A week after the election, the Log Cabin Republicans' Patrick
Guerriero has issued a thoughtful
assessment of mistakes made by gay activists and what must now
be done. It's well worth reading. Here are some excerpts:
As we judge who our friends and opponents are in Congress we should think twice about labeling party-line procedural votes and refusal to sponsor our legislative priorities as anti-gay. We can and must speak out against anti-gay legislation, hate speech, and anti-gay votes. But we should attempt to do so without burning every bridge and without demonizing those who we need to educate and work with in the years ahead. When our most reliable friends are up for re-election, they deserve our community's full support even when they are Republicans.
That, of course, is a jibe at the Human Rights Campaign, which worked to defeat Pennsylvania's Sen. Arlen Specter despite his long record of supporting gay equality. The release continues:
And, President Bush has won a clear and decisive popular vote and electoral college victory. He is our nation's duly elected leader and we must find a way to work with him and his administration over the next four years.
That should be obvious, but it's not to partisan gay lobbyists and, until today, it wasn't clear Log Cabin realized it. And it would have been even better if LCR could have found some part of Bush's GOP agenda to praise (social security reform? health savings accounts? the war on terrorism? anything?).
We must accept that sometimes we cannot always do what feels good in the short term. Sometimes we have to do what is pragmatic and what will aid our battle over the long term.
Which is what maturity - a trait too often lacking among the activist vanguard - is all about.
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