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To the Editors:
Re (“Who will
stand up for marriage?” editorial by Chris Crain, July
16):
In February, when President Bush announced his support for the Federal Marriage
Amendment, the Human Rights Campaign and allies had several months to defeat
a proposal that, if ratified, would deny our community marriage rights for
generations.
This was no small task. In reality, only a small handful of senators support
marriage rights for same-sex couples. And despite the conventional wisdom,
there were no assurances that this proposal could be defeated without compromise.
As expected all along, the right wing launched an all-out advertising and lobbying
blitz up until the very last moment.
Our approach to defeating the amendment focused on public opinion research
that revealed messages that moved voters, and therefore members of Congress,
to oppose the amendment.
We want marriage equality. Unfortunately, that is not what was before the
Congress. The choice before them was to do nothing, or to hurt us for a long
time to come. In that context, pro-gay marriage messages didn’t resonate.
The messages that worked best were ones that focused on protecting the Constitution,
fighting discrimination and urging Congress to focus on the issues that matter
most to the American people. That’s why we invested a significant amount
of money in an advertising and lobbying campaign focused on those messages.
The Washington Blade’s editor criticized our campaign for not being “gay” enough — whatever
that means. In fact, when you play defense you operate to change the playing
field. The right wing attacked us on gay marriage, and we changed the terms
of the debate to undercut them. That was the smart strategy.
The stunning victory last week proved we chose the right course. Indeed, our
messaging was heralded for its effectiveness and held up for example by the
New York Times, Time magazine and senators during the debate.
It is clear the American people are not yet with us on marriage. Getting them
there will take years of education — mostly friend to friend, coworker
to coworker and neighbor to neighbor — work that many of us have been
doing and have committed to doing far into the future.
I’ve been a full-time volunteer at HRC for the last several months.
The staff here and many others who work on these issues do our community a
great service.
I, for one, am tired of the ill-informed and juvenile perspective of Mr. Crain’s
editorials. I take no backseat when it comes to his passion.
We are all working to change the world, but some of us are actually living
in this one.
Washington
Editors’ note: The letter writer
heads up HRC’s lobbying effort
against the FMA and is the domestic partner of Elizabeth Birch, who resigned
in January as HRC’s executive director. Rosen has declined to be interviewed
on the record about her work for HRC.
To the Editors:
I am glad that the Washington Blade article questions the effectiveness of
abstinence as a prevention tool for gay youth. (“Gays
left out of abstinence messages,” news, July 16).
However, I am concerned that coverage of Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry’s
position was unclear and may have created a false impression.
NOVAM has been the leading youth HIV prevention provider in Northern Virginia
since 1990. Though our outreach has always been gay affirming, in 2001 we created
Orion, a specialized program for gay youth funded by the Virginia Department
of Health and our donors.
Since then we have trained 74 gay high school students to do outreach to 2,640
of their peers. A companion program reaches hundreds of young gay men through
Internet outreach where they seek dates or sexual partners.
The goal of both programs is to keep our young people alive and healthy while
they explore their sexual and affectional orientation and to combat heterosexism
and homophobia.
The program was designed by gay staff and young people and has never been
abstinence-only. I have never heard of a prevention program designed by gay
men for gay men that is.
We work with gay youth to make sure they understand the value of their lives
and build their knowledge, self-esteem and skills so that they can negotiate
behavior in a way that works best for them.
Abstinence-only programs have not been proven to be effective public health
strategies. We do not endorse their use for the general public and resist any
political climate that attempts to enforce such culturally inappropriate and
ineffective methodology on gay youth.
Executive Director
Northern Virginia AIDS Ministries
Arlington, Va.
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