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MEDIA CONTACT:
Roberta Sklar, Director of Communications
media@theTaskForce.org
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On December 9, the Task Force signed on to the letter below to all members of Congress. The letter was prompted by a front page article in the New York Times entitled "Groups Debate Slower Strategy on Gay Rights" (available at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/09/national/09gays.html and included below).

On December 10, the Washington Post featured a story about the issue on page 2 entitled "Gay Rights Activists Refuse to Bargain Away Rights" (available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53579-2004Dec9.html and included below).

If you would like to sign onto this letter, please visit our online action center and send a copy to your Senators and Representative. We will send another copy of the letter to Congress next week with all of our names.

Thank you as always for your support.

Matt Foreman

The following letter was sent to all members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate

Where We Stand

December 9, 2004

Dear Member of Congress (or Senator) ___________:

First, know that we appreciate and value the thoughtful and visionary leadership so many of you have provided. As a community, we are proud to have allies in both parties.

There has been much speculation over the last month about the meaning of the results of the last election and its impact on the future of American politics. Some have even suggested that same-sex marriage was a major factor in the outcome. Upon reflection, thoughtful analysts have come to dismiss that notion and realize that terrorism and the War in Iraq were uppermost on people's minds.

The powerful and revealing fact is that that over 60% of voters in November 2 exit polls said they supported either marriage or civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. What remarkable progress we have made over these last years.

The New York Times today reported that some in the LGBT community are ready to pull back on our struggle for freedom to make everyone more comfortable politically, or willing to bargain away the rights of others to make a deal for themselves. Specifically, the notion was advanced that we could make gains at the expense of senior citizens by privatizing Social Security.

For our part, we want to be absolutely clear and on the record: We specifically reject any attempts to trade equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, a group that includes many elders, for the rights of senior citizens under Social Security or, for that matter, the rights of any other group of Americans.

Finally, although the struggle for freedom can be difficult and painful for those without full equality, it would be an historic mistake to grow tired of the battle or surrender basic rights and equality in order to make the road easier. We have made it through some extremely harsh and challenging times, including losing thousands and thousands of our friends and family to HIV/AIDS. This is a community that has heroically walked its own path of tribulations and travail, determined to be free and proud American citizens.

We will not sacrifice our rights - or the rights of others like senior citizens  on the altar of political expediency. Most of us, if confronted with that choice, would not even know where to begin. Which right would we give up? The right to adopt children? The right to serve our country proudly and with honor? The right to be at our partners bedside in death? And how much would we be willing to hurt others like seniors as part of a cynical deal to help ourselves? We are not for sale to those who would undermine Social Security and we are not prepared to walk away from political leaders who have stood with us.

Nothing short of full equality and protection granted to all other American citizens is acceptable. We know that these are times that require wise and brave people who believe and love justice and freedom.

Given recent events, we wanted to restate our determination to do whats right  for our community, for senior citizens, and for America. With the greatest respect,

Sincerely,

Diane Abbitt, Co-Chair, Equality California
Faisal Alam, Founder & Former Executive Director Al-Fatiha Foundation for LGBTIQ Muslims
David Barr
Roberta Bennett
Betty Berzon, Ph.D.
Brant Berndlmaier
Steve Black, Political Director, The Pennsylvania Gay And Lesbian Alliance (PA-GALA)
David Bohnett
Craig A. Bowman, Executive Director, National Youth Advocacy Coalition
Howard Bragman
Kent Burbank, Executive Director, Wingspan (Southern Arizona's LGBT Community Center)
Richard D. Burns, Executive Director, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center - New York
Alan Van Capelle, Executive Director, Empire State Pride Agenda
Mandy Carter, Director, Southerners on New Ground
Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director, Lambda Legal
Josh Cazares and Nancy Wohlforth, Board Co-Presidents, Pride At Work, AFL-CIO
George Chauncey, Ph.D., Professor of History, University of Chicago
Bruce Cohen
Darrel Cummings, Chief of Staff, Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center
James Dale
Teresa DeCrescenzo, Executive Director Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS)
Ann DeGroot, Executive Director. Out Front Minnesota
John D'Emilio, Professor of History. University of Illinois at Chicago
Sue Doerfer, Executive Director, Lesbian-Gay Community Service Center of Greater Cleveland
Dennis Duban
Hon. John J. Duran, Mayor, City of West Hollywood, California
Rabbi Denise L. Eger, Congregation Kol Ami, West Hollywood's Reform Synagogue
Randall Ellis, Executive Director, Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas
Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
The Equality Campaign
Equality Virginia
Laurent Fischer
Patrick Flaherty, Director of Community Relations, Milwaukee Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center
Michael Fleming, Executive Director, David Bohnett Foundation
Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Dan Furmansky, Equality Maryland
Matthew J. Gallagher, Executive Director, DignityUSA
Robert Gant, Actor
Rick Garcia, Director,Equality Illinois
Penny Gardner, Ph.D., Program Director, Michigan Equality
Aimee Gelnaw, Executive Director, Family Pride Coalition
Joel Ginsberg, Interim Executive Director, Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA)
Steven Goldstein, Chair, Garden State Equality, New Jersey
Richard Gollance, Co-Chair, Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network of the American Society on Aging
Michael Gordon, Executive Director, Citizens for Equal Protection
Herb Hamsher
Richard S. Haymes, Executive Director, New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project
Sheila Healy, Executive Director, National Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Centers
National Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Centers
Rick Jacobs, California Co-Chair, Dean for President
Terry Kaelber, Executive Director, Seniors in a Gay Environment (SAGE)
Michael Kearns
Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality
Kate Kendell, Esq., Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights
Geoffrey Kors, Executive Director, Equality California
Anamaria Loya, Executive Director, La Raza Centro Legal
Bill Melamed, Board Member, American Foundation for AIDS Research
David Mixner
Jeffrey Montgomery, Executive Director, Triangle Foundation
Kevin Montgomery
Gordon Naccarato
Dave Noble, Executive Director, National Stonewall Democrats
Torie Osborn
C. Dixon Osburn, Executive Director, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network
Pauline Park, Co-Chair, New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)
Clarence Patton, Interim Executive Director, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs
Rev. Elder Troy D. Perry, Presiding Bishop, Metropolitan Community Churches
Christopher J. Price
Jennifer Rakowski, Associate Director, Community United Against Violence
Warren Redman-Gress, Executive Director, Alliance For Full Acceptance
Virginia Renfrew, Chair, Equality Vermont
Doug Riley, Executive Director, Kansas City Anti-Violence Project
H. Alexander Robinson, National Black Justice Coalition
Eric Rofes
Ron Schlittler, Interim Executive Director, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)
Mark M. Sexton and W. Kirk Wallace
Stacey L. Sobel, Executive Director, Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights
Jeff Soref
Jeff Soukup
Jonathan Stoller
Beth Teper, Executive Director, Children of Lesbians and Everywhere (COLAGE)
Roey Thorpe, Executive Director, Basic Rights Oregon
Robin Tyler, Executive Director, dontamend.com
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
Olga Vives, Vice-President, National Organization for Women
Sandy Warshaw
Bernard Whitman
Phill Wilson, Executive Director, Black AIDS Institute
Evan Wolfson, Executive Director, Freedom to Marry

New York Times
December 9, 2004

Groups Debate Slower Strategy on Gay Rights
By JOHN M. BRODER

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 8 - Leaders of the gay rights movement are embroiled in a bitter and increasingly public debate over whether they should moderate their goals in the wake of bruising losses in November when 11 states approved constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriages.

In the past week alone, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, has accepted the resignation of its executive director, appointed its first non-gay board co-chairman and adopted a new, more moderate strategy, with less emphasis on legalizing same-sex marriages and more on strengthening personal relationships.

The leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, at a meeting last weekend in Las Vegas, concluded that the group must bow to political reality and moderate its message and its goals. One official said the group would consider supporting President Bush's efforts to privatize Social Security partly in exchange for the right of gay partners to receive benefits under the program.

"The feeling this weekend in Las Vegas was that we had to get beyond the political and return to the personal," said Michael Berman, a Democratic lobbyist and consultant who was elected the first non-gay co-chairman of the Human Rights Campaign's board last week. "We need to reintroduce ourselves to America with the stories of our lives."

But others involved in the drive for gay and lesbian equality say the Human Rights Campaign's approach smacks of pre-emptive surrender and wrong-headed political calculation.

"For a certain segment of the movement, for which I would certainly elect the H.R.C. as poster child, it means that the error was that we were wanting too much too fast," said Jonathan D. Katz, executive coordinator of the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale. "It is entirely characteristic for them to believe that what is required is a sort of retrenchment and a return to a more moderate message. They are, of course, completely wrong."

Mr. Katz and other aggressive advocates of gay rights said they believed that marriage rights were the key to winning fundamental equality for gay men and lesbians and that retreat from that struggle was self-defeating.

George Chauncey, director of the Lesbian and Gay Studies Project at the University of Chicago, said the marriage debate had galvanized gays more dramatically than any other issue in recent years.

"It is inescapable that marriage is the central issue facing the gay movement now and, given the strength of the right wing, there is no way the movement can run away from it," said Professor Chauncey, author of "Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality." "There is no escaping the fact that marriage is going to be one of the central terrains on which this conversation has to take place."

The gay rights movement, like other battles through history over individual rights, has made progress in fits and starts, in the culture and in the courts, in legislatures and in families. And like most political movements, it has always been riven with dissension on strategy and tactics, on questions of how far and how fast the movement can push without provoking a backlash.

The Human Rights Campaign, which is based in Washington, was instrumental in the defeat this year of the federal marriage amendment, which would have defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. The group was not as active in the ballot initiative battles in the states this fall.

Some gay rights activists, including the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, said they believed that aggressively pursuing same-sex marriage only played into the hand of Republicans and religious conservatives, who skillfully used the issue this fall to energize their voters.

Steven Fisher, the campaign's communications director, said the group's emphasis in coming months would be on communicating the struggles of gays in their families, workplaces, churches and synagogues. The story of gay men and lesbians in the United States is often told through the prism of sensationalism and stigma, Mr. Fisher said.

"When you put a face to our issues, that's when we get support," he said. "We're not going to win at the ballot box until we start winning at the water cooler and in the church pews."

He also said the group would adopt a selective and incremental approach to winning rights rather than reaching for the gold ring of marriage right away. He mentioned that the group would press more immediately for Social Security survivor benefits, hospital visitation privileges and tax breaks for gay couples.

Lawyers representing some gay groups have concluded that challenging antimarriage amendments in individual states is a losing proposition even if they win in some courts because American society is not yet ready to accept the idea of same-sex partners sharing the same rights as heterosexual couples.

"The legal strategy to win marriage rights is a decade ahead of the political strategies to educate the public and the legislatures," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Putting a fundamental right up for a popular vote is always extremely difficult to win, no matter what the cause. And when you are talking about something as recent as marriage equality, the bar gets raised even higher."

Mr. Foreman said that whenever the gay rights movement made progress, it generated a "pushback" in the form of hostile legislation, hate speech and even violence.

But he disagreed with what he called the defensive posture of some gay advocates. He said gay men and lesbians had to remain on the offensive, even if it meant proceeding one state at a time, one gay couple at a time.

"A lot of gay people understand the concept of bullies," Mr. Foreman said. "The worst thing you can do with a bully is not fight back because you'll only get hit harder the next day."

Pragmatists and politicians are more inclined to support the Human Rights Campaign's measured approach. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said it was important for the movement to sensibly pick its fights. "You take risks for your gains," he said, "but you don't take risks for no gain."

In recent weeks Mr. Frank has been particularly critical of Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco for his decision earlier this year to allow thousands of gay couples to wed at City Hall. The marriages, which Mr. Frank called "spectacle weddings," were later invalidated by the California Supreme Court.

Representative Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin who, like Mr. Frank, is openly gay, said the gay rights movement was caught unprepared for the ballot initiatives this year. She also endorsed an incremental approach to winning rights for gay couples, securing the "component parts" of marriage benefits one at a time.

"When you look at the civil rights that make up the civil institution of marriage, there is significant public support for extending those protections to same-sex couples," Ms. Baldwin said. She also said she would continue her support for an end to workplace discrimination against gay men and lesbians and support efforts by unions to extend benefits to same-sex partners.

The Human Rights Campaign has shown itself to be an effective lobby on Capitol Hill and successful in raising money to work for and publicize gay causes. The group's annual budget is about $30 million. But it finds itself in a difficult environment, with larger and more conservative Republican majorities in Congress and a White House that knows how to use same-sex marriage to its political advantage.

Trevor Potter, a Republican elections lawyer and a member of the Human Rights Campaign's board of directors, said the group's new approach was not a retreat but an acknowledgement of changed circumstances.

"It's a wake-up call," he said. "Just continuing to do what we were doing would not be productive."

Katharine Q. Seelye contributed reporting for this article.

Washington Post
Friday, December 10, 2004; Page A02

Gay Activists Refuse to Bargain Away Rights;
Dozens Tell Lawmakers They're Against Any Plan to Pull Back From Fight for Equality

By Evelyn Nieves Washington Post Staff Writer

Dozens of prominent advocates for gay rights sent a letter to every member of Congress yesterday stating that they would reject any plan to bargain for equal rights, and specifically decried a report that the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay political organization, was planning to "moderate" its positions and would possibly support President Bush's plan to create private Social Security accounts.

The letter, titled "Where We Stand," was released by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) in response to an article in yesterday's New York Times. The article quoted officials from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as saying that, in light of defeats for gay rights in the Nov. 2 election (including the bans on same-sex marriage passed in 11 states), the organization decided to place less emphasis on same-sex marriage and more on "strengthening personal relationships." One HRC official was paraphrased as saying that the group would consider supporting Bush's efforts to partially privatize Social Security in exchange for the right of gay partners to receive benefits under the federal retirement program.

The letter, signed by more than 30 gay rights leaders, states: "The New York Times today reported that some in the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community are ready to pull back on our struggle for freedom to make everyone more comfortable politically, or willing to bargain away the rights of others to make a deal for themselves. Specifically, the notion was advanced that we could make gains at the expense of senior citizens by privatizing Social Security.

"We specifically reject any attempts to trade equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, a group that includes many elders, for the rights of senior citizens under Social Security or, for that matter, the rights of any other group of Americans."

But HRC officials said yesterday that the article was incomplete and, therefore, inaccurate. They denied that the HRC is planning to endorse the partial privatization of Social Security or back away from any of the major issues surrounding gay rights, including marriage rights. "Our tactics are adapting; our goals are not," said Winnie Stachelberg, HRC's political director.

The report on the HRC prompted a torrent of criticism from gay leaders. "That article really represented a sharp change in what has always been a united voice in our community -- that we don't negotiate our rights," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the NGLTF.

Stachelberg said that HRC officials, during a board meeting in Las Vegas last weekend, never said they would retreat from their goals or make deals with political officials. As for emphasizing "personal relationships," she said they were talking about the need to include personal stories in their arguments. "For example," she said, "70 percent of the American public believes that the gay community wants marriage for validating our relationships -- they have no idea that we are denied the legal benefits and rights and responsibilities of married couples. That's what we concluded coming out of this weekend. We need to return to the personal and reintroduce ourselves to the American people."

Stachelberg said the HRC believes the debate on Social Security offers an opportunity to point out that gay couples are denied the benefits given to married heterosexual couples. Unmarried same-sex partners, for example, do not receive their partner's Social Security benefits if that partner dies, she said.

Though not endorsing Bush's plan to allow younger workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts, Stachelberg said: "A plan to give gay and lesbian couples the chance to name their beneficiaries might address the inequity in the current system."

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The mission of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is to build the political power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community from the ground up. We do this by training activists, organizing broad-based campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation, and by building the organizational capacity of our movement. Our Policy Institute, the movement’s premier think tank, provides research and policy analysis to support the struggle for complete equality and to counter right-wing lies. As part of a broader social justice movement, we work to create a nation that respects the diversity of human expression and identity and creates opportunity for all. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., we also have offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis and Cambridge.