Mar 28, 2008  TOM OSBORNE | COMMENTS     

ON APRIL 5, in what is best described as a belated April Fool’s joke, Equality Virginia will give its “Equality Public Servant Award” to a Republican, former Del. Vince Callahan. Although Equality Virginia is evasive about how the award came about (no recorded vote, per news stories), it appears to have been engineered by David Lampo, an officer of Log Cabin Republicans of Virginia who also chairs Equality Virginia’s Legislative Committee.

Make no mistake: Callahan is simply not qualified for such an award from the LGBT community. While in office, he regularly voted against us on the major issues — to forbid all prospects of future recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions; against repealing the sodomy laws (even after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled them unconstitutional); against gay/straight alliances in public schools; and in favor of prohibiting gays from adopting. One pro-equality bill — to allow some localities to offer health insurance to employees’ domestic partners — seemed headed for passage until he managed to kill it by burying it in a hostile subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, which he chaired.

Equality Virginia’s leaders justify the award by pointing to a few pro-GLBT votes by Callahan on a few mostly minor issues such as a hospital-visitation bill last year. Whoop-de-do! The entire General Assembly voted for that very broad but very weak bill (137 for, none against.) That includes Del. Bob Marshall (R-Manassas), author of the hateful Marshall-Newman anti-gay marriage amendment.
Will EV honor Marshall with a similar award next year?

Some will dismiss my criticism of this award as “nasty partisanship” because I am treasurer of Virginia Partisans. I don’t think so. I agree strongly that Equality Virginia, an officially non-partisan organization, needs to work with members of both parties. I also strongly believe that when the group gives out recognition, party affiliation should be irrelevant.

UNFORTUNATELY, PARTY AFFILIATION did figure into this award. Lampo says he nominated Callahan in part because Callahan is a Republican. Admittedly, Callahan hasn’t been as shrill as Marshall when voting and working against us.  But if that justifies a major award, Equality Virginia has lowered the bar almost to the ground.

It’s not like it had no qualified candidates for this award to choose from. I could easily put together a list of 20 public servants who are very deserving of recognition — legislators and ex-legislators, governors and ex-governors, etc. I could identify another 20 or 30 who, while not “highly qualified,” at least have better records than Callahan. The problem is that precious few on those lists would be Republicans. When you’re specifically looking for a Republican to honor for service to the LGBT community, you’re quickly forced to scrape from the bottom of the barrel.

IN A STATE where all of our real champions in the government are Democrats, Equality Virginia’s “Equality Public Servant Award” has now gone to a Republican 60 percent of the time. This makes the group look increasingly like a wholly owned subsidiary of Log Cabin Republicans — giving ammunition to the Log Cabin line that Republicans are just as good as (or better than) Democrats in promoting our rights. Fortunately, most gays — around 90 percent, by most calculations — understand who are our friends and are not fooled by Log Cabin.  Will this award confuse some in our community into thinking otherwise? We can certainly hope not.

There are other consequences to a policy of sucking up to your opponents, while in the process dissing your friends. Pretty soon you have fewer friends.  How can our community continue to ask our true supporters to take the heat for standing with us when Equality Virginia gives its top award to someone who opposed us on almost all major issues?

We all have a responsibility to insist that EV set high standards and not diminish our community by saluting our opponents. We lose credibility when we uncritically laud and applaud those who have done far more to harm us than to help us.

To those who are attending Equality Virginia’s Commonwealth Dinner, I urge you to be polite but not enthusiastic when Callahan’s award is presented. No purpose is served by being rude. I also urge you to let Equality Virginia’s leadership know how disgusted you are over this outrageous award.