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SLDC, HRC To Jointly Push For Repeal Of DADT During August Recess
07/29/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the Human Rights Campaign have announced a joint grassroots campaign to increase support for the passage of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal at, roughly, the same time that a group of nine GetEqual protesters held another minor and ineffective protest against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The nine shut down the Capital Rotunda while taking a tour of Congress.
According to Aubrey Sarvis, the executive director of SLDN and a victim of DADT, “We need supporters to contact their senators and tell them to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and follow the lead of Chairman Carl Levin who will be managing the defense bill on the floor. It is critical that we beat back any filibuster threat, defeat attempts to strike repeal, and defeat any crippling amendments. Senators need to hear from us now, especially in the 10 key states where our combined SLDN and HRC field teams are working now.”
According to Joe Solmonese president of HRC “As we approach the waning days of this Congressional session, we must continue to demand immediate action on critical legislation. LGBT voters and our allies will be keenly aware of Congressional action or inaction as the November elections approach. “LGBT people and our allies can make a real difference by making their voices heard face-to-face and in the districts where they live. Many of us are frustrated with the pace of progress and this is a way to get involved to make change happen.”
According to the press release:
HRC and SLDN’s efforts will be specifically focused on 10 states with key lawmakers whose votes on DADT repeal are critical: Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Virginia. HRC will also engage the LGBT community and our allies in those states on ENDA in addition to on-the-ground work for ENDA in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. Supporters of equality are encouraged to meet with Representatives and Senators while they are in their districts and states for the August Congressional recess.
To participate, individuals can sign up at countdown2010.hrc.org . There, they’ll find downloadable meeting toolkits, videos on in-district meetings and information on how to schedule a meeting and report back on how it went.
How effective the joint HRC-SLDN push will be is hard to calculate. Unfortunately, the problems of actions like the ones taken by GetEqual are usually far easier to calculate since the group has managed to throw and awful lot of sand into the gears of the political process. Yesterday’s action resulted in eight people being arrested. Word of the arrests sent the mainstream media into a snore. While the SLDN has some track record of success, the HRC has been fairly ineffective when it has come to pushing legislation such as the repeal of DADT and protecting LGBT marriage rights such as in California and Maine.
11 Responses to SLDC, HRC To Jointly Push For Repeal Of DADT During August Recess
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AndrewW
August 5, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Keep it up Paula. NOBODY has provided any evidence for the effectiveness of GetEQUAL’s childish stunts. They continue to promote relics of the past – protest, demanding and direct action – because they refuse to grow up.
In order for our Movement to be effective – we must use effective tactics. They’re not effective because they worked 50 years ago – they are effective if they produce results TODAY.
GetEQUAL has only embarrassed us. They haven’t accomplished anything except the waste of $500,000 that could have been put to better use. Their childish stunts are only about making them famous. Choi got fame, but no results.
So, keep asking the important questions. You will notice that none of the Comments above contained any helpful answers or suggestions. They simply refuse to admit that they have been wasting time, energy and money. They still romanticize the idea of “activist.” Being effective in today’s world requires thought, not simple street theater and childish antics.
JamesCampbell
July 30, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Paula,
Who CARES if someone makes money doing something they love – Have you written letters to Joe Solmonese for taking money from HRC? Have you screamed at Diann Fossey for her work with gorillas? How about Barney Frank for getting paid to drag his feet on ENDA? Maybe you should launch an attack on Kerry Eleveld at the Advocate because she gets paid to write about LGBT news. Truly, your anger is misdirected.
Obama SAID he was going to repeal the law “this year”, before he even got elected. He said he’d repeal BOTH DADT and DOMA in his first year…now DOMA stopped being mentioned as soon as he sat down in the Oval Office and DADT now maybe, perhaps, possibly will have a legislative-only repeal in his third year in office.
And I challenge you to find ONE person from GetEQUAL who has claimed an ounce of credit for anything. Not one of them (that I have seen, heard or read) has said “XYZ happened because of GetEQUAL’s work.”
Seriously, stop with the attacks and start supporting the people who are fighting FOR you.
JamesCampbell
July 30, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Dear Paula,
You clearly have been through a lot and for that I am sorry. Your work and your wife’s work on the repeal of DADT was invaluable I’m sure. But I am failing to see what good it does any of us for you to disparage the work of others who have picked up the baton and run with it.
I’m sorry, but how dare you attack someone who is willing to actually risk something for our cause? How dare you make assumptions against those who are trying their best to continue the fight that you’ve spent a long time fighting? I know you’re bitter and angry – I would be too had I been through the things you’ve been through, but don’t go after the people on your team.
This fight takes all of us and all our tactics to win it. Who’s to say that the repeal won’t get kicked down the road again in January? Who’s to say that it wasn’t a combination of lobbying and direct action that is moving our policies forward? We’ve been lobbying for 13 years to overturn this policy and nothing has happened. Something has to be said for the fact that it wasn’t until people started chaining themselves to the White House fence that some real motion occurred. Is that the ONLY thing that made it happen? Doubtful. But the timing and the lack of want for bad press with this administration more than likely had something to do with it.
And Sean was right. It is rhetoric like this that stops the younger generations from wanting to get involved with activism. Is that your wish? For the gays to stay in the bars in the hopes that only the memory of you and your wife’s work will win our full equality? Because that seems like a hopeless tactic from where I’m standing. Even if you disagree with the tactic, you need to not be disparaging to young people who want to get involved. It’s shooting yourself in the foot.
junebug
July 29, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Bridgette’s post leaves me thoroughly disappointed in LGR. I cannot understand why some equality advocates are making such a show of disparaging the tactics of getEQUAL. Even if you disagree with these tactics, to suggest that getEQUAL members are self-serving attention-grabbers, or “spoiled brats,” is just wrong. The awesome rally the group was seemingly born out of–Meet in the Middle last year in Fresno, CA–represented a clear turning point in the movement, and having seen Robin McGehee address the crowd there, and having followed her (and Dan Choi’s) actions since then, I could never doubt getEQUAL’s sincere passion and commitment to equality. I can’t imagine what the point of denigrating them in such a hostile tone might be.
I say, right on Sean, for your part in the protest; right on to everyone taking a stand in whatever peaceful way makes sense to them; and down with hostility directed at those in our movement!!
Sean
July 29, 2010 at 2:58 pm
And are you seriously advocating that we simply trust our legislators and allies that they will get around to it eventually?
I’m not willing to accept such an idea when it has been demonstrated TIME AND AGAIN that they won’t do anything unless they feel pressured into it. If Nancy Pelosi is really afraid of the damage this could do to her politically then maybe GetEqual has more power than you seem to give credit for.
Sean
July 29, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Bridgette,
First of all its very difficult to have any respect for your argument when you use such dismissive language.
Why do you think that any form of direct action is deleterious to the process? I understand that you feel like the actions were ineffective- but how can that be measured? How long has HRC been employing the same political strategy to push this legislation through? Do they ask the lawmakers who relied on the very same grassroots support that groups like GetEqual provide to accomplish what they promised?
What you are implying is that only the strategies of SLDN and HRC are effective and anyone who DARES to attempt another tactic is only getting in the way.
Why not stop throwing around so much invective and suggest a way to make these actions MORE effective. What national strategy would you use?
Until you are ready to suggest a better more strategic course of action… stop kneecapping those of us who are attempting to engage our elected officials.
I was one of those 8 arrested in the Rotunda. I am not paid by anyone. I am not ignorant. If you want to have a serious voice in this debate, you should check your tone.
-Sean
MikeReynolds
July 29, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Wow, This is a pretty ignorant article – everything from the horrific misspelling in the TITLE all the way through the 3rd grade grammatical errors all the way through. Then, if you make it through the cavalcade of run-on sentences, misspelled words and dangling participles, maybe you can see that the substance of the article is just as ignorant.
The action yesterday had absolutely NOTHING to do with DADT. It’s not unlike saying you hate Mozart while listening to Beethoven’s Fifth. How about you try getting arrested sometime? Perhaps you’ll be better at that than you are at any kind of journalism.
Demand Equality
July 29, 2010 at 1:30 pm
They have done more than you have or LezGetReal has done – they have energized the base of LGBT Americans to take responsibility for our own equality. They are using a time-honored and working tradition of direct action – which whittles away at the process. Get Equal and Dan Choi are the reason why DADT is even in the pipe to be repealed – not because of anything LezGetReal has done or HRC or NGLTF has done.
You don’t like direct action then don’t do it but here’s what works – EVERYTHING
You don’t like that they are funded by someone with lots of money – well it takes lots of money and do you know what HRC does with the money – they give it to democRATs who do nothing.
You don’t agree with bringing attention to the issue by using civil disobedience? Were you okay with that tactic when the African American civil rights movement used it – or do you think that they should have just shut up and stayed in the back of the bus.
Get Equal brings attention to our issues in ways that have not been tried since ACTUP did this back in the 1990s. And ACTUP is right – Silence does Equal Death.
Now either get on the bus or stay home but whatever you do don’t get in front of the bus because this freedom ride will run you over.
Stop asking permission, demand equality and stop kvetching to the choir & stop dissing the choir.
Bridgette P. LaVictoire
July 29, 2010 at 1:36 pm
YAWN. . .so, how much are they paying you?
When they are transparent, and when they actually go after people who need to be gone after, let me know. When they actually energize more than the fringe of the movement, let me know. I’m seeing a lot of grumbling starting about just how ineffective they have been. BTB certainly was not impressed with this. Bilrico hasn’t been impressed with them. When they do something impressive, let me know.
Until then, they’re just guys and gals getting arrested for being stupid.
Incidentally, Dan Choi and Get Equal are the reason why we had to take that damned compromise after they made sure that the military chiefs were vehemently against us. Trust me, we’ve had talks with those guys. They really upset those guys and they dug in their heels. But, of course, you don’t care if getting LGBT rights means waiting another fifty or hundred years, I guess.
What they have done is stupid. Period. They’re running around using a tactic instead of actually having a strategy. They are lost, clueless and ignorant. As are you.
Demand Equality
July 29, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Maybe you just didn’t know the purpose of the direct action by Get Equal – if you were paying attention you would have seen that in fact their direct action scored a win on the way to equality. The purpose of the action was to do the following:
1. Bring national attention to the need for ENDA – WON – got covered by the Washington DC press.
2. Deliver letters to Speaker Pelosi – WON – letters delivered.
3. Energize the base – DONE – LGBT Facebook posted videos & the letter to Speaker Pelosi’s facebook page, Twitter account, Contact form, and called her offices in DC & SF.
4. Put a link to the Get Equal webpage encouraging people to join in on local organizing – DONE
So if you think direct action does not work – well let’s see it worked for the suffragettes which is why Speaker Pelosi can even be Speaker Pelosi – because for 81 years women now have the right to vote.
ACTUP direct action resulted in AIDS awareness, education, changed laws and medication for HIV infected people globally.
The earliest LGBT activists in the 1950s and 1960s used direct action to bring attention to inequality and that led to the culmination of the Stonewall Inn Uprising.
Every gay pride parade is a direct action.
The equality rallies countering the tyrannical theocRAT tour are all direct actions.
Whatever gives us the forum to demand equality is never a waste of time. Stop dissing the choir.
Bridgette P. LaVictoire
July 29, 2010 at 1:13 pm
They got covered by the Advocate. No one really noticed this. No one cared. As for getting a letter developed to someone who has been pushing already for ENDA- yeah…that really helped advance it. GE has hardly brought national attention to ENDA. By the time they even mentioned ENDA, LGR had already posted dozens of articles about the law. If anything, LGR has done far more to bring awareness to the nation about ENDA. Putting a link on a website just takes paying your web developer.
You know, people are tired of Get Equal’s antics. They do not have something that the suffragettes had- numbers. Eight people arrested? When you have five or six hundred arrested, call me. “The earliest LGBT activists in the 1950′s and 1060′s used direct action to bring attention to inequality…” yes, and sixty years later, we are still fighting for our rights.
Please, stop trying to defend Get Equal. They are nothing but Gay Inc. light, and just as ineffective. I mean, LGR really has done more to bring attention to the nation regarding ENDA, I can get a letter delivered to Nancy Pelosi without getting arrested or being a jerk, and I’ve done more to energize the base than these schmucks have since they cannot seem to even get a decent group out there to get arrested. Also, we often do link to groups such as Get Equal Now.
When Get Equal actually manages to do SOMETHING other than act like spoiled brats, please let me know. Until then, I’m just going to sit back and yawn.
As a note, LGR has published some 5000 articles, or close to, and roughly 500 of those mention ENDA in some form, and go back to the founding of the site.