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This section and section 7 cover important basic decisions you should make about your campaign
right at the start.
This section covers these decisions:
- Which type of policy should you propose, domestic partnership or civil
rights;
- Will the campaign be noisy or quiet;
- Will LGBT people do the campaign or will it be done by a broad coalition; (when you decide
this, you may be deciding whether the campaign will be about LGBT rights, or other civil rights
as well);
- Will you have a large grass roots campaign or will the campaign be done by a small
closed group; (in either case, you'll need to think about how to build a core group to run
it).
- Will your organization be created just for the campaign, or will it be designed to
continue after the campaign is over.
The most basic campaign decision is which kind of policy are you going to propose, domestic
partnership or civil rights. Most people think that civil rights is ordinarily the first step. The idea
is that basic protection against losing a job or a home is almost essential before you can
meaningfully work to make relationships more visible.
Civil rights is also usually an easier first sell. Most Americans think that people who are
qualified should be hired and people who do their work shouldn't be fired. It isn't a great leap to
say that if people are being denied jobs or fired for other reasons, they need legal protection.
The idea of domestic partnership -- recognition of non-marital relationships -- is somewhat
foreign to many people, as may be the idea that LGBT people have partners at all. If your
institution's civil rights policy doesn't cover sexual orientation and gender identity, and if there is
no overriding state law which forbids discrimination, civil rights will usually be your first choice.
But not always.
If you already have full civil rights protection, domestic partnership might seem like the logical
choice. But again, not always.
Basic research should tell you if you already have a civil rights law and if it is as comprehensive
as it could be. Preliminary organizing in the LGBT community should tell you what LGBT
people would most like to have.
How quiet can a campaign for a LGBT civil rights law be?
The case for a quiet campaign is simply put: you are more likely to lose if there is a public fight
over the policy. If your campaign is quiet, it is possible that potential opponents won't even
know about it until it is over. Some people who might vote for you if the policy is unopposed
will abandon you if the opposition turns out.
Moreover, some potential opponents on your board may not take a stand against you if you don't
make the debate public; if none of their colleagues are speaking out, they may be afraid of
appearing bigoted and narrow minded if they take a public stand against the policy. Then too,
some people are very uncomfortable talking about LGBT people, and will turn against you if you
force them into any public debate on the subject.
The case against the quiet approach is also easy to lay out. Once your opponents do find out
about it, your policy can be repealed by the board which passed it, amended to death, or even put
on the ballot. You are likely to have a tougher
time convincing people to support your policy if it looks like you tried to sneak it though.
Perhaps more importantly, stealth campaigns don't get much real progress even if they do win.
Quiet campaigns are almost always done by a very small group of activists (it is virtually
impossible to keep a grassroots campaign quiet), so they don't do much to get the community
organized. Since they don't put civil rights or relationship recognition for LGBT people on the
public agenda, they don't start the public debate and they don't begin the process of changing the
way most people think about LGBT people.
A policy adopted as a result of a stealth campaign may not even be much good as a policy. If
nobody knows about it, people don't know to obey it.
A person who is discriminated against, for
example, may not know there is a right to complain.
Every campaign should try to get support from throughout the community. The issue here is not whether the campaign should
have a broad support base, but whether it will be directed by LGBT people or by a broader
coalition.
If you plan to propose a domestic partnership policy, the campaign will almost surely be run
LGBT people. Lots of heterosexual couples choose not to marry, and society's failure to
recognize their relationships has consequences as tragic and unfair for them as it does for same-
sex couples. Nonetheless, the availability of marriage, and the fact that most straight couples
decide to get married at some point, has made it virtually impossible to get large numbers of
unmarried heterosexual couples involved in domestic partnership campaigns.
But campaigns in which broad coalitions take a direct, "hands on" role are possible with civil
rights campaigns. If you want a broad civil rights policy which either covers other groups for the
first time, or which improves coverage for everyone, you will have to do a broad coalition
campaign. You cannot hijack some one else's issue. If you try it, you are likely to get their
opposition, not their support (you are also likely to lose). By the same token, if you want a
campaign to which other groups in the community will fully commit time, money and effort, it
will have to be a campaign for their policy as well.
Begin by deciding if you would want a broad coalition effort if one were possible. There are
several advantages to a broad coalition campaign. Other community organizations are likely to
bring you more contacts with the board. A coalition campaign is likely to bring more allies than
you could pick up by yourself. It should bring more workers, making it possible to run a larger
more through campaign.
A broad coalition can also mute one popular opposition argument; i.e, that LGBT people
shouldn't be treated like other groups protected by civil rights laws. A broader coalition that
includes African-Americans can also help prevent opponents from a favorite tactic: driving a
wedge between LGBT people and African-Americans, and trying to get black churches actively
involved in the opposition.
Coalition campaigns have two potential drawbacks, both preventable under most circumstances.
The first, assuming you don't want a quiet campaign, is that LGBT people could get lost in the
campaign. This is unlikely if there is active opposition (opponents usually want to highlight the
presence of LGBT people because they think it is the least popular civil rights policy issue).
You can prevent LGBT people from disappearing if you and your coalition partners agree that
among the campaign's regular speakers or core of directors will be an open LGBT person, that
sexual orientation and/or gender identity discrimination will be prominently featured at hearings,
in media and other campaign events, in literature, etc.
The other serious risk is that you'll get dumped. Most coalition campaigns at some point face
offers from potential opponents to support the policy if LGBT people get left out. Opponents
frequently offer to support the policy if the proponents will amend it to diminish protection for
LGBT people alone. All members of the coalition have got to agree at the start that no one will
agree to any policy which excludes any part of the coalition, or which includes terms which are
ultimately unacceptable to any part of the coalition.
If you think you might want to do a coalition campaign, you need to see if it is realistically
possible. Your basic research will tell you what kind of broad policy might be possible. If the
institution you are focusing on has no policy now, or if it could be improved for all groups, a
broad based coalition is possible. If neither, look to see if other groups which could be covered
by the policy are left out. If there are, you could do a coalition effort with them.
If policy change which would benefit other groups is possible, get the names of the leading local
organizations for those groups. Use the same techniques you use for basic research on the
institution to get the information. Make sure you don't inadvertently take sides in any community
disputes; if there is more than one significant organization in a community (and there usually is),
contact them all.
Tell the organizations you contact what you know about existing policy and how it could be
improved. Tell them about you plan to campaign for a civil rights policy on sexual orientation
and gender identity, and ask if they are interested in getting or improving a policy for their group.
Sometimes, other groups are willing to participate in a coalition campaign for a broad law, but,
frequently because they already have the protection they need under other laws or policies, they
don't really want to lead the effort. You can design a coalition campaign in which LGBT groups
essentially run the campaign and do most of the work, but you need to be careful.
Though your partners in this kind of campaign may be somewhat passive, they are more than
endorsers since the policy you are proposing deals with their issues. If you are going to keep
their support, you can't exploit them. They must be part of every important decision, and they
must be kept informed about every important event. You must be sure speakers from your
partners are part of every press conference, every important campaign statement, every event.
Everything you do must be sensitive to their issues as well as your own.
So far, this section has assumed that LGBT people ought to be at the center of any campaign.
That seems almost self evident. A campaign can't convincingly make the argument that LGBT
people are entitled to equal treatment if we are invisible. As one Chicago organizer put it, "its
your law, and your lives and your stories the campaign will be about."
A few organizers disagree. They feel that campaigns are most likely to succeed if the most
visible proponents are heterosexuals. These organizers particularly favor having the public parts
of the campaign promoted by individuals who, because they are either clerics or ethnic
minorities, can easily refute some of the common opposition arguments.
Even if one disagrees with the "straight strategy," there may be situations in which there is a
good chance to get a policy passed but in which it isn't practical for LGBT people to play much
of a role in a public campaign.
Chicago's campaign was run by an organization called "town meeting."
Any one who showed up at any meeting was a member, entitled to vote. Some
meetings had hundreds.
While the San Francisco example is a bit extreme, many campaigns have been run by just a
handful of people. But grassroots campaigns which involve as many people as possible are
usually better. First of all, size itself is an advantage. With a large campaign you can do more;
you can have one lobbyist for each board member, you can send representatives to every
organization from which you want an endorsement, etc. Perhaps more important, large
campaigns can lobby constituents, set up tables and walk neighborhoods. They get more people
in direct contact with LGBT people.
Size isn't really the critical difference between a grassroots campaign and a small group
campaign. Grass roots campaigns are open; their meetings are public, as publicized as possible,
and people are encouraged to join. You won't be able to have a large campaign if you don't run a
grassroots campaign. But having an open campaign doesn't guarantee that it will be big. The
greatest advantage of an open campaign, in addition to the potential that it could become large, is
that it will help organize the LGBT community and teach as many people as possible how to
make change. That, of course, is one of the primary goals of a policy campaign.
Whether you opt for a single mass organization, like Chicago's town meeting, or a coalition of
new and existing organizations, like New York City did, you'll have to deal with the fundamental
tension between the urge for democracy -- even if you don't have the urge, you'll never get mass
participation without it -- and the need for some authority structure to make the campaign work.
It is probably impossible to avoid creating a small group and giving it the authority to make
certain important decisions. Negotiations and unforeseen events can't be managed without them.
Politicians frequently insist on working with single individuals or at most small groups. While
secrecy shouldn't be a big issue, you need to be careful with information if, for example, you
want to time its release for maximum effect, or if you have a supporter who is nervous about
being publicly identified.
Most campaigns solve the problem by having a large group -- either everyone involved, typical
with a mass organization like Chicago's, or a large group of representatives of other
organizations, typical with umbrella groups -- basic policy decisions. Small groups or individuals
appointed by the large group take responsibility for carrying out the decisions. These small
"core"groups have got to have the authority to make important decisions when situations like
negotiations or the need to respond publicly to something require quick action. Most campaigns
keep their core people accountable by giving them rough guidelines for the most important areas
and by requiring that they report back to the larger group periodically.
Those in the core group should be people who don't want to run for office or get appointments
from politicians. People who do are sometimes easily diverted. Perhaps more important, never
asking for anything personal is the best way to get and keep credibility with both the larger
campaign organization and with the board members, staffs and politicians.
Try to get a mix of veterans and rookies in your core. Experience and history are very helpful --
you don't want to remake somebody else's mistakes. People who've been around often know the
best way to get to decision makers. But experience needs to be tempered with fresh
perspective -- just because something didn't work two years ago doesn't necessarily men it won't
work now. Try for political diversity in your core group. It will make it easier to work the board
members and others you'll have to work with.
Should your campaign organization be an ongoing organization or a special organization created
just for the campaign, to be disbanded when the campaign is over (or some hybrid of the two)?
If you use an organization which existed before the campaign, it may already know some of the
people you'll need to influence and it will already have its own organization and systems in place.
Organizations that will continue offer more to your prospective allies -- support on their issues in
the future. If you plan for the end of the campaign, it can offer a vehicle for future action to the
LGBT community.
On the other hand, existing organizations carry baggage with them; enemies from the past both
inside and outside the campaign, previous stands on issues with which people whose support you
now need disagreed. Ongoing organizations also usually have other issues they are working on.
A one-shot has no mixed agendas, so it is focused and harder to divert with compromises in other
areas, etc. Not having existing structures can be an advantage. With a one-shot, you can tailor
your organization to the single task at hand. If you fail, you don't damage existing community
organizations.
>> Next: 6. Organizing in the LGBT Community
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