On his
website, former Log Cabin Republican leader Rich Tafel, now
president of RLT Strategies, urges the gay community to rethink old
tactics. He writes (in an excerpt from an op-ed he
penned last month):
How have gays come so far in the popular culture, yet lost ground politically? What strategy could we employ that could end this trend? ...
During the past decade our political strategy has been: "Elect more Democrats, defeat more Republicans." This strategy hasn't worked. The fundamental problem with it is that the same voters who embrace us in the pop culture have voted to increase Republican control of their Governorships, the House, the Senate and the White House.
Given this failed partisan strategy by gay lobbyists (and,
though he doesn't say it explicitly, in light of Log Cabin's public
criticism of Bush during the recent campaign), Tafel
asks:
Who in the gay community will be at the table with the White House and Congress to insure gay and lesbian American's concerns are included? When social conservatives push to lift those protections in a second Bush Administration who will lobby the Administration on behalf of the gay and lesbian community?
And, even more fundamentally:
Our national [gay] organizations must change our political debate from good versus evil to terms of those we've educated and those we've failed to educate, which forces us to take responsibility for our own lack of progress. Instead of figuring out how to win over our opposition, we generally demonize them for being cold hearted, intolerant or stupid. We need to spend less time preaching to our choir of supporters and more time figuring out how to win over our opposition.
Tafel also writes, "I personally think gays should be pushing
for civil unions, something that the President supports," rather
than outright marriage.