Writing in the American Prospect, E.J. Graff breathlessly announces an exciting new strategy to energize the gay movement and the fight for marriage equality. Here it comes: "LGBT groups are helping to build a new progressive coalition from the ground up." Ta-da!
Sadly, it sounds like the "new strategy" is once again to practice diversity fetishism with an alphabet-soup-of-the-left project, which always does so well (not). If you believe that a grand coalition led by the likes of Urvashi Vaid (a blast from the past, see here) and built around efforts by the NAACP, the United Farm Workers, and "Asian American and Pacific Islander groups" will win over the suburban independents, enjoy your fantasy.
More. Reader Lori Heine commments:
We have not done ourselves any real favors by becoming so entangled with broad, Left-Wing coalitions. In my conversations with conservatives, I generally find these individuals less hostile to gay rights than they are to liberals in general. And they tend to stick all "liberal" issues together into one big, gooey, scary mess.
I believe we would get a better reception from those Right-of-Center, or even at the Center, if we made them deal with our own issue apart from any other. ...
Quite so, or at least ensure a real "diversity" of approaches,
with frozen-in-time "progressives" outreaching to labor unions and
racial-grievance collectors, while those of a more conservative or
libertarian bent form alliances with their kindred
spirits.