"Special Rights" argument comes from the Religious Right's attempts to divide minorities on ballot measures

Maybe everyone else knew this, but I didn't until I started reading Gay Rights at the Ballot Box by Amy L. Stone, an assistant professor of sociology at Trinity University.  Basically the argument we so

frequently hear about equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people being "special rights" came from the Religious Right's efforts to divide minority communities during the Right's earlier wave of anti-equality ballot measures.

Here's what Stone says:

Part of this secular argument about 'special rights' was a new image of the Religious Right as supportive of civil rights for 'deserving' minorities such as African Americans but opposed to 'undeserving' minorities such as LGBT activists. The anti-gay Right used special rights political messaging to divide potential allies by exacerbating existing tensions about race and class in LGBT politics. Through this messaging, the Right reaffirms gayness as whiteness, creating divisions between a presumed white LGBT movement and the presumed heterosexual African American community.

It does seem pretty consistent with the playbook, though the language of special rights is now also used to justify majority rejection of equality legislation.  Both the special rights language and the tactic of dividing minorities are items to watch as the ballot measure campaign to overturn the partner benefits and non-discrimination ordinance in Chattanooga gets underway.   

A mixed election night for equality

Tuesday turned out to be a mixed picture for the movement for equality at the ballot. First the bad news. At this point, it is not looking good for marriage equality in Maine, where voters appear to be overturning a law providing marriage rights to same-sex couples. Two candidates endorsed by HRC's PAC have lost their gubernatorial bids--Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey who lost to anti-gay Chris Christie and candidate Creigh Deeds lost to Bob McDonnell in Virginia. In Tennessee, many of us were watching the Knoxville City Council District 4 race where TEP PAC endorsed Ray Abbas who narrowly lost the seat by 70 votes.

Now the good news, the Washington state ballot measure approving domestic partnerships appears to be passing. And in Kalamazoo, Michigan a ballot measure on the city's non-discrimination law passed. Many openly gay candidates won races around the country including Annise Parker of Houston who was the top voter getter in the mayoral race. She now advances to the runoff. A lesbian won a seat on the Akron City Council and a gay man won a seat on the Detroit City Council. And Chapel Hill, North Carolina has elected Mark Kleinschmidt as the city's first openly gay mayor.

These results aren't official and in some cases may not turn out to be final. It's a mixed picture and it will take some time to figure out where the movement for equality goes in the wake of tonight's results.

Guest post by Kim Troup: Protecting Maine Equality--A "Volunteer Vacationer's" Experience

Nashvillian Kim Troup discusses her experience of volunteering in Maine's Vote No on 1 campaign. Her son directs key projects in the campaign. Citizens of Maine are on their final day of voting on whether to keep or repeal marriage equality. What follows are Kim's reflections on volunteering in the campaign:

November 3, 2009 – Last week I spent 7 days on the ground with the “No On 1/Protect Maine Equality” campaign at campaign headquarters in Portland. It was exciting to be at the center of the action for most of the final exhausting week of the campaign. The headquarters was abuzz with constant activity from early morning until 10 or 11 pm each night. Over 100 “volunteer vacationers” like myself came from all over the country to supplement the work being done by the campaign staff and thousands of volunteers from Maine. There were canvass trainings and phone bank trainings at least once each day and hundreds of volunteers were in and out of the office all day long preparing for a canvass, manning the phones, doing data entry and a myriad of other tasks. It was inspiring to hear some of the stories and to meet both gay, lesbian and straight allies who were all united in a common purpose – protecting marriage equality for all Maine families which had been granted by the legislature in May. For those of you who may not know, Maine law provides a citizens veto provision. As expected, the other side collected enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot for today’s election.

I spent all of my time working with the Satellite Phone Bank and the phone from home “Call for Equality” program. My son, Matt Moonen, is the director of these 2 efforts so it was fun for us to reverse our previous roles and have Matt as the staff director and me as the volunteer. The first couple of days I did tons and tons of data entry into the VAN system. If you’ve worked on a campaign recently, you’re probably familiar with this database of registered voters. We were getting constant updates from the field efforts and it was critical to update the VAN to make sure voters were marked as a supporter, non-supporter or as undecided. It was a tedious job but important for our Get Out the Vote (GOTV) strategy which went into full swing on Wednesday. This effort targeted our supporters reminding them to get out and vote while allowing the campaign to not waste time calling voters who were on the other side. We had multiple satellite phone banks going on all over the country each day. Many of our sister organizations that belong to the Equality Federation such as the Human Rights Campaign, Equality CA, Equality Maryland, MassEquality and our own TN Equality Project held one or more phone banks for the campaign. Other groups like the Courage Campaign of CA, the Vermont Freedom to Marry Coalition and Love Makes A Family of CT were also involved. Matt estimated that more than 75,000 calls were made to Maine voters on Sunday & Monday from these groups. Student led phone banks were happening at colleges and universities all across the country including American, Georgetown, UC-Davis, UC-Berkley, Columbia, Harvard, Duke, Yale, Indiana, Oberlin, Notre Dame and many, many more. We made confirmation calls daily to the groups having satellite phone banks the next day to determine the number of people they expected, making sure they had the latest script and then finding out if they planned to use Call Fire or needed calling lists on paper so Matt could prepare their materials and train them as needed.

Each day we had hundreds of individual volunteers making phone calls from their home through the Call for Equality Program. We conducted webinar trainings for these volunteers daily walking them through our updated script and how to use the Call Fire computerized system to make calls to Maine voters. Matt & I did role plays for each training to illustrate several typical responses from voters that callers might encounter. After a couple of sessions I was able to help him field many of the calls that invariably came in from volunteers who had been through training but were having problems logging into the system. Usually it was something simple like omitting one of the steps of the login process. I also did daily data entry into VAN of all the volunteers, scheduling them for a training session and one or more call shifts. We made daily recruitment calls to individual volunteers who signed up for the Call for Equality program. Over 100,000 calls have been made to Maine voters by the phone from home program.

Local press was in the office almost daily with many state officials as well as congresswoman Chellie Pingree holding press conferences in support of “No On 1.” The governor held a press conference at campaign headquarters on Thursday and then appeared on Rachel Maddow that evening. I was able to attend a live televised debate at the University of Southern Maine in Portland on Wednesday. The 450 seat auditorium was filled with “No On 1” supporters all wearing red. We were represented very capably by Mary Banauto, a lawyer from GLAD in Boston who lives in Portland. Mary was so outstanding in the debate. She has a brilliant legal mind but presents her arguments in a calm, soft voice that is totally disarming to the other side.

Today is election day in Maine and it is too close to call. I will be eagerly awaiting the results tonight as will all of the wonderful people I met while working on the campaign. Our GOTV efforts have been extensive by phone and by face to face canvasses all across the state. Hopefully it will be enough to ensure that all Maine families equal protection under the law.

Nashville For All of Us out of the gate

Well, the movement to defeat Eric Crafton's English-only ballot measure has a name. Nashville For All of Us--it's got a kind of "Shiny, Happy People" feel to it, but it sends the right message. It's good to see that the serious questions about strategy have begun to be addressed, too. There seems to be discussion about the merits of a full-scale public campaign with yard signs, etc. vs. a targeted get-out-the-vote effort. Metro Councilman Ronnie Steine favors the latter.

"I think you have a real campaign," Steine said. "But I don't know if you have all of those elements. If you believe, as I do, that on Jan. 22 you won't have a very large number of people going to the polls, you don't need a massive countywide public relations campaign. You need to identify those people that will go to vote, and then get them to go vote."

The coalition of business people, clergy, and activists is looking to hire a campaign manager and has already filed with the Davidson County Election Commission.

This is one of the first media stories I've seen that didn't make Crafton the focus. Given the polling that shows the issue is close, more coverage like this, and a good campaign, there is a real chance the measure will be defeated in January.

Celebration and concern as Tennessee's GLBT Community Watches Election Returns

The GLBT community celebrated Barack Obama's victory around the State Tuesday night while watching with concern as the results from ballot initiatives around the country and legislative races in Tennessee rolled in. First, the celebration. The faces and shirts at Nashville's Tribe in the photos above say it all.

But the celebration was tempered by concern about ballot measures in other states. As of this posting, marriage amendments were leading in California, Arizona, and Florida. California is too close to call at the moment. The adoption amendment in Arkansas also appears headed to an easy win.

Around 9:30 some of us were getting word that Republicans were increasing their lead in the State Senate and possibly taking control of the State House. The Nashville Post is calling the House for the Republicans, 50-49, but there is no list. My two sources, one Republican and one Democrat, say as of now that the House remains in Democratic hands by one seat. I suppose we'll know later on Wednesday. There will likely be recounts. But either way, a legislative agenda that is amenable to the concerns of the State's GLBT community will be a tougher sell.

Border State Update: Arkansas adoption ban losing in the polls

According to a University of Arkansas poll, 53% of Arkansas voters oppose a proposed ban on adoption by gays and lesbians. Bans also met defeat in the Mississippi and Tennessee legislatures this year. Interestingly, the two sponsors of the Tennessee bill were from Memphis, which shares a corner with Mississippi and Arkansas.

The poll is good news for Arkansas and it's good news for Tennessee and Mississippi, too. If the number hold, the result should help deter any renewed push for similar legislation in the Mid-South.