Ignoring Southern states has hampered equality

News items over the last few weeks have made it very clear that the real battle for equality is not on the coasts, but it is south of the Mason-Dixon line.

A young woman in Mississippi is denied the chance to bring her girlfriend to the prom by local school officials.

The Virginia Attorney General has issued an opinion that public universities cannot include sexual orientation and gender identity in their non-discrimination policies.

The Oklahoma Senate passed a measure to obstruct state cooperation with the federal government in enforcement of its newly inclusive hate crimes law.

The only bright spot is that the media have been shaken from their laser focus on marriage and Don't Ask Don't Tell, issues which while essential often obscure other fundamental rights the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community is fighting for. Does anyone remember a recent major story on ENDA, for example.

Shift for a moment to the federal level where more good bills than ever have been introduced. They cover issues of employment, equality in immigration, Don't Ask Don't Tell, adoption, housing, etc. Are any of them really moving? None of them fast enough, that's for sure.

Many factors are relevant to the inaction on these federal bills. Obviously the necessary focus on health care reform and the economy come to mind for anyone who has a sense of scale and context. But I want to highlight another factor--the South. Southern lawmakers on the whole aren't the leaders in introducing, sponsoring, and publicly supporting these bills. There are a few exceptions, but not nearly enough.

Ignoring this phenomenon is a strategic error. The question for the greater American GLBT community is whether we will allow the South to be neglected. It's a critical issue because the three stories above are not isolated events that only affect the people in those states and cities. They shape the ideology of those who show up in Congress to vote on key pieces of federal legislation bearing on the equality of us all. If 75+% of the members of Congress from the South won't budge on federal equality legislation, we can't expect quick passage of any bill.

So what's the answer? Yes, we've got to get more aggressively involved in the election and lobbying of Southern members of Congress. But we've also got to work harder at passing state and local protections in the South so that more Southern members of Congress represent areas that embrace equality. Two recent examples come to mind. Asheville, North Carolina is considering and Kissimmee, Florida has passed partner benefits for their city employees. In order to multiply examples like that, more of the GLBT community in the South must get involved at the local and state level. We can't stop for a moment working on the federal bills, but we've got to give more time, attention, and resources to local battles in the South.

We can do it. It's just a matter of awareness and will. If we do, we'll not only help ourselves but the whole country, too.

-Chris Sanders

Choosing the terrain: How equality legislation can win in Tennessee

"...having chosen the terrain, each charge achieved the maximum impact." So Desmond Seward describes the 13th century military victories of the Christians during the Reconquista (The Monks of War, 164).

No matter what you're doing you stand a better chance of winning if you choose the contest. 2009 marks a turning point in equality legislation in Tennessee because our community has chosen the battle sites more than ever before. For the most part, we've played defense since the 1990s. 2005 marked the high point in the defensive battles when a flood of anti-equality legislation was introduced in the General Assembly and the marriage amendment passed in its required second legislative session to go to the ballot in 2006.

Those battles forced us to develop a strong defense. But even if the other side isn't scoring, it's a lot like a scrum in rugby. If the ball's not heading your way as it comes out, your scrumhalf is still yelling, "Losing."

Despite the fact that we still have to take defensive positions on adoption and other bills, we've added a mildly successful offense this year. TTPC worked with legislators to introduce a hate crimes bill that garnered about 20 House sponsors and actually made it out of a House subcommittee. The Shelby County non-discrimination resolution that passed in June wasn't the ordinance that we wanted, but it provides more protections than were available before the Shelby County Commission took up the matter. The Metro Nashville non-discrimination ordinance passed the Council with a few votes to spare.

In all these cases, choosing the policy target and the venue for its hearing made a profound difference by throwing our opponents off their game. 2009 has also revealed that our level of organization is solid, which even our opponents have been forced to admit. Giving people something positive to fight for enhances the organizational efforts by attracting new and battle tested troops hungry for victory. Even in a socially conservative state like Tennessee, when the elements of choice and organization are yours, you have an even shot at winning. Expect more of the same in the coming months.

-Chris Sanders

State and Local vs Federal? The controversy over the March

Adam Bink has an interesting post at Open Left about a controversy within the GLBT community about the National Equality March and whether we should focus resources on state and local issues vs. federal.

The controversy turns in part on rhetoric and in part on strategy. The public face of the March, Cleve Jones, says that the state by state strategy has failed and he's tired of fighting that way. He desires a major Civil Rights style push at the federal level.

The rhetoric is annoying and yet understandable. But I think most of us in the Tennessee GLBT community can see past it. The people we know from Memphis, Cookeville, Knoxville, and so on who are connected with the March have been great state and local advocates. And I have no doubt that they will continue to work hard on those issues when they return from the March. I suspect they wish it were not necessary to fight so hard to gain so little in Tennessee. But I bet they continue to do so even as they add a substantial focus on federal issues to their work. So while I agree with the critique of Jones' remarks, I don't think they're an indictment of the March itself.

The issue of strategy is what really matters, but perhaps we are presented with a false choice between state/local and federal. Many of us working at the state and local level don't consider such work a failed strategy. For example, in Nashville, every Metro position will now be covered by a non-discrimination policy that didn't exist before. I can't see how that's a negative. If anything, it helps affirm Congressman Jim Cooper in his support of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It gives confirmation to those members of the Davidson County delegation to the General Assembly who have fought against the adoption ban and for the state hate crimes bill. And if we were to pass equality legislation at the state level, wouldn't it increase the odds that more of Tennessee's congressional delegation would support federal equality legislation?

And the March will paradoxically help in exactly the reverse order with respect to activists. Marchers will go to Washington, D.C. to make a huge show of force for full equality at the federal level. When they come home they will hopefully continue to work for that. But you can't tell me that they won't have any fire to defend our adoption rights here in Tennessee. And you can't tell they won't care about non-discrimination efforts in our cities where we are making progress. I can't speak about the situation in other states. But I've talked to and worked with the leaders who are going from Tennessee, and I know they care about their communities and their state.

There's enough work to go around and I hope those who go to DC come back inspired to help at every level. I believe they will inspire those of us who can't go to expand our efforts to keep working for full equality. We can all gain from the March if we look at it the right way.

Marriage roundup

The coverage of the California Supreme Court's marriage decision continues to fill the news. The New York Times has an extended piece on what married life is like for same-sex couples four years after Massachusetts granted them the right to marry. Wedded bliss, complications, compromise, infidelity, divorce--it's all there. It reminds me of Dolly Parton's defense of marriage equality when she was asked about her position on the issue: "Hell yes. You people should have to suffer just like the rest of us!"

Earlier in the week, the Pew Research Center released a new poll on same-sex marriage. The results are mixed. The good news of the poll is that while 49% oppose marriage equality, it is the first time the number is below 50%. 38% are supportive. The July 2004 numbers were 56% opposed and 32% supporting.

The bad news is that some groups consider the issue important in the presidential election:

Currently, 41% of Republicans say gay marriage will be very important in their voting decisions, up 14 percentage points since last fall. Notably, about as many Republicans now view gay marriage as very important as did so at the end of the 2004 campaign (41% now vs. 39% then). Similarly, 49% of white evangelical Protestants view gay marriage as very important, up 10 points since last fall and identical to the percentage of white evangelicals who rated gay marriage as very important in October 2004.

Perhaps in part because of numbers like these, a group of national GLBT organizations urged people who go to California from other states in order to marry not to go lawsuit happy when they return to their home states.

The fastest way to win the freedom to marry throughout America is by getting
marriage through state courts (to show that fairness requires it) and state legislatures (to show that people support it). We need to start with states where we have the best odds of winning. When we’ve won in a critical mass of states, we can turn to Congress and the federal courts. At that point, we’ll ask that the U.S. government treat all marriages equally. And we’ll ask that all states give equal treatment to all marriages and civil unions that are celebrated in other states.

In other words, it's going to be a long wait in Tennessee.