May 16, 2008
Let's count the ways to be 'inclusive'
Posted by: Chris
The Atlanta Pride Committee did. The result? Only one:
The Atlanta Pride Committee decided last week to decline a [$5,000] sponsorship from the Human Rights Campaign over the national gay political group’s support for a version of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act that did not include “gender identity” as a protected category.
“We knew that it was almost a no-win situation,” said Atlanta Pride Executive Director Donna Narducci. “Do you take the money, or do you not take the money? Do we need the money? Yes, we need the money. … But do we need to take the money from an organization that is not inclusive."
Apparently inclusiveness is measured only by adherence to the political views of Narducci, the Pride Board and Atlanta's very vocal trans activists. The disagreement here wasn't even on substance -- all involved support protection for trans workers -- but legislative strategy.
How does Atlanta Pride now demonstrate its own inclusiveness toward the thousands of gay, lesbian and bisexual Atlantans -- and even some transgender folk -- who supported going forward with the only version of ENDA that stood a chance of passage? Are they still a part of the community? Is Barney Frank also unwelcome at Atlanta Pride, then? What about Tammy Baldwin -- she voted for Barney's GLB-only version of ENDA, after all.
Somebody, please, make the political correctness stop!
April 19, 2008
Them's fighting words, Matt
Posted by: Chris
Remember when Matt Foreman, the newly departed director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, took a shot at Barney Frank over the whole ENDA debacle -- claiming he had a history of being "squeamish" on transgender issues? The legendary, short-tempered congressman from Massachusetts was quick to respond, dismissing Foreman for "covering his ass" for falling short on votes for trans-inclusion in the workplace act.
Well now Foreman has upped the ante considerably on his way out the door at the Task Force. In an interview with Gay City News, Foreman was at times complimentary of Frank but then wound up and threw down with this one:
[Foreman] is particularly critical of the way in which the advice of Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin, an openly lesbian Madison Democrat, was ignored; she felt that the votes could be rounded up for the trans-inclusive version, and Foreman has noted several times that she was the legislator who successfully lined up the support for the hate crimes measure.
"I thought the way she was treated in the ENDA struggle was shameful, with lots of overtones of misogyny," he said, in a comment that might spur a new riposte from Frank.
It's classic leftist trype, of course, to accuse anyone who disagrees of being an "ist" or "phobe" of some sort. Foreman and his allies regularly engaged it such ridiculousness regularly during the ENDA debate, accusing anyone who agreed with Barney on tactics of being a transphobe. Ironic given that Foreman himself used Barney's tactics to get New York's state gay rights law passed.
Still, it's beyond galling in this case, and Foreman should apologize. It's funny how Foreman never acknowledges that Tammy Baldwin voted for the pared-down ENDA backed by Barney -- despite pleas from Foreman et al not to. It's also funny how Foreman and his "trans or bust" allies claim to want to "unify" the community -- another theme of his GCN interview -- even while gratuitously insulting anyone who doesn't think like he does.
(Photo of Matt Foreman via Gay City News)
April 18, 2008
Shepard Act sandbagged by Reid?
Posted by: Chris
I missed this tidbit from a couple of weeks ago on Blog Cabin, the gay GOP group's blog, about whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has sandbagged the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. It's actually taken from a Washington Blade story:
One congressional source familiar with the hate crimes bill said a number of GOP lawmakers believe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not want to bring the hate crimes bill to a vote because doing so would help the re-election chances of moderate Republican senators who support the bill. Among them are Sens. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), who face strong election challenges by Democrats in November.
That's pretty damning, given that Democratic Party leaders promised activists they would do anything possible to push the hate crimes bill and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act through in the current session, and perhaps even the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Of course the Blog Cabin post leaves off the paragraphs that follow in Lou Chibarro's Blade story:
Jim Manley, a spokesperson for Reid, disputed that assertion, saying Reid’s deliberations over the bill had “nothing at all” to do with the election.
Manley also disputed a claim by another congressional source that Reid and other Senate Democrats were reluctant to bring up gay rights bills at a time when Democrats are focusing most of their attention on the economy and a mortgage crisis that is causing Americans to lose their homes through foreclosure.
Senate Democrats can deny all the rumored explanations they want, but they can't escape the fact that both bills have been passed by the House and are awaiting action in the Senate.
ENDA is no doubt hobbled by the fact that dozens of LGBT groups actually hope for its failure since it lacks transgender rights protections in its current form. In reality, Democrats would be better off passing a gay-only ENDA now and blaming Republicans for leaving out "gender identity." Otherwise the pressure will be overwhelming for a trans-inclusive ENDA to pass early next term, after being deferred yet again one more time.
April 15, 2008
Accessing those 1,200 federal benefits (II)
Posted by: Andoni
If you remember, I was delighted to learn that both Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, advocate extending the 1,200 federal benefits of marriage to gay couples who are in civil unions -- even though neither supports gay marriage per se.
But I wondered why we haven’t heard any follow-up on this or seen any action from our national organizations, especially since the two candidates themselves gave us an opening. I also wondered what the best way to implement those 1,200 federal benefits would be.
After e-mailing my questions to all our national organizations, I heard back from my friend Matt Coles, Director of the Lesbian & Gay Rights Project of the ACLU. He told me to stop fretting; they are prepared.
He said the best way to start the ball rolling is for
Congress to repeal "part 3" of DOMA, which prohibits the federal
government from recognizing state sanctioned same-sex marriages. That would
immediately make the gays married in Massachusetts (and those New Yorkers who
married in Canada) eligible for those federal benefits --- everything from filing
joint tax returns, to inheriting property better treatment under the estate tax, to obtaining surviving spouse social security benefits,
to immigration rights, etc. -- all 1,200 of them.
Matt also feels that soon there will be two to four more states that will recognize gay marriage, so we're talking about a significant number of people here who would benefit.
Repealing DOMA "part 3" will not help those gays in states that have civil unions, however. For these people to gain federal benefits, a relatively simple (but not as easily passed) federal law would say: the term “marriage” in all federal laws includes civil unions and domestic partnerships created by states that have substantially the same definition, obligations and rights as a marriage in that state does. That would do it for states with civil unions and their equivalent domestic partnerships, as their called in California, Washington state and Washington, D.C.
So there you have it.
Unfortunately, all those (including your's truly) who live in states that don't have civil unions or even enacted constitutional amendments that prohibit same sex marriage, are basically out of luck . It would take a massive overhaul of federal law to cover us. The federal government would have to get into the civil union business; heretofore marriage and civil unions have been a state issue. Making a federal civil union law and having it mesh into all the state laws would be a nightmare.
For me, the best answer would be to simply move to another state rather than wait for this to happen.
The problem with this entire strategy, from repealing DOMA onward, is that Matt believes it would take a very active president, making these issues a very high priority and pushing hard to get them through. He believes none of it will happen before universal health care reform, which is a top priority of both Democrats, or ENDA, which remains the top priority of the Human Rights Campaign and congressional Democrats.
As Chris noted today, ENDA unfortunately is hobbling all our other efforts. My own view is that ENDA has become our community's Iraq. It was supposed to be small, limited in scope, quick and easy and here we are 14 years later stuck and going nowhere -- or even backwards.
It's using up movement resources and in spite of the obvious failure, no one at our national organizations will admit it and come up with a new federal strategy. At this point, I would even welcome a "surge" to get this done this year, so we can move on to better and more important things in the next Congress.
Foreman's farewell thoughts
Posted by: Chris
I'm just off of a media conference call with Matt Foreman and other leaders of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, marking his final day as executive director. He'll be succeeded in interim fashion by Rea Carey, his deputy E.D., with no firm date set for a successor to be named. (Carey said she has not applied for the job but will stay on as deputy E.D.)
Regular readers of this blog know that Foreman led the Orwellian-named "United ENDA" effort, which aimed to oppose the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act after Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi determined that only a version limited to "sexual orientation" had enough votes. Rather than rehash the "trans-or-bust" strategy urged by Foreman et al., I chose to ask him a forward-looking question.
As noted in a previous post, ENDA took the top spot on the "gay agenda" because HRC's Elizabeth Birch and other movement leaders in the early 1990s agreed with Barney and others that it made most sense to trim down the broader gay civil rights bill pushed by Bella Abzug and others since the early '70s in favor of a more limited bill with the best chance of passage.
Whatever your view about the "trans-or-bust" debate last fall, it's clear that ENDA is no longer the golden child most likely to succeed: whether as a trans-inclusive bill that lacks support even among Democrats in the House, or as a gay-only bill that generates public bickering within the movement that leaves politicians with no-win options.
My question was whether as a result the movement ought to step back and reconsider its federal legislative agenda and press forward on other issues, like "Don't Ask Don't Tell" or relationship recognition. Foreman agreed in principle, complaining that ENDA ("a very small bill") had made the movement "a one trick pony" for far too long.
"We as a movement probably made a mistake a long time ago about what our priorities would be," allowed Foreman, because as it turned out ENDA as a gay-only bill failed to pass even when Democrats controlled one or both houses of Congress and the White House.
At the same time, he nodded to the political reality that "the bills debated the longest are at the head of the queue," meaning ENDA isn't going anywhere from its perch at the top of the agenda. He said his "biggest fear" is that even if a Democrat takes the White House and the party broadens its control of Congress, they will enact ENDA and declare that's enough for the gays for the new president's first term.
He was also surprisingly frank about the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, which would add gender, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal hate crimes law. "I don't even consider that 'a gay bill," said Foreman. "I really don't see that on the list for our community."
His thinking was that the bill includes many non-LGBT categories and is backed by a much broader civil rights coalition than ENDA. He also pointed out: "The real-world importance of the hate crimes bill pales in significance to other issues like 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' and relationship recognition."
As much as I disagree fundamentally with the divisive tactics of Foreman, United ENDA and transgender activists, I largely agree with his observations about ENDA, movement priorities and the Shepard Act. I also share his "biggest fear" about what we're likely to get from a new Democratic president, though not as much under a President Obama than a second President Clinton. (See Etheridge vs. Clinton, HRC-Logo Forum (Aug. 9, 2007)).
The ripple effect of that "mistake" in agenda-setting more than a decade ago is now rolling in at a very high tide. The Task Force leadership talked at length on the call about how they are working now to do what critics said they should have been doing all last year, lobbying Congress for a trans-inclusive ENDA. That's a boon for transgender Americans, the vast majority of whom don't even identify with "the gay or LGBT community," but it's a diversion of precious resources on several levels.
Lobbying for an inclusive ENDA means they're pushing already gay-friendly members to also support trans protections, rather than working for a veto-proof majority that might get ENDA done this year, clearing the decks for legislation that Foreman acknowledges would be far more meaningful. Because of the "first come, first served" reality Foreman described, the long slog for a fully-inclusive ENDA further defers the day that the real heart of the gay rights movement -- relationship recongition -- finally gets its day in Congress.
April 03, 2008
Learning the lessons of ENDA . . . not
Posted by: Chris
Just weeks after the Employment Non-Discrimination Act was declared dead for the year by the Human Rights Campaign, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy appears to be sticking by his promise for a Senate vote on the bill, albeit later than the original January-February timetable.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Kennedy defended his decision to move forward with the version of ENDA that passed the House, which includes sexual orientation as a protected category but not gender identity:
"The fact is that the House of Representatives has taken action," Kennedy said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. "The best opportunity for progress is ... to follow along on the action of the House of Representatives, and then look down the road to a new day after we have a good Democratic Congress and a Democratic president."
Kennedy expects an "uphill fight" in the narrowly divided Senate, where 60 votes rather than a simple majority would be needed to overcome expected GOP stalling tactics.
That "uphill fight" will also pit Kennedy against the intransigent left of the GLBT movement, which hasn't moved a muscle since the debacle of last fall's fight over ENDA in the House:
"We will strongly oppose it," said Roberta Sklar of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Leaving transgender people out makes that a flawed movement." …
"It was made very clear in the fall that most LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) organizations, the vast majority of LGBT organizations, do not want Congress to shove a civil rights bill down our throat that we don't want," said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Sklar is right, of course, that a gay-only ENDA is "flawed," but so would be a trans-inclusive ENDA, since it would protect the workplace but not in housing and public accomodations; it also carves an exception for the U.S. military -- where the government itself is the discriminatory employer. But flawed incremental progress is inevitable to any civil rights movement.
Sklar, Keisling and their "United ENDA" allies know this, but they are willing to sacrifice an advance that would benefit almost everyone for the few who would not be helped; even though it's politically impossible to help those few nor or anytime in the near future.
And there there is HRC, whose Joe Solmonese started the unfounded rumor of ENDA's death in Los Angeles several weeks ago, sitting on the sideline being ineffectual:
"We will continue this work until all members of our community no longer fear being fired for who they are," said Brad Luna, Human Rights Campaign communications director.
OK, but what in the heck does that mean? Is HRC supporting Kennedy's gay-only ENDA or reverting to its disastrous flirtation with the United ENDA crowd? If the organization cannot even communicate its position -- the HRC website and blog are devoid of any reaction to Kennedy's ENDA announcement -- then how could it possibly lobby effectively?
(Photo of Ted Kennedy via Associated Press)
March 26, 2008
The quiet death of ENDA, hate crimes
Posted by: Chris
We all remember the days after Democrats took control of Congress in the November 2006 election, promising among other things that they would get right to passing long-delayed gay rights legislation like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. Some of us grumbled that the vaunted "gay agenda" ought to go further, considering those bills have already passed in one form or another for a decade.
More than a year after Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were sworn in as speaker and Senate majority leader, it now appears even our most limited expectations have been dashed. Consider this nugget from a speech by Joe Solmonese at the Human Rights Campaign's Los Angeles gala:
A number of hurdles, as you know, made it impossible to move those bills any further this session.
Say what? Last we heard, Ted Kennedy was introducing ENDA in January or February and would be searching for other legislative vehicles to attach the Shepard Act, after House Dems rejected it as an amendment to a big Defense Department. No excuses this time, we were assured, about how our civil rights being too "hot button" in an election year.
But instead of lobbying from HRC to push these bills forward, we get a lecture from Solmonese about being impatient:
When did we all say to ourselves -- OK, that civil rights thing -- I'll give it a year, maybe two - then everything should be done.
A year? Who is he kidding? Solmonese may be late to the gay rights party, joining the movement only after he got a quarter-million-dollar job running HRC, but for most of us this ain't the first time at the rodeo. ENDA came with a vote of passing in 1996 -- more than a decade ago -- and both bills have been backed by a large majorities of the public and their reps in Congress for years.
Hell yes we're impatient. Rather than motivating us into action and pressing Congress to do better, Solmonese is wagging his finger at us -- at us! -- and tamping down expectations. Call it the fierce urgency of next year.
There's plenty of blame in Congress as well, of course. Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin and Pelosi deserve credit for getting both bills passed the House -- the trans-inclusive Shepard Act sailed through and ENDA hobbled through in gay-only form. But Reid has seemingly done nothing in the ENDA. (Maybe Hillary will do better as Senate majority leader next year?)
Yes, the primary culprits here are congressional Republicans, who rejected a trans-inclusive ENDA and balked at backing the Shepard Act add-on to the DOD bill, as well as President Bush, who threatened to veto both. But the GOP doesn't rake in gay money, votes and loyalty based on promises to get things done. Democrats do. And it's HRC that hoovers up gay dollars nationwide, promising to bring change, while never delivering.
They all have some 'splainin to do.
(Photo of Joe Solmonese at HRC's L.A. dinner via Bilerico/Karen Ocamb)
March 12, 2008
HRC's ENDA disappearing act
Posted by: Chris
It appears that part of the Human Rights Campaign's rehabilitation campaign with transgender activists and their allies may be to "disappear" the Employment Non-Discrimination Act almost altogether.
A visit to the HRC website shows that if you click on "Issues" and "Workplace," there is absolutely no mention of ENDA, which was hobbled last fall by the insistence of some within the movement that either it include "gender identity" or be opposed by HRC and gay-friendly members of Congress. Even clicking within "Workplace" under "Legislation" shows only a list of bills in play in state legislatures across the country.
The ENDA omission is particularly dramatic because the "gay only" version backed by gay Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), as well as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), actually passed the House and is pending in the Senate.
The only way to find ENDA that I could find was to click under "Laws & Elections" -- even though ENDA is neither -- and then on "Federal Legislation." There you'll find links to ENDA and Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill.
The treatment of ENDA is in marked contrast to how the HRC site treats the (trans-inclusive) Shepard Act, which is also pending -- some would say languishing -- in the Senate. If under "Issues" you click on "Hate Crimes" -- the equivalent to clicking on "Workplace" above -- there is a very prominent link to the section of the site dealing with the Shepard Act.
Am I reading too much into website structure? Perhaps, but it's striking that the "Workplace" section includes all sorts of links to transgender protections but absolutely nothing for ENDA. It is symptomatic of the way HRC marshaled all its resources to push the trans provision of ENDA and now seems satisfied with doing nothing even though ENDA has finally passed the House and is a Senate vote away from making history.
Even the posts on HRC's blog about the org's Spring Lobby Day on Capitol Hill last week only mention lobbying House members on a "fully inclusive ENDA" and nothing about pushing senators to pass the version of ENDA (even amended to add trans back in) that is so close to becoming the law of the land.
February 29, 2008
Rethinking the gay agenda
Posted by: Chris
Picking up on my post yesterday about the continuing grief the Human Rights Campaign is getting from transgender activists, I want to highlight something those protesting outside the New York black-tie dinner. The motley crue of trans activists, Radical Homosexual Agenda and such were holding signs shaped like giant hands -- except rather than signalling "we're No. 1!" they were giving HRC "the finger." Mature.
The chant was likewise a meaningful: "What do we want? Liberation! Fuck that assimilation!" Almost self-fulfilling, that one; and so retro as well. I guess every fashion trend does come round for another go.
Among the more sober-minded of the 50 or so protesters were some members of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club. According to a report in Gay City News, Allen Roskoff, a member of the group, raised a more thoughtful objection to Barney Frank's gay-only Employment Non-Discrimination Act:
"Jim Owles is asking members of Congress not to support ENDA in any form," he said. "We should revert to the effort originated by Bella Abzug and Ed Koch to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity and expression."
Abzug and Koch, as Manhattan representatives in Congress in the early 1970s, introduced the 1964 Act amendment as a way to give gays and lesbians nondiscrimination protection in housing, credit, and public accommodations, in addition to employment. Years later, HRC and Frank originated the more limited ENDA approach to getting anti-bias legislation through Congress.
Roskoff pointed out that Bill Bradley, in his 2000 challenge to Al Gore for the Democratic presidential nomination, suggested amending the Civil Rights Act, rather than adopting ENDA, "but was shot down by Barney Frank and HRC."
I wouldn't agree with that change in "gay agenda" priorities, but I do agree that the divisive scrap over ENDA highlights the need for the movement to rethink it's federal legislative plan. It’s critically important that we –- gay and lesbian Americans –- set that agenda, rather than having it dictated to us by the Democratic Party, no matter who is in the White House.
Politics is by nature self-serving, and politicians from both parties will always reach for the low-hanging fruit unless pressured to actually risk some political capital. That’s actually been the strategy of the movement’s leaders as well, at least since 1996.
That’s when they scrapped Bella Abzug's broad gay rights legislation and replaced it with ENDA.
The idea was that polls showed the public most sympathetic to someone being fired for being lesbian or gay, and it was important to get some –- any –- federal gay rights law on the books. And it almost worked. The Senate came within a vote of passing ENDA, and Bill Clinton was certainly ready to sign it.
More than a decade later, it’s past time to reexamine whether ENDA should still be at the top of the gay agenda for Congress. For one thing, states and local governments have gone a long way to bridge the gap. Today, more than half the U.S. population lives in areas where non-discrimination laws include “sexual orientation,” and the dramatic changes in the culture in the last 10 years have made discrimination far less common in the other half of the country as well.
In addition, the difficult and divisive debate last fall about what to do if the votes aren’t there for including “gender identity” in ENDA means that legislation is no longer the most likely to break the barrier on federal gay rights legislation. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, which includes gay and transgender protections and has already passed both houses of Congress in different forms, and in terms of popularity is really “the new ENDA.” With a gay friendlier Congress and White House, the hate crimes bill should become law fairly quickly and without much controversy. But a divisive and risky ENDA shouldn’t be next on the list.
The highest legislative priorities of the movement ought to be redressing where the government itself is discriminating against lesbian and gay Americans – especially when that unequal treatment is widespread, affecting almost all of us and in a significant way.
Measured that way, the next priority ought to be repealing the Defense of Marriage Act –- at least the portion that blocks federal recognition of valid marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples by the states. Repealing DOMA should be accompanied by a bill that treats state-issued civil unions and domestic partnerships like marriages under federal law as well. Two-thirds of the public already supports gay marriage or civil unions, so the support is already there.
Marriage is certainly more universal than job discrimination. More than 90 percent of Americans get married at some point in their lives, and given the hefty number of gays in that remaining 10 percent, it’s safe to say almost all of us will enter into a committed, long-term relationship at some point in our lives.
Workplace regulation, however justifiable, faces non-bigoted objections about the government intruding into the private sector. Even libertarians who are broadly supportive of gay rights object to ENDA on this ground.
It’s also true that many more gay and lesbian Americans would marry, if they could, than are fired from their jobs due to their sexual orientation. And while it’s relatively easy to get another job in the diverse U.S. economy – or move to a state that has gay workplace protections -– the hundreds of legal rights that come from federal recognition of our relationships are irreplaceable.
(Photo of HRC protest via Gay City News)
February 28, 2008
HRC lays a Pink Brick
Posted by: Chris
The Human Rights Campiagn is taking hits on both coasts for its decision to support Barney Frank's gay-only version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. In both cases, the extremism of the critics only reinforces how removed these intolerant ideological purists are from the real lives of lesbian and gay Americans.
In New York, local politicians stayed away in droves from the annual HRC black-tie dinner, honoring a protest by transgender activists and others outside the banquet hall. In response, HRC Prez Joe Solmonese took to the podium and did what he's best at doing, lowering expectations:
I have to ask myself: When did we all become so impatient? When did we say to ourselves, okay that civil rights thing, I'll give it a year, maybe two, then I'm done," he said. "Let me be very clear: No, we are not done. We are in the grueling, blinding middle of this fight and the middle of this fight is the hardest part.
A year or two? ENDA came within a vote of passing the Senate in 1996. It's now more than a decade later, and it's still mired in limbo despite overwhelming public support and Democrats in control of both houses of Congress.
In San Francisco, the local Pride group has nominated HRC for its "Pink Brink Award," an ignominious honor that according to the Bay Area Reporter is "meant to recognize groups and individuals who've run afoul of the community or pushed for antigay measures." This year's other nominees, to given you some sense of this silliness, are Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Keep in mind that not only does HRC support transgender workplace rights (and inclusion in the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act), but also pressed with unusual vigor for House Democrats to keep "gender identity" as a part of ENDA. HRC backed Frank's gay-only version after the legendary Massachusetts Democrat concluded the votes were nowhere close to passing the trans-inclusive version. Even Tammy Baldwin, the trans activists' idol in the House, voted for Barney's gay-only version.
Also keep in mind that after the House vote, HRC's Joe Solmonese reiterated that HRC will continue to oppose sending to the president any version of ENDA that doesn't include transgender protections. Now maybe that (ill-conceived) promise rings hollow since Solmonese had walked away from an earlier (ill-conceived) promise never to support any version of ENDA that wasn't trans-inclusive, but it hardly puts him in Ahmadinejad territory.
But such is the arrogance of ideological purists -- whether of the Ahmadinejad variety or his San Francisco foil -- that any slight divergence from orthodoxy is heresy and equally condemnatory.
(Joe Solmonese photo via Bay Area Reporter/Rick Gerharter)
February 19, 2008
Barney not squeamish about Foreman
Posted by: Chris
Remember when Matt Foreman, the outgoing director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, suggested that Barney Frank backed a gay-only version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because the openly gay Massachusetts congressman has always been "sqeamish" about transgender rights?
Well Barney has fired back, asking to appear on Mike Signorile's Sirius radio show, the same forum as Foreman's, and the pugnacious pol pulled no punches, saying Foreman "made up the whole thing."
I know he said he didn't know that that happened [with ENDA], that he'd bet his life –- or that he would bet his life -- on it. Frankly, I think it's a good thing he didn't bet his life or he might have lost that in addition to his job. He just made that up. That is not remotely how it happened. …
He also has no basis for talking about my attitude on transgender people because I've had one set of conversations with Matt Foreman about transgender people.
Instead, Barney said, Foreman was "protecting his own ass," deflecting attention from how, when he was director of Empire State Pride Agenda, Foreman endorsed Republican Gov. George Pataki's reelection in a deal to pass a gay-only civil rights law, the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act:
"Well," responds Rep. Frank, "you like people to talk bluntly, let me talk bluntly: He's just trying to cover his ass." … Frank continued by reiterating his disappointment in Foreman's group and its endorsement of Pataki, saying "he endorsed the Republican over the African American Democrat, a very significant mistake in my judgment from the standpoint of in our coalition building."
"The notion that I was squeamish is based on the fact that he was squeamish," Frank continued. "I don't know what he went through and it's not of any great interest to me."
I love it when Barney gets fiesty like this, although it always reminds me of those occasions when I was the direct recipient -- usually one-on-one. I also think Barney is mostly dead-on here. Matt Foreman has talked about the SONDA story and how he regrets the strategy employed there, even though it resulted in the passage of historic gay rights legislation.
But in doing so Foreman has sounded very much like the born again Christian or former smoker who careens from one end of the spectrum to another, from black to white (or vice-versa), never acknowledging either before or after the gray that makes reasonable people differ. In the case of ENDA, Foreman and trans activists insultingly charge that failure to adhere to their trans-or-bust view is the result of bigotry in the form of transphobia.
It's a lazy, offensive and patronizing argument, and apparently Foreman will keep on making on the way out the door.
February 14, 2008
Squeamish about Matt Foreman
Posted by: Chris
There he goes again. Matt Foreman, on the way out after five years at the helm of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, just couldn't help himself. The topic on Mike Signorile's Sirius radio show was the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which Foreman tried in vain to kill because Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi stripped transgender protections because a vote count showed it nowhere close.
Rather than acknowledge the reasonable judgment call made by Barney and Pelosi, both strong supporters of gay and trans rights, Foreman pushed the bigot button. Page One Q has the blow by blow:
"I think what really happened," says Foreman of Congress' handling of employment discrimination protections for LGBT people, "is [Speaker Nancy Pelosi's] people said 'Look, Congress has a terrible reputation right now, they're not delivering for any progressive causes... What do we have to do to deliver to our progressive allies?' That means labor and health and environment and gays. And, so, I mean, I don't know this for a fact, but I would bet my life that this is what happened: They went to Barney Frank and said 'What do we need to pass ENDA?'"
"Representative Frank," continues Foreman, "who has always been pretty squeamish on the trans issue, and I guess I can say these things because I am leaving my job..."
"That's what we hoped you'd do," Signorile says to Foreman.
Foreman goes on: "...You know, said 'Look the best way to pass ENDA, and the easiest way is to -- let's take out gender identity,' and I don't think the Speaker's people thought this through--didn't think it through--and then they said 'OK, let's do it'."
Ahh yes. Barney chose differently than Foreman because transgender issues give him the willies -- in other words, he's a transphobe.
In my book there's only one thing more irritating that ideological purists on the right, and that's their counterparts on the left. Of course we're all familiar with conservative ideologues and their never-satisfied purity tests.
John McCain is the most recent victim, taking hits from Anne Coulter (on national security), James Dobson (on abortion and gay marriage) and Rush Limbaugh (on both). When venom spews from these arch-conservatives, the insults tend to be comical rather than stinging, whether being labeled a faggot (Coulter), a heathen (Dobson), or the worst of all, a liberal (Limbaugh).
From the left, the purity tests are just as predictable, but the insults carry more sting. Almost inevitably there is usually a strong suggestion, often explicit, that those not in lock-step with self-styled "progressives" are bigots -- "-ists" or "-phobes" of one sort or another.
That's been the case of course, with the fight over the strategy to pass ENDA. Even those who favor protection for "gender identity" and wanted it included in the version introduced last year were still called "transphobes" if they weren't willing to insist on transgender-inclusion even when the votes weren't there.
The big irony, of course, is that "progressives" like Foreman will talk a blue streak about "diversity" and "valuing difference," but if the difference is in ideas then they want none of it. Matt Foreman is a very smart and talented leader. But his ideological blindspot has done real damage to the movement, and that's a real shame.
January 23, 2008
Foreman winds up mixed bag tenure
Posted by: Chris
Matt Foreman announced today that he'll be leaving as executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force in April, a position he has held since 2003. His half-decade tenure at "the Task Force" -- which he successfully rebranded from its NGLTF days -- will probably be looked back upon as something akin to Elizabeth Birch's decade at the helm of the Human Rights Campaign.
Both leaders put their organizations on stronger financial footing. As with Birch's HRC years, the result has been a blossoming -- some woudl say bloating -- of budgets and full-time staff, to the tune of $10 million annually and 54 employees in Foreman's case.
And, unfortunately, as with Birch, Foreman has precious little beyond institutional strength to show for the work. A press release trumpeting his departure credits him with raising the Task Force's visibility, but that was largely this year in the bruising, divisive fight over transgender protections in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
It was largely Foreman who organized the "United ENDA" coalition of GLBT groups that announced their opposition to historic gay rights legislation because it did not also include "gender identity" protections; the fact that the votes weren't there was beside the political point.
The Task Force has always been the more grassroots-focused of the national GBLT rights groups and always more left-wing and "social justice"-minded -- meaning it is a part of the organization's mission to align with other progressive groups on non-GLBT causes. Ther'es nothing wrong -- and much that is right -- with that strategy, except that it's almost invariably accompanied by some admonition that a narrow focus on gay rights is somehow unjust and retrogressive. Foreman did more than his fair share to reinforce, rather than to dispel, that unfortunate and wrong-headed attitude.
Whether Foreman really smoked his own United ENDA dope, is still trying to purge his guilt for having successfully lobbied for New York's trans-excluded Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA), or whether he just saw a clever wedge strategy to use against HRC, the whole trans-or-bust ENDA push will go down as one of the most counterproductive and divisive tactics ever waged in a movement that has a long history of them.
Foreman was a talented and charismatic leader for an organization that has long been in need of one. It's too bad that he deployed his considerable skills to the detriment of the movement as a whole and the interests of 90-plus percent of his own constituents -- but that often is the price of uncompromising identity politics.
January 11, 2008
Joe Solmonese's pain in the neck
Posted by: Chris
A couple of weeks after my partner and I arrived in Buenos Aires,
I woke up in our temporary flat with a stiff crick in the
neck. For days and even weeks after, I could move my head to the
left, but to the right past 2 on the clock dial it was no-go.
I've come to believe that Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese suffers from the same malady, albeit figuratively and politically. He's easily swept up "feeling the pain" of anyone in the sliver that exists to his political left, all while ignoring the legitimate beef of the greater numbers wallowing in the vast terrain of territory to his right.
The latest evidence of Joe's pain in the neck problem is a story in the Bay Area Reporter about a meeting Solmonese had last week with a number of San Francisco transgender activists. The headline from the encounter was the decision by local activist Theresa Sparks to return the HRC Equality Award she received three years earlier because she says she can no longer stand to look at it due to the recent hostilities over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. (Sparks is the male-to-female transsexual owner of a sex shop called Good Vibrations and heads up the city's Police Commission. Yes… only in San Francisco…)
Besides Ms. Sparks' flare for drama, the meeting was notable for the extreme lengths Solmonese went to hearing out the concerns of these angry transgender activists -- who have said more personal and vicious things about him and HRC in a short three-month span than Michael Petrelis, Andrew Sullivan and I together have churned out in the last five years. Yet over all those months of criticism about HRC's lack of transparency and overt partisanship, not just from us but throughout the blogosphere and the gay press, Solmonese never once picked up the phone; never suggested a meeting.
Still, there he was in San Francisco, liberal-guilt-ridden for the apparent crime of supporting the
country's most well-known gay politician and the movement's most basic
gay rights legislation -- defending himself to transgender activists
angry that he hadn't held ENDA hostage indefinitely over a gender identity provision that was nowhere close to passage.
Trying to reassure them, Solmonese insisted, "We are very much at the beginning of the ENDA process."
At the beginning? This may be your first time at the rodeo, Joe,
but this legislation was first introduced three decades ago and came
one vote short of passing the Senate (in much the same form it is
today) waaay back in 1996! The Democrats took control of both houses of
Congress (exactly) one year ago now, and have yet to pass a single piece of
gay rights legislation to even test the president's veto threat.
Solmonese knows this, of course, but his role as the Democratic Party's de facto gay outreach chair is to deflect heat from this Congress -- call it the hard partisanship of reduced expectations -- and get out the vote for Democrats this November. Whether he has actually been bought off or simply drank the Kool Aid and really believes the interests of movement and party are lock-step intertwined is beside the point.
It's clearly time for a change and not just in the White House. It's time for the nation's largest gay rights group to be led by someone who puts the movement first and party affiliation second and who will not abandon 99 percent of his constituents in favor of a very loud 1 percent. And it's long past time for the D.C.-Massachusetts mafia that has long pulled the strings at HRC to relinquish control and let someone else have a try. They've had decades now and have absolutely positively nothing to show for it.
(Photo via Bay Area Reporter/Rick Gerharter, and kudos to him for telling a story of more than 1,000 words with one well-constructed photograph.)
January 05, 2008
Wishful trannie thinking
Posted by: Chris
It turns out that Ted Kennedy's decision to introduce into the Senate the House-passed version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which includes sexual orientation but not gender identity, is "an unintentional plan to sabotage the chances of the Democratic nominee for president."
Don't worry, Autumn honey, this is one idea I won't be stealing from you.
January 04, 2008
Learning from the mistakes of 2007
Posted by: Chris
More good news for the early days of 2008:
Ted Kennedy says he will be introducing a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the Senate that includes "sexual orientation" and not "gender identity" and plans for a vote soon. A report by Lou Chibbaro in today's Washington Blade explains why:
Until this week, Kennedy’s office had not stated publicly where Kennedy stood on the demands by many gay and transgender organizations that Congress should withhold any action on ENDA unless it includes protection for transgender persons.
“Although Sen. Kennedy strongly supports protections against job discrimination for transgender workers, inaction won’t advance justice for anyone, and will just make it harder to pass any version of ENDA in 2009,” said Kennedy spokesperson Melissa Wagoner.
“We will most likely work to move the House-passed bill, rather than introducing a separate Senate bill,” Wagoner told the Blade by e-mail. “Because the same legislation must pass both the House and Senate, now that the House has acted, the only realistic way to get a bill to the president’s desk this Congress is to have the Senate pass the House bill.”
There's no joy to be had in the decision to leave out "gender identity" from the bill, but it is the right decision to bypass the incredibly divisive battle over ENDA in the House. Fellow Bay Stater Barney Frank originally introduced ENDA in the House with gender identity included and was excoriated by transgender activists when he reintroduced it as a gay-only measure because the votes weren't there for trans protections, Who can blame Kennedy for avoiding that kind of backdraft? Trans activists and their "United ENDA" allies have only themselves to blame.
Expect similar recriminations of Kennedy despite the fact that he, like Barney, successfully pushed through the first-ever transgender rights bill -- the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act -- though the strategy of attaching it to a controversial Defense Department bill proved flawed.
Not surprisingly, Chibbaro reports that United ENDA's coalition leader, Matt Foreman of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, is actually opposed to any action on ENDA until 2009, when he imagines the Congress will be ready to enact protections for transsexual and cross-dressing workers. An internal Human Rights Campaign memo leaked last month by trans activists similarly anticipated nothing until '09.
Fortunately (in this case), gay and trans rights are largely ineffective on Capitol Hil -- even with our allies -- and Kennedy's spokesman told the Blade that passage in 2008, even in an election year, is doable:
Asked if Kennedy thought ENDA could pass the Senate in an election year, Wagoner said, “Yes, if enough Republicans support the bill to give us a realistic chance of breaking a filibuster.” …
Jim Manley, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said this week that Reid strongly supports ENDA and favors holding a Senate vote on the measure in 2008. Manley said Reid would defer to Kennedy on the “strategy and timing” of such a vote.
Democrats took back the Congress in 2006 promising to enact basic gay rights legislation. To date, they haven't succeeded in doing so, despite bipartisan support on both ENDA and hate crimes. Today's news lends hope that they might just succeed after all.
(Photo via Washington Blade by Lauren Victoria Burke/ABC News/AP)
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December 12, 2007
How HRC spent winter break
Posted by: Chris
Now we know what the Human Rights Campaign was doing when it wasn't marshaling its considerable resources to save the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act from being stripped from the Defense Department bill. It was busy strategizing how to make nice with transgender activists still fuming that HRC backed out on its promise to oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act when trans protections were removed.
My old friend Marti Abernarthy blogging at Trans Advocate, somehow got hold of an internal memo by HRC National Field Director Marty Rouse that summarizes a conference call HRC recently had with trans leaders. In the memo, Rouse also strategizes how to mend fences and "redouble" efforts to pass federal trans rights legislation.
The Rouse memo, the authenticity of which is not yet confirmed, is remarkably humble and proposes a laundry list of concrete actions HRC should take on behalf of its trans constituents. First, the crow eating:
- We recognize that HRC’s decision to follow a different strategy to secure a fully-inclusive bill was hurtful to some members of our community and we regret that.
- The first step in rebuilding our trust in HRC must be for HRC to own up to the fact that we were promised one thing and the promise, for whatever reason, was broken. Members of the transgender community I’ve spoken to want an apology and an explanation, and the explanation must be sincere and convincing. They want to see a stop to public announcements that contradict private activity which many believe is still going on. Until that is done, it will be near impossible to get increased participation from the transgender community.
But beyond that, Rouse suggests a long list of concrete actions HRC is prepared to take not just to "win back" trans support but move forward with the case for passing a trans-inclusive ENDA:
- immediately launch a new public education campaign designed to continue the mainstreaming of transgender issues;
- conduct the state of the art professional survey to teach us just what the American people understand about trans and what they don’t;
- research the 110+ jurisdictions with protections and characterize what was done right and what was done wrong;
- work with NCTE to find trans persons to target those 50 or so Congresspersons, and give them the data to help them lobby;
- work with GLAAD to develop video and PSAs for the targeted states and Congresspersons;
- redouble the corporate work — they’ve been doing a great job;
- complete a health insurance survey to increase coverage for medical and surgical transition;
- offer to assist NCTE for psychiatric members and those who would have contacts that could help us remove GID from the DSM;
- engage with an organization-wide effort to redouble our educational efforts around gender identity and expression;
- reposition all of HRC’s messaging to be more inclusive of transgender people, and more humble/apologetic about HRC’s past exclusion of the transgender community;
- recognize that transgender people are not “new” – that they were present at Stonewall and other early uprisings;
- encourage transgender people to come out and tell their stories, perhaps providing forums where they can do so safely;
- require each HRC Regional Steering Committee to undergo transgender awareness training, and to actively work to increase transgender participation on the Committee;
- hold “lunch and learn” sessions at HRC headquarters, where staffers can hear from transgender people directly on topics such as trans law,