The year 2004 was not kind to the country's leading national
gay-rights organization. It stumbled badly on the three essential
P's of a civil rights organization: people, policy, and politics.
It needs to address its deficiencies in all three areas if it is to
be an effective voice for gay equality.
Start with HRC's leadership crisis. For years, HRC was guided by
the articulate, intelligent, moderate-sounding Elizabeth Birch. She
helped transform the group into a real political powerhouse,
dramatically enlarging its staff and budget, and for the most part
guided it successfully among the tricky shoals of Washington
politics.
But Birch stepped down in early 2004 and was replaced by Cheryl
Jacques, a Democratic state legislator from Massachusetts. Jacques
was newly out of the closet and had no experience in Washington
politics. But she seemed like a quick study.
By all accounts, the choice was terrible. Jacques had a
management style that irked HRC's staff. As a partisan Democrat,
she seems to have had no taste for the compromise so essential in a
Capitol dominated by a party hostile to her cause. Her rhetoric was
often shrill; worse, she presided over some truly dreadful policy
shifts and political maneuvers.
Next, consider policy. In the summer of 2004, after years of
principled resistance, HRC announced that it would not support the
legislative centerpiece of the national gay rights movement, the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), unless it protected
transgenders as well as gays from job discrimination. This decision
followed years of protest against HRC on the issue by transgender
activists and gay leftists.
The reason for HRC's previous unwillingness to add transgender
protections to ENDA was obvious: adding "gender identity" would
greatly weaken the prospect of passing the bill anytime soon.
Jacques penned a column for the gay media defending the about-face
for two reasons. First, she offered a lot of blather about
respecting the movement's "diversity," as though effectively
killing ENDA would enhance diversity.
Second, she argued that protection for gays would be
incomplete without protection for transgenders. This appeal to
gays' self-interest was untrue, as any honest person familiar with
the law should know.
Most irresponsibly, HRC made this symbolic gesture apparently
without conducting any research about what its political impact
would be. How many congressional sponsors might be lost? How many
moderate Republicans and even Democrats would support a
transgender-inclusive ENDA? We were never told. When HRC insisted
for the first time in 2004 that senators sign a nondiscrimination
pledge including "gender identity," many fewer senators signed the
pledge than when it had previously included only "sexual
orientation." Under Jacques, HRC had done exactly what it resisted
doing under Birch: it had sacrificed practical goals for
therapeutic grandstanding.
Finally, consider politics. In 2004, HRC sounded and acted in a
more partisan Democratic fashion than ever before. Part of this can
be attributed to how bad the Republicans have become, especially
with the GOP push for a Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). But HRC
overreacted, endorsing John Kerry in the spring of 2004 and thus
ending any leverage its endorsement might have given it over
him.
That leverage would have come in handy. Kerry backed a state
constitutional amendment in Massachusetts to end gay marriage
there, said he had "no problem" with a similar measure on the
ballot in Missouri, waffled on the ban on gays in the military,
hardly ever even used the word "gay" during the campaign, and never
repeated his earlier-stated support for pro-gay measures like ENDA.
On gay issues, he was the worst Democratic nominee since Michael
Dukakis. But HRC had nothing to say about these matters during the
campaign.
The other big political mistake was HRC's failure to endorse the
most important gay-friendly Republican in the Senate, Arlen Specter
of Pennsylvania. Specter is hated by social conservatives for his
pro-gay policy positions, including his opposition to the FMA. He's
also in line to become chair of the important Senate Judiciary
Committee, which vets judicial nominees.
So why no HRC endorsement? Because Specter voted for a motion to
close debate and bring the FMA up for a vote in the Senate. Voting
against this procedural "cloture" became the be-all and end-all of
HRC's endorsement process (except when it came to the national
Democratic nominees, who didn't even bother to show up for the vote
but kept HRC's endorsement). It was a wooden and silly decision
with ramifications we have yet to appreciate.
Can anything be done to save HRC from the political wilderness?
Here are three suggestions. First, HRC should hire a Republican
executive director. This will be unpopular among gay leftists, but
it should help repair relations with Republicans like Specter and
help moderate the group's image and rhetoric in a national
political climate likely to be dominated by the GOP for some
time.
Second, the group should back off on transgender inclusion in
ENDA. HRC can offer the excuse that it had not fully gauged how
much opposition there would be to the move. To quell the outcry on
the left, have a member of Congress introduce a separate,
transgender-inclusive bill supported by HRC.
Third, refocus time and energy on state issues and legislatures.
In the current climate, little can be done at the national level
except to fend off anti-gay proposals like the FMA. The real action
has moved to the states, where some progress toward the legislative
recognition of gay relationships may be made and where will be
fighting anti-marriage initiatives for several election cycles to
come.
Alas, HRC seems unlikely to do any of these things and so its
distressing slide into irrelevance will probably continue.