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01/30/2009
Creating Change for 09: We'd do a five, three ones, and four quarters
Even as we type, thousands of LGBT activists are in Denver for that annual postgraduate program/ schmoozefest/ networking session/ chance to put a real person with a Facebook image/ gay rally cry known as Creating Change. We couldn't make it this year because a longtime fear of the late "Rocky Mountain High" singer has us mentally banned from the Mile High City. But that's a long story for a therapist and/or a Jim Beam bottle -- no need to bother you with it.
[:writer chugs a shot of irrational fear cleanser::] Where was I? Oh yea, Creating Change. Even though we aren't there in physical form, we've been closely following our friends' experiences via Twitter, Facebook, and every other digital smoke signal at our disposal. One consistent thing we kept hearing today: That National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey gave a rousing speech at this afternoon's plenary session. Seriously, they were all repeating to the point where we were like, "Okay, geez, we get it -- Rea's a good speaker. What do you want from us? A medal? You want us to ship you a medal? All the way to Denver? Is that what you want? Is it? Oh okay, we'll get right down the post office right now. Maybe you'd like us to throw in a cookie, too?!"
[::writer takes second chug and a deep breath::]
Well we can't let you physically relive the apparent magic, as hologram technology is not up to snuff quite yet. However, due to the power of the NGLTF's press department, we can now show you the full text of Rea's State of the Movement address. Enjoy it, crazies:
State of the Movement address by Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
I know many of us may be questioning the state of our movement, and
I'll get to that in a bit, but first, I can't resist saying that we now
live in a country with a community organizer in chief and since the
Task Force literally has the trademark on Creating Change, we know that
our moment has arrived!
I am honored to serve as the
executive director of the Task Force following my friend Matt Foreman.
In fact, pretty much since I came out at the age of 16 here in Denver I
have watched, learned from and been inspired by the Task Force, so I
consider myself to be incredibly fortunate to be part of it. I have
come up through this movement and many of my teachers are here with us
today, including a couple of former Task Force executive directors —
Urvashi Vaid and Lorri Jean.
You've already met Russell Roybal, and I want to call up to the stage
my other new partner in running the Task Force — a woman who you will
be hearing a lot from — our new deputy executive director, Darlene
Nipper.
I want to thank each and every one of you for being here. These are
incredibly tough economic times and the fact that you have spent your
precious time and limited dollars to be here — to gather with your
fellow activists and allies from across the country and others who have
joined us — speaks to your commitment to social change, to lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender equality, and most importantly, to each
other.
This gathering is the public square of the LGBT movement and our time
together is made richer and more valuable because each of you is here.
Today, I'm going talk about some of our community's accomplishments
since we met a year ago in Detroit; reflect on some of what we've
experienced in this last year; and talk about where we are headed.
First, let's talk about the past year. You know, there are years when
our movement for full equality jumps by leaps and bounds and other
years when we toil to gain every inch of ground. This year has been a
bit of both in which we made progress on the local and state level and
our country elected its first person of color to the presidency! Yet
our love for each other was attacked again by the majority at the
ballot box; our right to marry was taken away in California; our
transgender brothers and sisters were denied much needed protections;
and federal policy continued to elude us under the evil empire... I
mean the Bush administration.
It has been a bittersweet year, but the state of our movement is engaged!
This year, we made many gains — gains made because of your hard work,
your strategic thinking, your long hours, and your dollars funding
state and local efforts. With all of the attention paid to marriage, it
would be easy to miss the progress made at the local and state level
that improves the lives of LGBT people. And so much of this progress
has happened not on the coasts, but in the middle part of the country.
This weekend we will invite you to text to screen all the
accomplishments you've had this year but I will mention just a few of
the many achievements for LGBT people in 2008:
Here in our host state of Colorado, Amendment 46, a Ward Connerly
initiative that would have ended affirmative action in public
employment, public education or public contracting was defeated.
In Arizona, voters rejected Proposition 202, which would have penalized
businesses that hire undocumented workers. And in Oregon, voters
rejected an English-only proposal.
In three states — California, Colorado and South Dakota — voters
considered initiatives related to reproductive freedoms. And we won in
every state.
Also, here in Colorado we expanded progress by passing a law protecting
LGBT people from discrimination in housing and public accommodations.
Eight localities passed and held onto nondiscrimination laws:
Gainesville and Broward County, Fla.; Columbus and Oxford, Ohio; Kansas
City, Mo.; Detroit, Mich; Columbia, S.C.; and Binghamton, N.Y.
We also — with incredibly hard work — successfully defended one of our
victories from last year: a transgender rights ordinance that passed in
Montgomery County, Md., where the combined efforts of the Task Force,
Equality Maryland, Lambda Legal and a host of other organizations came
together to defeat the referendum and prevent it from even reaching the
ballot.
In the area of family recognition, Connecticut joined Massachusetts in
becoming a freedom-to-marry state and then beat back efforts that would
have threatened it. Those of you from Connecticut and our great
partners Love Makes a Family and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and
Defenders, congratulations and thank you.
We won marriage in California and over 18,000 couples are now legally
married — and we plan on keeping them married. Even though we lost that
right temporarily, our community and allies rose up in the days after
the election to say, "Enough!"
We have with us today one of the founders of Join the Impact, Willow
Witte, who along with her fellow organizer Amy Balliett, used the power
of online organizing to fill the streets! We're proud that some of the
Join the Impact crew cut their organizing teeth at Creating Change in
Portland, Ore., a few years ago and are now sharing their skills with
thousands across the country.
Cities and towns in many states including Wisconsin, Arizona,
Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Utah, established domestic partnership
or similar registries in 2008. There were domestic partnership
expansions in Washington state and Washington, D.C. Maryland
established limited domestic partnership recognition and New York has
decided to respect out-of-state same-sex marriages.
Maine had an unprecedented year of victories in 2008 culminating in an
Election Day action that surpassed their wildest dreams. After waiting
in line for an hour to vote, voters were waiting in line to sign
pro-marriage postcards. When EqualityMaine ran out of 30,000 postcards,
voters signed scraps of paper, jotting their names and addresses down
on anything they could find.
Building on the momentum, EqualityMaine and its coalition partners
recently introduced a marriage bill and they have a solid plan for
winning marriage in the Legislature in 2009 and then protecting it in
the inevitable referendum campaign.
And finally, this last year's accomplishments include a record 450 out
elected officials serving in local, state and federal offices including
Colorado's very own Jared Polis, who became the first openly gay man to
run for and be elected to Congress, joining Reps. Barney Frank and
Tammy Baldwin in the House.
For each and every one of you in this room who contributed to any of those victories and the many others we had, thank you!
What we continue to accomplish as a movement is electrifying. And, yet,
some of this year's results were bitter — extremely bitter — pills to
swallow.
At the outset, let me say that I tend to be a glass-half-full person,
so I can't help but see this year's anti-marriage and anti-family
ballot measures as deeply painful but temporary defeats that
demonstrated just how far we've come. But, it isn't just my gut feeling
that this is temporary, it is based on the concrete progress we have
made. For example, just four years ago, we lost 13 anti-marriage ballot
measures by huge margins — by an average of 67 percent, and as high as
86 percent. In California alone, the last time we faced a similar
anti-marriage measure, we lost by over 20 points. This year, we lost by
less than four. I know it doesn't feel like it sometimes, but this is
progress.
However, this was a particularly painful year because we lost the
fundamental right that we had worked so hard to secure — the right to
marry in California.
In the days and weeks after the election, so many in our community were
searching for a quick answer as to why we lost in four states. My
fellow activists, there is no easy answer.
The days and weeks after the election were some of the most painful
I've experienced in my 24 years in this movement. I know they were
painful for many of you and for our colleagues around the country,
particularly in California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas.
It was hard and painful enough to have lost four statewide ballot
measures. But pain turned the corner into agony when we all started
lashing out at each other, our allies and our would-be allies and
didn't let up.
Did the other side run excellent, although lie-filled campaigns? Yes it
did. Could we all have done more or done things differently that might
have moved us closer to defeating the four measures? Certainly. We at
the Task Force are a particularly analytical and reflective group and
we've been taking a hard look at what we could have done better to
fight against these measures.
But our winning on any of the four statewide measures was always far
from being a slam dunk. We need to learn what we can from this last
year and we must move forward, as we have before in times far worse
than this.
I want to specifically address the blaming of African-American voters for the passage of Prop. 8.
Sadly, shamefully, an incorrect statistic was put forth in the media
and many people both in and outside of our community ran with it. I
want to be clear — the blaming of African-American voters was wrong,
despicable and inexcusable.
The Task Force released a study with authors Ken Sherrill and Pat Egan
that included actual voting data that showed that party affiliation,
conservative ideology, frequent church-going and the voter's age
trumped all other factors in the Proposition 8 vote — including race.
The Task Force was criticized by some for being "politically correct."
It is not politically correct to conduct sound research. It is not politically correct to challenge racism.
Have we done enough as a community to deal with our own racism and to
make sure that our movement is one that reflects the true diversity of
LGBT people? We sure haven't. But the finger pointing and scapegoating
was an affront to the many people of color and others who worked on and
with the campaign and to our allied organizations. Furthermore, it
avoids the complexity of the work we still have to do to win equality.
I have had enough. WE have had enough. Let us dig deep in ourselves and
show others that we will not stoop to scapegoating, we will not turn
our backs on our allies, and we will not give up.
There is a big difference between blaming and learning. Let us be learners so that we may be leaders.
As we look back on this year, our confidence has been shaken and our
anger has been roused — but now is the time to turn our anger into
action and our action into long-lasting change. We must now refocus on
regaining marriage equality in California and winning across the
country. But we need to remember that these anti-marriage ballot
measures are fundamentally about the larger right-wing assault on the
ever-expanding diversity in the United States, our freedom to live
openly and to create and define our sexuality, our selves and our
families.
I urge us not look at our movement as if it is only about this last
election or only about marriage equality. Let us recall that our
movement for liberation and equality has created much change since the
police brutality in New York and other cities gave rise to the
Stonewall riots, the activism of black and Latino gay men, and the
birth of the modern LGBT movement.
If we do not come together again to fight another day, we can't win our
full equality. As the magnet on my grandmother's fridge says, "Fall
down seven times, get up eight!"
The state of our movement is resilient and we will win!
So, where are we headed as a movement? In order to take a look at where
we are headed as a movement, we must first take a look at the broader
social and political context in which we work for full equality. This
context has now shifted radically.
The most obvious change is that for the first time in our nation's history, we have as president, a black man, Barack Obama.
Candidate Obama recognized and affirmed a grassroots hunger for change.
This year saw record numbers of young people, people of color and
progressive people coming out to vote and we are now a better country
for it.
This does indeed feel like a new political era for our country and our movement.
I believe the power of this historic moment is the seismic shift in
this country from a culture of "I" to a culture of "We." Obama ran with
a mantra of "Yes we can!" Obama didn't say, "Yes I can" or "Yes YOU
can." He said, yes WE can. This mantra, of course, carries on the
organizing legacy of the United Farm Workers and Dolores Huerta. This
unifying WE invites each of us into the work ahead; into the reclaiming
of a government that has turned its back on so many; into challenging
the long held beliefs and practices of who holds power; how power is
used; and who benefits from the use of power.
Obama's "WE" challenges the culture of "I" that has been so core to
this country's identity — the image of rugged individualism, pulling
yourself up by your bootstraps. This imagery has been bolstered and
perpetuated by scenes like Ronald Reagan riding his horse and by George
Bush clearing brush on his ranch. This iconic imagery is finally being
challenged. We are now off the ranch and have moved back into the WE of
urban energy and creativity, the WE of close family ties and community
in rural areas, the WE that has been at the center of the farm workers,
civil rights, feminist and labor movements.
We are only just beginning to see the manifestations, the benefits of
this cultural shift. And, our community — the LGBT community — is
expert at showing the nation just what is possible when WE come
together. This historic moment plays to our strengths.
After all, our community built an entire infrastructure of service and
support for people with HIV when our own president did not have the
decency to speak the syndrome's name.
Our community overturned sodomy laws in a nation that possesses an intense fear of sexuality.
And our community put gender identity legislation and family protections on the political map.
WE have much to offer this country.
So, now it is our time to contribute again — to express moral
leadership and creative fortitude. It is our time to hold steady as we
are attacked at the ballot box and on the streets. To hold steady as we
share our talents and ideas and are pushed back. To hold steady as we
assert how we create family.
The state of our movement is expansive.
In fact, the success of our aspirations will only be limited by the
expansiveness of our vision and the assertion of what is in our hearts.
There are a few things we must do to make the most of this moment in
history and to navigate the waters of this new era.
First, this moment calls for a new kind of leadership in the LGBT
movement — not the leadership of one, but the collaborative leadership
of many. Don't get me wrong, the Task Force and I will assert
leadership — but at the Task Force, we believe that strength comes not
from hoarding power but by building power and sharing power and using
power for good. It is why so much of our work is done through
coalitions or convenings like Creating Change.
We are leaders in what is good and right and just in this country.
When we insist that LGBT people be involved in the policy conversations
about the economy, about health benefits, about tax policy, about
immigration — as we have been doing with the Obama transition team and
administration — we assert our community's moral leadership.
When we win marriage equality in Maine, Iowa, New Jersey and other
states — and we will — we assert our community's moral leadership.
When we pass a gender identity-inclusive ENDA — and we will — we assert our community's moral leadership.
When we continue to work to get rid of useless abstinence only education, we assert our community's moral leadership.
When we stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in labor and
women's groups as the Task Force did yesterday morning at the White
House for the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we assert
our community's moral leadership.
When we promote, sustain and maintain people of color leaders — we assert our community's moral leadership.
second thing we must do is to think differently about who our playmates
are. I was a Girl Scout when I was growing up and there was this song
"make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold."
We will certainly keep our LGBT organizational friends. But, it is time
for us to make new, substantive and strategic friendships with non-LGBT
organizations with which we share common concerns. The time for
isolating ourselves as a movement is over. We will never win on our own.
So, in the coming years, you will see the Task Force partnering with
some perhaps surprising organizations. We will ask them to show up for
us and we will show up for them, as we have in our work with AARP on
national policy and with Planned Parenthood and NAACP on ballot
measures.
Third, so many of our straight friends and family are with us and we
must find ways for them to make a difference in our pursuit of
equality. They are near and dear to us. They're willing to work with
us; they're wanting to work with us; they're waiting to work with us.
Among the most striking experiences for me in the last year have been
my conversations with straight people across the country, not the least
of which was with my own 92-year-old grandmother who has been my
cheerleader and was crushed when she was not able to make it to our
wedding.
Next week the Task Force will be a partner in launching a new campaign
called, "Tell 3" headed up by the ACLU and Join the Impact, along with
other organizations. This campaign is simply about talking to the
people in our lives about issues that matter to us as LGBT people.
We ask each and every one of you to go to our Web site next week and
take part in what could be — with your help — the most massive friends
and family education effort ever launched. If every one at Creating
Change has meaningful, real conversations with three people about our
lives, about the things we care about, we will have made progress in
changing the hearts and minds of thousands of people — people who will
be voting on our rights next year and the years after that.
Finally, organize, organize, organize — however you do it, walking door
to door, talking to friends, going to meetings, sending tweets — I just
did — connecting on Facebook or MySpace, or getting people elected.
Just organize!
For 35 years, the Task Force has been the home for people like you,
like me, like hundreds of thousands of people across this country who
know that we are part of a larger community of people reaching for full
equality.
As you experience the Creating Change conference, you can't help but
see and hear and feel and know in your heart that the state of our
movement is engaged, it is resilient, it is expansive and expanding,
and it is stronger and more inspirational than ever before! With all of
us together...
We will win complete equality!
We will protect and defend our families!
We will transform society!
Thank you.
State of the Movement address by Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
**UPDATE, 1/31: And now, video:
Your thoughts
Not knowing exactly what your problem with JohnDenver is....(I liked many of his songs, but only picture him committing suicide by flying out over the Pacific in his small plane.)
There are many parts of this speech I liked. I also think losing in California was actually great...course I am still married. I liked that the culture shift to WE emphasizes how the GLBT community has had to handle things for years. ...and knows how.
I like the emphasis on joining with others to protect lives, jobs, families etc. That emphasizes the real families WE all have.
.....and, of coures I love the Lener and Loewe part:
Third, so many of our straight friends and family are with us and we must find ways for them to make a difference in our pursuit of equality. They are near and dear to us. They're WILLING to work with us; they're WANTING to work with us; they're WAITING to work with us.
YUP...Here I am...and I hope to help more every day. Unitl
We will win complete equality!
We will protect and defend our families!
We will transform society!
Posted by: LOrion | Jan 30, 2009 10:38:23 PM
Whoo! I'm proud to be at Creating Change! I've blogged a little and plan to blog more afterward.
There have been some amazing conversations about intersecting identities and overlapping movements. I think The Task Force is guiding us and "the movement" in some great directions in terms of better supporting other civil rights movements and better understanding the intersections of our identities. Race, faith, ability, and trans/queer issues have all had prominent consideration throughout the conference.
Posted by: Zack Ford | Feb 1, 2009 9:44:02 AM
That lone clapper after she proclaims that she's about to send a tweet (last vid)--that was me. Just thought I'd let you know.
It WAS a really good speech.
As for John Denver, his song, "Rocky Mountain High", was in and out of my head frequently.
Posted by: PSUdain | Feb 3, 2009 3:18:46 AM
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