Prioritizing the movement
USA Today is reporting on the steps some LGBT advocates think should be taken to re-prioritize and focus our movement.
“There will be some hard questions asked about where marriage ranks on the list of possibilities and priorities” for the LGBT movement, PFLAGer Steve Ralls told the paper.W
Writer Clyde Wilcox (”The Politics of Gay Rights) said, “Marriage is just an issue where the public is not there yet.”
I think there need to be two sets of priorities. We’re L or G or B or T or whatever, but we’re also Americans. USA Today hits on it with a comment from Join The Impact founder Amy Balliett:
Amy Balliett, whose website, jointheimpact.wetpaint.com, mobilized thousands Saturday to protest the reversal of gay marriage in California, plans more demonstrations, but she says the economy must come first. “Barack Obama can’t put his initial focus” on gay marriage, says Balliett, who wed her partner in California last month. “That is just not fair to our nation.”
I think national LGBT organizations need to come together with the Obama administration and offer ways to reach our community on issues surrounding the economy. There are ways LGBT orgs could reach out and raise awareness on good spending habits. Personally, I’m a fan of QueerCents.
When it comes to our Civil Rights Agenda, we need to think long and hard about the realities of the political world in which we currently find our movement. We’ve made lots of progress, but not enough to dramatically alter a Western Civilization-notion of “marriage.” I just don’t think we’re there yet: Not enough people are able to deconstruct “marriage” and separate its civil component from its religious component.
If, for some reason, the HRC Board of Directors or Task Force Board decided to hire me today, my priority list would likely fall like:
1. Federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (fully inclusive)
2. Federal hate crimes legislation (fully inclusive)
3. State-by-state (50 State Strategy, anyone?) on securing safe schools legislation to protect vulnerable youth.
4. A smarter, wiser and more disciplined state-by-state, non-federal, preferably non-judicial approach to securing marriage equality.
But all that’s pretty much echoed in the USA Today piece. I think its the best strategy. Marriage will come… really it will. But I’m not convinced its the best way to get equality across the board. It’s great at mobilizing folks, but much beyond that its just, more often than not, a failure in the making.
In addition to my four-point priority list, I’d likely call a meeting with every, major national LGBT organization and form a united committee/commission/task force/something to oversee a dramatic overhaul of where and how each national group operates. As mentioned in a previous post, each group does its own thing and does it well — getting every group on the same page and working in a unilateral way will move us forward as a strong, seamless and strategically united front.
Oh… and I’d give Amy Balliett a job, real quick, on theat committee/commission/task force/something thingy.
Our “Second Stonewall,” yes. The beginning, no. I wholeheartedly agree. Too many folks have worked on marriage equality for Nov. 15 to be “the beginning.”
From 
In the Governor’s office, Sawyer said that the state will not promote itself as a tourist destination through campaigns “aimed at a specific group of people.”
