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The Victory Fund’s Gay and Lesbian Leadership SmartBrief had a reader poll that presented in interesting results. It’s by no means scientific, but it gives you some insight into the conventional wisdom that relying on “the professional gays” to get our issues onto the front burner in DC is by no means the best way to be effective.
As you can see, putting more LGBTs into office is a great way to change the landscape, and more notably, direct action is effectively tied with letting the professional gays and grassroots activists do the heavy lifting. The element of surprise and action does have a positive impact and breaks movement inertia.
We have an arsenal of effective ways to effect change. Each of us can and must find and use the avenue that is most effective to help the equality effort — just do something.
We cannot rely on someone else to move Congress or the White House; the reality is that we have more freedom to act because we don’t have relationships to maintain with the White House or elected officials on the Hill.
They work for us and it’s time to treat them that way. If they don’t listen, then it’s time to ratchet up the pressure. We, as peons without access, don’t have to worry whether we are going to be invited to the next tea or cocktail party at the White House. We’re not on the invite list anyway so there aren’t any social or political bridges to burn.
It’s not about being liked, it’s about obtaining our equal rights denied us by our government — progress blocked by purported allies who are paralyzed by political homophobia and CYA mentality.
Break the gridlock…
- That’s what Dan Choi, Jim Pietrangelo, and Robin McGehee did.
- That’s what the Pelosi ENDA 8 did.
- That’s what young Constance McMillen did in Mississippi when she wanted to attend her prom with a girlfriend, facing scorn from her bible-beating community and peers.
- That’s what coming out in a community that doesn’t think it has gay neighbors does. It’s more powerful than any gala or gladhanding to be out where you live.
- Focus on visiting with your state and local elected officials — they are much more bound to feel beholden to you than your federal reps (who do care about visits at local offices when they are there), and you can develop relationships that can move the ball forward. That’s what I did, and plan to do again this year, hopefully with more people of color ready to show lawmakers that we are serious about our rights and plan to hold them accountable.
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All of the above is the way to goLast week I was in DC for United Way’s national Hill Day lobbying effort. Coincidentally, Hill Day took place at the same time Kathy Griffin was filming her reality show episode with HRC on the repeal of DADT and Dan Choi was getting arrested at the White House.
United Way has a public policy team that works year-round on a variety of health and human services issues. But they also know how important it is to have ‘real people’ meet face-to-face with their members of Congress to tell their stories and explain how particular programs and policies affect their constituents.
This year there were over 1,100 staff and volunteers from United Ways around the country. After a morning of training, everybody headed to Capitol Hill where small groups met with 437 of 535 Congressional offices. I went around with a group of 15 from an east coast state. They met with both their senators offices, then broke into smaller groups to meet with most of their House delegation.
The results: In less than a week, dozens of members of Congress have signed on as sponsors of bills related to United Way’s legislative priorities.
Now United Way is pretty mainstream and doesn’t need to organize protests, but they do have their supporters take regular action to keep in touch with their members of Congress and maintain the pressure needed to reach their goals.
Think how powerful a similar initiative by HRC and other national LGBT organizations could be. Imagine 100 ordinary LGBT people from each state arriving in DC at the same time to meet with their members of Congress to tell their personal stories about the need to pass ENDA and UAFA, to repeal DADT and to restore LGBT protections in health care reform.
Couple that with peaceful demonstrations outside federal office buildings and local offices along with non-violent civil disobedience like Lt. Choi’s — all happening around the country at the same time. I think we would see rapid progress. It might not be ideal for the long-term funding prospects of HRC which depends on just enough success to keep the big donations flowing in, but it would be great for the rest of us.
All of the above, indeedMy biggest experience in gay activism came when I helped get our gay rights law passed here. We formed a very high-profile lobbying group called the Pittsburgh Fairness Campaign, to work with city council and the mayor’s office, to do media, etc. At the same time, ACT UP PITTSBURGH was engaging in direct action–pasting the city with pictures of the city council members who were against us labeled “Bigot” and “Homophobe,” etc., etc.
When the law passed, several politicians who voted for it reluctantly told the Fairness Campaign that they appreciated our moderation, and they would have done anything to get ACT UP off their cases. The mayor in particular (who had been ostentatiously “on the fence” about the law), signed it quickly once council passed it and thanked the Fairness Campaign publicly.
What they never realized was that there was a huge overlap in membership between the two groups, and that we had a carefully coordinated plan of action. It’s been clear to me ever since that we need both kinds of activism. One serves to reinforce the other, and each makes more headway.
Couldn’t agree moreIn college we used a similar strategy with the administration — students who were more in-your-face organized sit-ins at the president’s office and trustee meetings with a fairly outrageous list of demands. At the same time, another group of us presented the ‘reasonable’ face of the movement and asked for a comparatively conservative set of changes to policy. The different gay groups would even snipe at each other in the school paper to feed the controversy.
It worked like a charm.
Whatever you call it, Good Cop/Bad Cop, Insider/Outsider, it’s an effective strategy. We need to use it more in the gay rights movement to achieve our goals.
Hmmm…now that I think about it, that could be what’s happening here. Do you think our favorite barista might be in cahoots with Joe ‘Spats’ Solomonese?
Hey Pam, are you playing us? Kidding!!!
good cop, bad copit’s a classic. nice to hear your story of it being put into action so successfully!
From the outside looking inDirect action needs bigger numbers, and better coordination with the main stream media. Choi made a ripple in the news cycle (overwhelmed by healthcare debate, small numbers, very little coverage of the after affects.)
If 3 percent of population is gay (lowest end of 3 – 8% estimate I have seen) that is 10.5 million people. 10,000 participating in an organized civil disobedience would get news coverage, and help force the debate you need to get positive change. Without more mainstream coverage, you are destined to have to wait another 20 years for the generational change to take hold.
Real “inside, outside” coordination would be civil disobedience, with high profile opinion makers loudly proclaiming that “disruptive activity” is completely understandable when Americans’ civil rights are being abridged.
I have no idea how hard or easy that is to accomplish, but without it, LGBT citizens are going to continue to get told to shut up and sit in the back of the bus.
My perception is DADT is not going well. Marriage Equality seems totally dependent on the Prop 8 challenge via the courts. No one is even pushing for repeal or amendment to DOMA, which to this non-lawyer, would make a lot of fights less important, like immigration status. I am not sure I see real progress yet.
DADT lobby was Friday the 19th.Thank you all for making Lobby Day 2010 our best Lobby Day yet!
In total, nearly 140 people turned out to participate in 85 targeted meetings and 200+ visits to current cosponsors. Thanks to your hard work, we confirmed new votes for repeal, new potential cosponsors, and received valuable intelligence on key members of Congress.
Your commitment to the cause has brought us to the cusp of repeal, but the fight is not over yet. We all need to keep pushing to get repeal done this year.
Take action now by visiting SLDN’s action center (www.sldn.org/action). In particular, check out our “Visit Your Members of Congress” page (www.sldn.org/visit) to learn more about lobbying your Senators and Representatives back home. The Spring Congressional recess is just around the corner (Senate: March 29-April 9 / House: March 29-April 12) – a perfect time to continue to make our voices heard.
Go SLDN!!Thanks for the information about the DADT lobby day last week. It would be great if in the future SLDN could coordinate with leading blogs and other GLBT organizations to get the word out(maybe they did and I missed it), so those of us who can’t make it to DC can contact our members of Congress on the same day. The more we raise our voices at the same time, the more powerful we sound.