Apr 30, 2004  |  By: JOE CREA  | COMMENTS     

Gay men and lesbians in Massachusetts would be hard pressed to find a more tireless advocate for gay rights than Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay & Lesbian Political Caucus.

Emerging this year as one of the leading voices opposing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, Isaacson has actually been lobbying on behalf of gay rights in the Bay State for nearly 25 years and shows no signs of quitting anytime soon.

Josh Friedes, political director for the Massachusetts Freedom to Marry Coalition, calls her “the most brilliant tactician” he has ever worked with in his nearly 20 years of public advocacy.

“Arline has an intimate knowledge of every legislator and is therefore able to craft persuasive arguments for each individual legislator,” Friedes said. “One doesn’t develop this kind of knowledge overnight, and Arline’s power in the legislature and the respect that people have for her outside the building is based in part on her historical knowledge not only of legislators but of past legislative battles.”

Isaacson began lobbying for MGLPC in 1983 as a volunteer earning $100 a week for three days of work — “slave wages” as she recalls. But she took the job because she loved the work.

At the time, the “big” legislation was a civil rights bill that would have made it illegal to discriminate against gays in housing, employment and public accommodations. Recalling the arguments against the measure, Isaacson said they were reminiscent of the current opposition to same-sex marriage.

“Everything [legislators] questioned in life would be torn asunder [if the legislation passed],” Isaacson said. “Massachusetts would become a gay Mecca and they would witness an end to civilization as they knew it.”

Despite not knowing “what the hell I was doing,” Isaacson, said her lobbying efforts started to pay off as the measure passed the House but died in the Senate by one vote.

After 17 years, the bill — which had been in the works since the 1970s — finally passed in 1989.

As Isaacson began fighting for “basic rights” for gay men and lesbians throughout the 1980s, she soon found herself battling conservatives attempts to restrict gay rights, including a 1985 amendment that would have prohibited gays from becoming foster parents, adoptive parents and even biological parents.

The amendment — a product of the growing fears legislators had about the burgeoning AIDS crisis — was ultimately defeated. As AIDS ravaged the lives of so many gay men, Isaacson found that the disease severely complicated her efforts to lobby on behalf of gays.

The same legislative body that came so close in 1983 to passing the civil rights bill began voicing reservations and as a result the caucus lost a significant amount of votes when the measure was considered in 1985. In addition to convincing lawmakers that gays are “normal,” she also found herself educating them on HIV and AIDS.

Dressing the part
Isaacson said her role as an early ’80s gay lobbyist amounted primarily to a master’s class in “Homosexuality 101,” informing legislators that, “we are just like you,” and “no different.”

She went out of her way to articulate this message, including via her personal appearance, which involved “high heels and traditional business dress.” At the time, such attire was considered “controversial” among some gays who viewed it as assimilation, she said.

“My style did not enamor many in the communit. They thought those were the trappings of a sell-out,” Isaacson said. “But it allowed me to gain entry to legislators’ offices who would otherwise never have talked to me.

“But many lesbians thought, ‘How can we trust someone who dresses like that … dresses the way straight women are supposed to dress?’ It’s funny, because now I would be criticized if I didn’t dress that way.”

Evolution of a amendment
After the civil rights bill passed in 1989, gay advocates spent two years defeating ballot initiatives attempting to repeal the law. Isaacson said activists were successful at defeating the initiatives, noting that if they were placed on the ballot, “we would have lost, quite frankly.”

Isaacson said she wanted to let the civil rights bill settle for several years before addressing inequities between homosexual and heterosexual couples. But that changed after the passage of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Massachusetts was granted “a two-year grace period” before Isaacson and her allies had to defeat various state DOMA bills. Isaacson and the caucus were successful, defeating DOMA measures in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Facing defeat in the legislature, ...