizations that pursued this case had not coordinated with gay elected state officials, or with various local gay-rights organizations, the backlash quickly spread to Washington, D.C.

Congress fast-tracked — and President Clinton signed — the federal so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,” excluding gay and lesbians from the definition of marriage. Over the next five years, 39 states passed their own versions of the measure, most of which remain in place today. When the Washington State Supreme Court upheld our state’s version of this discriminatory law in 1998, it became clear to leaders in Washington’s movement that a concrete strategy was needed — one that went beyond defensiveness and reached out to legislators and voters with our own clear, positive message of equality.

There remains today strong disagreement among Washington’s gay and lesbian community about the lessons to be learned from these painful experiences. While some in our state side with the “all or nothing” strategy for achieving marriage equality of Evan Wolfson, the executive director of the national group Freedom to Marry, I believe that by following the six key lessons below, our state will realize — in a lasting and nondivisive way — our ultimate goal.

• First, we should emulate the strategy of past civil-rights movements with a local, grass-roots approach. We have successfully organized ourselves on the national level, but have had no coherent strategy at the local level. Our top-down approach has given us a big stage upon which to make our demands, but it has provided our movement little influence in our own communities and left us vulnerable on all fronts.

• Second, leaders of previous civil-rights movements never took their eyes off the prize, nor did they engage the biggest battle first. Thurgood Marshall, as the NAACP’s lead lawyer, very intentionally did not begin his efforts to end racial discrimination in schools by starting with the hardest cases of segregation. Rather, he picked the easiest cases first, building momentum and understanding on his way to the harder ones.

Similarly, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legal strategy for winning women’s rights insisted that laws be addressed one logical, achievable step at a time: “Don’t ask [the Court] to go too far too fast,” she told her fellow feminists, “or you’ll lose what you might have won.”

In our struggle, of course, the biggest fight is marriage. In Washington, instead of picking a fight we would likely have lost, we pursued a progressive series of rights for gay and lesbians in domestic partnerships. Creating legal domestic-partnership rights provided immediate relief to gay and lesbian families in areas such as hospital visitation and informed consent. We entered into a conversation year after year, bill after bill, with the citizens of the state and members of the Legislature about the reality and challenges faced by gay and lesbian families.

Our focus on individual rights — and the harm associated when those rights are denied — made the case that the injustice of denying these vital rights to neighbors, community and family members is merciless and unjust. This position won the day this November. Today, domestic partners in Washington enjoy all the state rights and responsibilities associated with marriage — except the name itself.

• Third, we must commit ourselves to building strong, long-term coalitions with other communities. As we ask for the understanding of others, we must reach out to people different from ourselves, and learn what moves their hearts and minds, even as we ask them to let us into them. We must respect and understand the evangelical religion of many African Americans, for example, and the Catholic religion of many Hispanic Americans. We must find common ground based on our shared values.

• Fourth, we must develop our own civil-rights language. Simply lifting the language of the African-American civil-rights movement cheapens both our experiences of discrimination, and particularly that of gay and lesbian African Americans. Our experiences of discrimination are unique, and deserve unique ways of being communicated.

• Fifth, we must occupy the moral high ground righteously. We will prevail because of the righteousness of our cause, not by yelling, standing in the way of others, or making self-righteous demands. And although it may feel good in the short term to publicly persecute, on the grounds of hypocrisy, Republican elected officials caught in homosexual acts, it does nothing to elevate our cause. It only perpetuates the reality of our own history of discrimination and fear.

• Finally, we must all participate in the political process. Too many of us who wish to see the goal of marriage equality realized have never called their legislators to urge their support, have never doorbelled our own neighborhoods, and have never written a check for a candidate who supports our cause.

Never forget the biggest lesson from the civil-rights movement: In this country, political change always follows cultural change. Individuals, far more than any gay legislator, will determine when we finally achieve marriage equality.

State Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, is the majority caucus chairman and is the prime sponsor of domestic-partnership legislation in each of the past three years.

Source:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2010427926_guest06murray.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2010427926_guest06murray.html

LGBT organizations have stepped forward to add their voices to those of LGBT citizens, allies and progressive groups calling for moving the Employment Non-Discrimination Act forward. But no amount of lobbying can make a difference if Congressman George Miller of the House Committee on Labor and Education chooses to ignore us.

After all, it’s been almost a month since rumors surfaced of an ENDA delay, and three weeks since he abruptly cancelled the ENDA markup hearing, and he has made no statement on why or how or when or what, except to list three minor language tweaks. On November 17, the day after the terse postponement notice on the Committee’s website, the Advocate stated “The ENDA markup will likely be delayed for two to three weeks, according to a Hill staffer, and should be rescheduled for sometime after the Thanksgiving holiday.” Sometime, indeed.

Nor have we heard a peep from the other progressive members of the Committee – people like Rep. Jared Polis, one of three openly gay Congressmembers, or Rep. Lynn Woolsey, Chair of the Subcomittee on Workforce Protections, or Rep. Yvette Clarke, or Rep. Rush Holt or Rep. Andrews. And where are Rep. Barney Frank and Rep. Tammy Baldwin, the other openly gay Congressmembers, to inquire into this delay or question it or demand that the Committee move forward? Speaker Pelosi, who is a close friend of Rep. Miller, also hasn’t Spoken.

Are we not making our voices heard? Or are our voices being ignored?

More here: http://bit.ly/4LfmMd

Not sure why this Victory Fund Institute fundraising solicitation hit me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because, the Victory Fund has refused to call out the Obama Administration for not placing an openly LGBT Cabinet level appointment.

They do good work, don’t get me wrong. But some how I think this fundraising appeal missed the mark. I’ve attended one of their trainings, and I don’t know if they have changed much since the 90’s when I attended.

1. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not an elected official, he was a man of the cloth, from the people. Political yes, a politician no.

2. What does this mean for those of us who aren’t elected officials, are we not leaders, are we not shaping the movement in so many ways? Of course we could attend the Victory Fund training that will help us run for office, but does it teach us about solid principles of a social justice movement that MLK’s work was so grounded in? I don’t think so. Often the message at these trainings is “it’s ok not to make your gayness the issue, so you can get elected.”

3. I’m sorry but being an elected official who is LGBT, may put one in a leadership role, but far too often political compromises have to be made to consolidate power for their office, for future legislative efforts, and for your future career. Risks are adverted, and crumbs are accepted. If you think this isn’t the case, just ask one of the elected officials listed by the Victory Fund.

4. I don’t think the next MLK of the LGBT movement needs to be educated by the Victory Fund, but maybe the Victory Fund needs to be educated by by the next MLK of the LGBT movement.

I think if you are reading this you could be the next MLK of the movement. You don’t need Victory Fund’s stamp of approval, or mine for that matter. I look forward to getting to know you, and all of the great things that you are going to do.

**************************************
Dear Donald:

“Where’s our Martin Luther King, Jr.?” I hear this question a lot from people who care deeply about LGBT equality, and the question itself is pretty telling.

People want leadership. They need it. Leaders matter.

As a reader of Gay & Lesbian Leadership SmartBrief, you have a better idea than most about the leaders at the forefront of the fight for LGBT equality. You know more about the political and legal developments that shape this movement. But what you may not know is the same organization that brings you this SmartBrief is also deeply involved in the training and development of LGBT leaders.

The Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute is a tax-exempt, 501(c)3 organization with a long history of helping LGBT people learn how to run for office, come out while in office, get appointed and sharpen their leadership skills.

GLLI’s award-winning training and executive development programs have helped produce leaders like Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, Congressman Jared Polis, Dallas Sheriff Lupe Valdez, and Alabama State Rep. Patricia Todd, to name just a few.

All of these elected officials credit GLLI training for helping them break through barriers and win. We need a lot more like them.

In 2008 GLLI convened a community-wide project to provide qualified, experienced candidates for presidential appointments, a program hailed by Obama-Biden Transition officials as among the most organized and professional of its kind. Today, President Obama is on track to appoint the greatest number of openly LGBT officials in U.S. history.

As you plan your end-of-year giving, please make a tax-exempt gift to GLLI. We need your help to continue offering SmartBrief and the programs that will produce the next generation of LGBT leaders.

Our community will achieve full equality one day, but only if we build up the men and women who will serve openly, lead the fight and win. I hope we can count on you to help.

e Sincerely,
e
Chuck Wolfe
President and CEO
Gay & Lesbian Leadership Intitute

P.S.–We’re good stewards of our donors’ dollars. GLLI is the only national LGBT organization to earn a four star rating from Charity Navigator…and we did it two years in a row. Fully 90% of your contribution goes directly to the programs that benefit future LGBT leaders, not to overhead. Will you make a tax-exempt gift today?

It is 5 minutes to midnight on ENDA, with still a possibility of getting a vote this year if everyone pulls together, and what happens? Do we have LGBT and progressive media exploding with articles of protest and telling people how to lobby Congress effectively to get this moving?

Nope. Instead, a NY marriage vote that was known to be doomed sucks all the oxygen out of the room. The D.C. city council preliminary vote on marriage is also in the news. But unlike most mornings when I crank up my Google machine, there are no news articles this morning on ENDA, anywhere. This despite the fact that the Committee that’s supposed to mark it up announced yesterday that it’s not on the schedule next week, which means that it’s probably going in the deep freeze until February unless a miracle happens. As I’ve explained ad nauseam in previous posts, that is going to make ENDA harder to achieve.

Let me first say — get on the phone and call the House Committee to help get ENDA moving again. It ain’t over till its over, and you have to be in it to win it. Okay, now that you’ve all done that, let’s drop the happy crap, and examine what happened to ENDA in 2009 to bring us from the assumptions of invulnerability surrounding its re-introduction, to today, when we are staring at its imminent placement in the deep freeze. This will help the LGBT and progressive communities realize how much more effort is really needed to pass ENDA.

I am pleased to say that I have been invited to discuss ENDA on the Michelangelo Signorile radio show on Sirius-XM this afternoon at 4:30 ET. I am not pleased to say that many more such discussions should have been out there months ago on many radio shows and websites and newspapers in the LGBT and progressive communities.

More here: http://bit.ly/8UjpzC

The rumors of problems with the Employment Non-Discrimination Act have been circulating for weeks now, and yet there has been little response by the LGBT community and the wider progressive community. The markup of the bill has been postponed with no reschedule date by Representative George Miller, chair of the House Committee where the bill is currently languishing.

It is pretty obvious even to casual observers that ENDA’s passage will occur “no time soon,” in the words of Jewelle Johnson, head of the diversity committee at national labor law firm Fisher & Johnson in today’s edition of Human Resource Executive Online

Every DC-knowledgeable person I have spoken to is telling me that postponing the House vote until February means ENDA will be pushed to the bottom of the Senate list, and its likelihood of passage is greatly lessened. But there are more than enough votes in the House, and the Senate is missing only a few. The missing Senate votes could be obtained by notching up the momentum and working on the 9 holdouts. So what happens? The motor is switched off.

Where is Congressman Barney Frank, the most powerful U.S. Representative? Where are Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis? Senator Jeff Merkley, the lead sponsor of the Senate bill? President Obama? And, more importantly, where are Y-O-U, LGBT community and media? I’ve not seen many stories about ENDA in the LGBT media, let alone the progressive media. Michelangelo Signorile, I’ve not heard from you. I’ve not seen community organizations stepping up to the plate and asking their Congressmembers to demand a markup of the bill now. HRC, NGLTF, NCLR – where are you? Bloggers – Andy Towle, Joe My God – almost complete silence.

We have a community conference call scheduled for today to discuss emergency action on ENDA, and how many people are registered? 70.

70 out of 30 million LGBT people in this country. For shame.

http://bit.ly/7qgXz6