Clashing, Meshing Over Marriage

GayCityNews - Clashing, Meshing Over Marriage

By: ANDY HUMM
11/26/2008
Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendlyIn the wake of two New York City demonstrations against California's Prop 8 that turned out 10,000 protestors each, the first floor meeting room at the LGBT Community Center was packed for a panel on marriage equality nationally and in New York State. The November 24 meeting attracted a mix of old and new activists, those who wanted to ventilate about the losing campaign to save same-sex marriage in California, and people determined to open marriage to gay couples in New York and to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).


"I'm 79 and I can't wait," said Edie Windsor, there with her spouse Thea Spyer, whom she married in Canada. The couple's marriage is recognized here in New York, but they who have no federal marriage rights.

Despite President-elect Barack Obama's opposition to DOMA, repealing the 1996 law anytime soon is a long shot, according to leaders such as Marty Rouse of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign (HRC), who was on the panel. What's more, the right-wing Alliance for Marriage just announced that preserving DOMA - especially by lobbying newly elected members of Congress from people of color communities - is one of their top priorities right now.

At a time when the community has been rubbed raw by a debate over the percentage of people of color who voted for Prop 8 and the failure of the No on 8 campaign to feature people of color as spokespeople or to do sufficient outreach to those populations, the New York panel consisted of five white men and one white woman, Cathy Marino-Thomas of Marriage Equality New York (MENY). The audience was predominately white and male as well, as were the two recent New York demonstrations.

Marriage Equality New York, now ten years old, organized the forum. Deputy executive director Ron Zacchi repeatedly responded to audience complaints about representation and outreach by asking speakers where they were when they were needed. He said the group suspended its monthly meetings when they got down to an attendance of three, but will now resume them.

But it is hard to tell at this moment whether the impetus behind the new surge of activism stems from a new desire to secure marriage rights - an issue that has been around for more than a decade - or anger and alarm over the loss in California where an existing right, in this case to marry, was taken away.

The New York City movement first got such a surge in 1977 when Miamians voted by a 2-1 margin to repeal a gay rights ordinance in a campaign led by Anita Bryant. That led to the formation of the 50-group Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights - with which this reporter was involved - and a renewed push to pass the city gay rights bill, a victory that did not come until 1986.

The panel included longtime established groups, such as MENY, HRC, and the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), New York's statewide LGBT lobby, veteran out gay State Senator Tom Duane, and political fundraiser and Internet activist Jeff Campagna. Newer activists from Join the Impact, the upstart national Internet campaign that made 300 demonstrations happen on November 15 across the country and around the world, were in the audience, contemplating their next move as well.

Heath Tucker, 22, one of the young Impact leaders, called this meeting "counterproductive" afterward, saying that what people needed to do was get out in the streets. One of the ways the new leaders are communicating with each other is on Facebook through a Join the Impact NYC group on the site. (The group also has a website at jointheimpact.wetpaint.com.) His group is meeting at the Center on Wednesday, December 3 at 7:30 p.m. to plan their next action.

Join the Impact leaders are also coordinating the New York participation in the December 10 "Call in Gay to Work" campaign for a work stoppage and economic boycott; in a national anti-DOMA protest in state capitals set for January 10; and in a sit-in at the city marriage bureau at One Centre Street across the street from City Hall on February 12, which is the longstanding National Freedom to Marry Day. (Demonstrations have been held at the marriage bureau since the early 1970s, but there is no record of arrests for civil disobedience in the past; Join the Impact's plans in this regard have not yet been made.)

Veteran lesbian activist Ann Northrop, 60, took the mike and called the meeting "a waste of time. People are here as street activists who wanted to decide where street action goes from here." She proclaimed herself too "old" to be a leader in it herself, though she did put together the massive demo at the Mormon Temple on November 12 with Corey Johnson and Mike Signorile.

"I'm a street activist," said Duane. "No one is saying don't rally, but it's not enough. There's a lot of work for all of us to do."

Despite the criticisms, the panel did provide a wealth of information on the current status of the fight for marriage equality, much of which would be news to those who have not kept up with the issue.

HRC's Rouse, who led the MassEquality effort to preserve the right of gay couples to marry in Massachusetts in the several years after the 2003 victory there, said that there are ten states that now enjoy marriage equality or some form of gay partner benefits. His group pro-jects that number will double in three years and go up to 26 by 2013 "if everything goes right."

Alan Van Capelle, the Pride Agenda's executive director, reiterated his group's success in re-electing all the members of the New York State Assembly who voted for marriage equality when it passed that chamber last year and in helping achieve a Democratic majority in the State Senate, where marriage and other LGBT goals had been bottled up by the Republican leadership. He emphasized the extensive coalitions the group built with religious groups and labor.

"This summer, the New York State AFL-CIO passed a resolution for marriage equality and it was the bricklayers union that put it forth," Van Capelle said.

Campagna touted his speech at the November 15 rally calling on the crowd to call anti-gay Bronx Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., with generating 3,000 calls to the gay marriage opponent's office. Diaz, a longtime Democrat, has vowed not to vote for a majority leader who will allow the marriage equality bill to get to the floor for a vote.

Duane counseled not to demonstrate against "the people we're never going to get" like Diaz, but instead to work on the moveable people on both sides of the aisle. Given the strong support for marriage equality in his home base of Manhattan and elsewhere in the immediate metropolitan area, he said that the community had to do a lot of work upstate and on Long Island to win this fight.

Duane said he wasn't "overly concerned" about the three Democratic senators -Pedro Espada of the Bronx and Carl Kruger of Brooklyn, in addition to Diaz - who have not yet pledged to vote for Democrat Malcolm Smith of Queens as their new majority leader. That vote is January 9. Duane said Smith is "100 percent committed to same-sex civil marriage and 100 percent committed to bringing it to the floor."

Duane and Van Capelle emphasized the need for Republican votes for marriage equality, though Log Cabin's Jeff Cook said later, "We believe we will have Republican support, but we're not talking names yet."

The Pride Agenda keeps a running tally of the positions of senators on these and two other issues - transgender rights and a school anti-bullying bill - on its website at prideagenda.org.

Van Capelle said that while 55 percent of New Yorkers polled support opening marriage to gay couples, the more important figure to politicians is the finding that the issue was only important to 9-12 percent of voters making a decision in the booth. Many elected officials could be convinced that there is less downside to a pro-marriage vote than they might suspect.

Van Capelle urged those assembled at the Center to bring the issue of marriage equality up at Thanksgiving dinner, particularly anyone visiting family or friends in New York outside Manhattan. He also noted there will likely be special Senate election campaigns to pitch in on in February; some veteran Republicans are anticipated to quit the body once it is absolutely certain they are in the minority.