by Kelly Roache
Last week, Garden State Equality – the largest LGBT civil rights organization in New Jersey – announced that it will end financial support to political parties or any affiliated committees, contributing to individual candidates or non-partisan LGBT groups exclusively. In an email to supporters, the organization announced the board’s unanimous sentiment that “no political party should take the support of the LGBT community and its allies for granted.” After last month’s bitter defeat of marriage equality in the State Legislature, Garden State Equality has voiced its discontentment with liberal Democrats, who continue to offer pro-marriage equality sound bites yet falter when the issue demands a vote for or against.
According to the most recent party platform, Democrats “support the full inclusion of all families, including same-sex couples, in the life of our nation, and support equal responsibility, benefits, and protections.” But this promise was blatantly disregarded in the final vote, which tallied 20 N – 14 Y, with three abstentions; Democrats accounted for nearly a third of the opposition and all those who abstained. It’s worth noting that despite her LGBT-friendly rhetoric, Senator Shirley Turner, who represents the Mercer district containing Princeton, was among the six Democratic nay votes. In the words of the organization’s Chairman, Steven Goldstein, “No longer will we let any political party take our money and volunteers with one hand, and slap us in the face with the other when we seek full equality.”
More groundbreaking yet, Garden State Equality has taken their disavowal of partisanship one step further, explicitly imploring its 65,000 members to refrain from contributing to parties over candidates. As ambitious – and perhaps purely ceremonial – as this may sound, it just might work. In a weekly poll on GSE’s website, 97% of respondents said they were more disappointed in “Democrats and moderate Republicans who didn’t have the guts to stand for equality” than in ultra-conservatives who railed against the legislation from the start.
It’s about time. As an otherwise conservative individual who volunteered with GSE and strongly favors marriage equality, I am particularly ecstatic. By almost mechanically endorsing Democrats and other partisan issues, the organization has wasted an opportunity to reach out to supporters of all political persuasions – a demographic on which I am anxious to see them capitalize. Doing so will be more critical than ever as Garden State Equality revisits the issue of marriage equality in court. Shoring up public bipartisan support will be especially important in winning the hearts and minds that the organization failed to reach through its legislative campaign.
To this effect, not only does the announcement send a clear message that Democrats should not take LGBT backing for granted, but also that Republicans should not “write off the potential to earn the support of the LGBT community and its allies.” For now, the prevailing wisdom (or lack thereof) within the party is as voiced by Republican State Committee Chairman Jay Webber, who was “heartened” by the failure of marriage equality. However, there is hope in the small victories, like those brought by Senator Bill Baroni of Mercer (again, Princeton’s representative), the lone Republican to support New Jersey’s marriage equality bill. Of particular import was his amendment to the measure, which guaranteed that clergy with religious objections would not be forced to perform same-sex marriages. If advocates can make clear that religious freedom is not anathema to marriage equality, the removal of this sticking point could be a gateway to bipartisan support.
Garden State Equality’s announcement supports the notion that equality is not a partisan, or even, I would venture so far as to say, a political issue, but one to be accomplished through the support of courageous candidates. It’s high time to hold the “party of tolerance” accountable to its promises, and the GOP to its LGBT constituents. Not only must we act to end the double-standard in our marriage laws, but in the relationships LGBT rights groups have with the political entities they support.
It’s generally a bad idea to donate to the DNC and other party committees. They exist to perpetuate or create Democratic majorities, not to further issues identified as Democratic in any party platform–which is why you have the DNC raising money in the name of health care reform & funneling it to anti-health care Democrats.
This doesn’t mean equality (or marriage equality specifically) isn’t a partisan or a political issue, by any stretch of the imagination. It’s obviously a political issue, and it’s still partisan in that more Democrats are pro-LGBT and pro-marriage than Republicans, both among politicians and constituents. There’s a reason there are no openly gay Republicans in Congress (correct me if I’m wrong?)–Republican primary electorates won’t tolerate them.
Of course, this doesn’t stop individual Democrats from being weak-kneed or anti-gay, or individual Republicans (especially in liberal areas of the country) from voting for marriage equality. Kudos to Bill Baroni.
Marriage itself can NEVER not be political. It’s a way of organizing one’s life and/or finances according to a given model. The fact that it is given so much government support pushes people into it. It is an institution that discriminates against singles, asexual people, poly-people… I don’t think there is a single privilege given to the married that isn’t problematic. Stuff like visitation, immigration, and inheritance rights shouldn’t be tied to marriage.