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| Keith Boykin, a former Clinton administration aide and member
of the National Black Justice Coalition, said activists at a meeting last week
meeting were undaunted by the election results in their fight for full equality
for gay Americans.
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: JOE CREA COMMENTS
 
While gay leaders evaluated dozens of national strategies to consider in the fight
for gay rights during last week’s Creating Change conference in St. Louis,
many advocated for a greater focus on state and local issues.
The 17th annual conference — organized by the National Gay & Lesbian
Task Force — included about 2,500 organizers from gay rights groups across
the country reviewing legislative strategies for the upcoming years.
The conference came on the heels of a national election in which 11 state constitutional
amendments banning gay marriage — and in some instances any legal recognition
of gay relationships — were overwhelmingly approved by voters.
Gay activists said similar amendments are likely in Mississippi and Florida,
and the Massachusetts Legislature will once again debate and vote on a constitutional
amendment banning gay marriage, which is currently legal in that state.
Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center,
said the greatest gains for gay rights over the years have been at the state
and local level and in the courts.
Jean, who was formerly the Task Force director, offered up California’s
General Assembly and new Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as a model
of a state government favorable to gay rights.
“Our assembly is primarily comprised of Democrats and moderate Republicans,
and there’s not a ton of anti-gay fervor,” Jean said. “We
have an unprecedented gay caucus in our assembly, and we have a Republican governor
who is not anti-gay and has shown himself to be more responsive to our issues
than our former governor, Gray Davis, even though [Davis] had courted us for
years.
“I have long thought a moderate Republican governor would get more done
for us simply because Republicans want him to stay so they don’t scream
too much at him and Democrats agree with many of his policies,” she said.
Jean added that she is concerned an anti-gay marriage amendment might be introduced
and put to California voters in 2006.
“Time will tell what happens, but when you put our civil rights up for
a vote, it’s awfully hard to prevail when it comes to marriage at this
stage of the game.”
Some activists pointed to Connecticut as another example of a state taking on
gay rights issues in a local and measured way. The Connecticut Legislature may
consider a civil unions bill when it reconvenes in January.
The bill would likely have support from Democrats, who hold strong majorities
in both houses, and possibly from Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and House Minority
Leader Robert Ward, who have indicated they might be willing to expand rights
for gay couples, though they both oppose gay marriage, according to the Danbury
News Times.
Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, a Connecticut-based gay rights
group, said she also expects to see a marriage bill introduced. Stanback said
same-sex marriage bills have been introduced in previous years but have never
made it out of committee.
Stanback said that more education and lobbying needs to be done on the state
level. She attributes this strategy to the success of her group.
“While Connecticut has a long history of providing equality for all its
minority citizens, we began the debate over gay rights in the legislature and
that has been helpful to us,” said Stanback, who attended the weekend
conference.
“In other states, where there has been success in the courts, you still
have to go back to the legislature,” Stanback said. “Once we have
a win in the courts, the legislature won’t feel they need to take that
away from us.
“But every state has to look at its political realities and given what
we thought we could do in Connecticut, we thought ours was a very productive
strategy in part because it is an opportunity to involve constituents in terms
of building a grassroots movement. It’s hard to do that when the issue
is being played out in the courts.”
Keith Boykin, a White House special assistant in the Clinton administration
and a member of the National Black Justice Coalition, said meeting participants
were “fired up” and ready to be “motivated and active,”
adding that it was important for the gay activists to have ...
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