HRC Back Story

...and we're BACK!

Happy New Year!!

We're in for quite a ride this year.  After eight long years under President Bush, we are literally in the last days of an administration that aggresively opposed legislation and stood in the way of policies that would advance LGBT equality.  And now, with the January 20 inauguration day soon approaching, we're looking forward to working with the Obama administration to make sure they carry out their promises of LGBT inclusion they made during the campaign.  Of course, we know that real change and progress does not come overnight - or without a fight.  We've got a lot of work ahead of us and we'll need to call upon our members more than ever to ensure that the new administration takes concrete action on our issues. 

If you're not a member of the Human Rights Campaign, now is the time to join us in our fight!

HRC has launched a new membership drive that we're calling "The New Way Forward." Our goal is to add 2,009 new members before Barack Obama takes his oath of office on January 20.

In a recent email message to our supporters, HRC President Joe Solmonese outlined a few key reasons why becoming a member of the Human Rights Campaign is so important at this crucial moment in our movement:

• First and foremost, we will continue laying the groundwork for full marriage equality, including a repeal of Proposition 8. HRC is taking aggressive action against the lies and fabrications that have held back the tide of equality. We can, and we will, show America that honoring love and commitment is the moral thing to do.

• We will fight so that Judy Shepard doesn't have to spend one more year without her son Matthew's life being honored with a hate crimes law that protects ALL of us.

• We will continue building public support for a fully-inclusive workplace protection, so that LGBT people will no longer suffer discrimination or lose their jobs because of who they are.

• We will fight for the freedom to serve openly in the military; for adoption and foster parenting rights; and for transgender equality as a critical piece of our national civil rights vision.

• In weeks to come, you will hear more about HRC's grassroots, online and other campaigns to channel the anger caused by Prop. 8 and pursue our vision of justice – in the states, workplaces, faith communities, college campuses and beyond.

Not all these things will happen in 2009, but this is a moment we must not let slip by. This is the time to join our movement.

We can't do this without you. HRC is only as strong as the members who support and sustain us. JOIN TODAY.

Dear Friends,

As 2008 draws to a close, America is preparing for the change of our lifetime. Like many LGBT Americans, I have dreamed of and worked for this day to come. In 2009, an ally will occupy the White House. Divisive, anti-gay politics are leaving our executive branch. Our Congress will have more allies than ever. And our next Supreme Court justices will respect our fundamental rights. Through our work, our belief, our unyielding commitment to a better future for ourselves and our families, LGBT people helped to make this happen. All of you who attended Camp Equality training, who volunteered in phone banks, who donated your hard-earned money to a pro-equality candidate, and, most importantly, told your friends and family why our rights matter and how their votes can harm or protect them, to all of you I say thank you. 2008 was OUR year to win.

On the same day that America elected a fair-minded president who is a longstanding ally of civil rights and a professor of constitutional law, voters in California, Arizona, and Florida wrote discrimination into their constitutions. In California, Proposition 8 stripped citizens of the rights that the state's highest court had finally recognized last May. On November 5, as our nation celebrated a historic election, our community's grief turned into anger, and anger turned to action.

LGBT people and allies took to the streets and to the airwaves... we were everywhere. Showing the neighbors who had slighted us who we really are—not just families and friends and coworkers worthy of equal rights, but strong, resilient people who will fight for those rights.

My question to you is, will we?

It's the end of 2008, and the opportunities before us are vast. We can finally pass hate crimes legislation covering our entire community and a fully-inclusive ENDA; we can roll back eight years of bad Bush Administration policy on HIV, workplace protections for federal employees, and benefits for families.

In winning the elections, we did not pass these bills or secure these policies. Rather, we earned a fighting chance to pass them. The election opened a door that had long been locked. But what lies beyond the door is not a room full of treasures; no, what's beyond that door, what we're seeing now, is a steep, spiral staircase. What we won in this election is the chance to climb it. It's more than we've had in my memory, but it's not going to be easy.

And my experience tells me that a "fighting chance" is a good way to describe it, because we're going to have to fight for it.

This is a lesson of Prop 8 and of all of the discriminatory campaigns against us. It's the lesson of eight years of roadblocks to our legislation. The lesson is that when our community is getting ready to win, the other side fights hard. And they fight with lies. When we passed hate crimes in the last Congress, the haters rolled out every lie that they would later use to take away our rights in California. We harm religion. We harm children. We take over the schools. We put preachers in jail. The same lies.

In a way, it's comforting. I mean, if it were palatable to be an out-and-out bigot these days, our opponents could simply take out ads that say "hate the gays? Vote yes on 8!" But we are past that today. Today, people will turn against us if they're given a reason to fear us. And the same few lies serve that purpose every time—whether it's hate crimes or marriage at stake.

Our job is to beat back those same lies. Every time. When hate crimes comes up for a vote in 2009, will those of us who are standing up against the Prop 8 haters come out against those who would kill this bill? We must. We must stand up. We must never forget that even as we focus on the right to marry and the economic and spiritual benefits that it brings, we have a duty to protect our entire community's right to live without fear of being attacked for who we are. And we have a duty to stand up in this fight, and win it, because passing hate crimes legislation ten years after Matthew Shepard's death is a step toward marriage and every other community goal.

And like a spiral staircase, each step upward is a step in full circle: back to facing our enemies, back to the same set of falsehoods that every campaign against us uses, back to the same slanders, the same tired old bigoted players. But I do believe that we are climbing upward, even though we have not yet achieved so many of our goals. More Americans support marriage than ever before, and even in California, Prop 8 succeeded by far less than another anti-marriage initiative just eight years ago. Young people, LGBT or not, overwhelmingly believe in our rights, and are increasingly fighting for them. Employers are treating our families equally; faith communities are embracing us. Although we find ourselves facing the same people again and again, I truly believe that with each year that passes, we do so from higher ground.

But we cannot reach the top if we do not keep the heat on the other side, calling them to task. We cannot reach the top if we do not invest the same energy, time, and even anger into federal laws and policies that we have invested in fighting Proposition 8.

I know that especially after losing California, it is difficult to imagine how working on hate crimes, or an inclusive ENDA, or family benefits, or fair federal workplace policies, is going to move the ball forward for marriage. But it's clear to me that this is our path—upward and around, steadily and surely. It's clear to the right wing, which is why they try to block every measure that would help our community at all.

Martin Luther King once said that faith is taking the first step when you don't see the whole staircase. Many of you took that first step in speaking out against Proposition 8, or volunteering for Barack Obama, or coming out. Our equality—in our families, in our workplaces, and in our communities—is that staircase. It is linked together, and one measure follows from the next.

In this holiday season, we too, the LGBT community, are linked together with one future, one path, and one monumental task: to fight hate with truth. That is the next step that we will take together.

Happy holidays, and a happy new year.

Warmly,

Today the Advocate ran a story on President-elect Obama nominating Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan as his new Secretary of Education. During his tenure as the head of Chicago's public schools, Duncan had the idea to address the high dropout rate of LGBT students:

Arne Duncan, the Chicago school superintendent, approved plans for the Pride Campus of Social Justice High School, which was set to be voted on by the school board in November, only to be pulled by organizers at the last minute after controversy.

Duncan, CEO of Chicago Public Schools since 2001, was nominated by Obama for the cabinet post at a press conference Tuesday morning, CNN reports.

The 44-year-old Harvard graduate helped write the president-elect's education platform and has frequently advised him on educational matters, according to The New York Times.

"In June, bolstered by grim statistics, a group of Chicago teachers, administrators, and education experts presented a groundbreaking proposal to the Chicago public school board: A new Pride Campus, affiliated with the existing Social Justice High School, eventually serving 400 to 600 students, would provide a safe and accepting place for LGBT kids and their allies," Jessica Reaves writes in the current issue of The Advocate. "The public charter school would have been only the third of its kind in the country, after Milwaukee’s Alliance School and New York City’s Harvey Milk High School."

The proposal for the high school was put on hold due to opposition from both the left and right; however supporters have vowed to reevaluate the idea in the coming years.

Last night, CNN's Jessica Yellin covered the announcement of Duncan's nomination in a report that included his support for the LGBT high school. Watch the video below:

President-elect Obama announced today that he has nominated Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan (pictured) to be his new Secretary of Education. Duncan is considered an ally of the LGBT community and supported a proposal for the creation of a public charter school for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and their allies in October of this year. Backers of the school ultimately withdrew the proposal to the Chicago school board, but plan to resubmit it next year.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has rolled out today the results of a new survey by Harris Interactive undertaken in the aftermath of Prop 8.  In this look at American attitudes on top LGBT issues, the poll found that the majority of Americans oppose laws that would ban child adoption by gay and lesbian parents:

• Three-quarters of U.S. adults (75%) favor either marriage or domestic partnerships/civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.  Only about two in 10 (22%) say gay and lesbian couples should have no legal recognition. (Gay and lesbian couples are able to marry in two states, and comprehensive civil union or domestic partnership laws exist in only five others and the District of Columbia.)
• U.S. adults are now about evenly divided on whether they support allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry (47% favor to 49% oppose).
• Almost two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults favor allowing openly gay military personnel to serve in the armed forces. (The current "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law bans military service by openly gay personnel.)
• About six in 10 (63%) U.S. adults favor expanding hate crime laws to cover gay and transgender people. (Hate crimes laws cover gay and transgender people in 11 states and the District of Columbia, and an additional – 20 states' laws cover sexual orientation but not gender identity.)
• A slight majority of U.S. adults (51%) favor protecting gay and transgender people under existing laws that prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. (Existing non-discrimination laws cover gay and transgender people in only 12 states and the District of Columbia, and eight other states' laws cover sexual orientation but not gender identity.)
• Nearly seven out of 10 U.S. adults (69%) oppose laws that would ban qualified gay and lesbian couples from adopting children. (In several states, gay and lesbian couples are banned from adopting.)

The Pulse of Equality survey results on adoption are especially encouraging considering that All Children - All Families, a program of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Family Project, launched a recruitment intiative last week to encouarge LGBT families to consider foster parenting and adoption.

The results also show that, as more and more people come out and live their lives openly, Americans are growing in their acceptance of LGBT equality.  This also means they are continuing to reject the efforts of the religious right to divide our country at the expense of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people:

The survey also revealed that there has been greater acceptance of gay and lesbian Americans over the last five years.  Approximately two in 10 Americans (19%) reported that their feelings toward gay and lesbian people have become more favorable over the past five years, with contributing factors including:  knowing someone who is gay or lesbian (79%), the fact that laws have been passed that protect gay and lesbian people (50%), opinions of family or friends (45%) and religious leaders (21%), news coverage of gay and lesbian issues (41%), and seeing gay or lesbian characters on television (34%) and in movies (29%).   Nearly three out of four Americans (73%) personally know or work with a gay or transgender person, and half of those who know or work with someone who is gay or transgender know five or more gay or transgender people.

As Thanksgiving nears, I feel profoundly grateful to the people like you who've given their time, money, and passion to the cause of equality this year. Your energy is downright inspiring.

I also find myself uplifted by the amazing victories that we achieved on Election Day. But there is also no denying the blows we were dealt this month, with marriage bans in Arizona, Florida and California.
Historians will point to this election as a turning point in the long struggle for civil rights. Eight years of White House hostility toward LGBT Americans are finally over.

While HRC is working on many fronts to fight California's Prop. 8 and promote marriage equality across the U.S., I have a task for you today: talk to your family and tell them why marriage equality matters to you.

The conversation may be easy, or it may be hard. But in the wake of Prop. 8, a dialogue to change hearts and minds has never been more important.

If you need a place to start, we've developed four e-cards that you can send to friends and family to get the conversation going. Send e-cards now >>

You might want to talk about the person you love. Or about why it's so important for straight allies to support marriage equality. If you need more inspiration, I have a story for you.

Jan and DeAnn, who were married in California this August, had spent 8 years living next to Jon and

Brenda. They chatted about lawn care, skiing, and home repair, and DeAnn even taught their four children in spelling games and rounds of Old Maid once a week – but knowing the anti-gay stance of their neighbors' religion, Jan and DeAnn had decided never to discuss their personal life.
Brenda was in her yard when the limousine pulled up on Jan and DeAnn's wedding day. When she asked what the occasion was, they decided to tell Brenda they were getting married. They were shocked when Brenda immediately hugged them, burst into tears, and sobbed, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Jan replied, "You never know if you're going to get a hug or a brick through your window." DeAnn said, "I was afraid of losing your children."

Then, Jan says, "We all cried, gave one last hug, and entered the limo with soaring spirits."
These are the stories we have to tell. This is the case we have to make: real people, real consequences. Too long, the discussion has been about the definition of marriage rather than the rights of marriage. Many people don't even realize that legally married same-sex couples are denied more than 1,000 different rights on the Federal level, including:

• visiting a partner or child in the hospital
• passing on property without taxes
• taking family leave to care for a sick child
• tax equality

One conversation at a time, America is changing and will continue to change. If we want equality to be the law of the land sooner rather than later, each one of us – LGBT or straight – must now answer the challenge by sitting down with our family and friends, educating them and listening to them in return.

Please accept my sincerest thanks for all that you have helped us accomplish this past year. And when you sit down to the Thanksgiving table tomorrow, think of all we could be celebrating in the coming years.

Warmly,

The same day a Florida circuit court ruled its ban on gay adoption unconstitutional, Candace Gingrich, HRC's youth and campus outreach senior manager, made an appearance tonight on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" to continue the dialogue on Prop 8 and the fight for marriage equality.  During her segment (#1 on the Countdown, BTW), Candace made the important point that allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry does not threaten anyone's marriage and is not something people have to fear.

Watch the video here: 

Candace also published a must-read letter to her brother Newt Gingrich that has been viewed over 260,000 times since it was posted on Huffington Post this past weekend:

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O’Reilly on FOX News.  I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, “There you go, again.”

However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked. 

The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists.  I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as - and we embrace what it can be.   You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past. 

[...]

What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions.   That’s really so ‘90s, Newt.    In this day and age, it’s embarrassing to watch you talk like that.   You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it.

In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.

 

Today All Children - All Families, a program of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Family Project, held a press conference at the HRC building to launch a new awareness campaign aimed at increasing LGBT foster parenting and adoption.

All Children – All Families, launched in 2007, also seeks to enhance LGBT competence among child welfare professionals and educate LGBT people about opportunities to become foster or adoptive parents to waiting children.  Thirty-four agencies from across the U.S are currently participating in the initiative, and more than a dozen agencies are close to earning the seal of recognition.  Check out www.hrc.org/acaf for more information.

Today's press conference featured Ellen Kahn, HRC Foundation Family Project director; Janice Goldwater, Adoptions Together founder and executive director; Nathan Monell, CEO of Foster Care Alumni of America; and adoptive parent Daniel McNeil.

We've uploaded video of the speakers' full remarks:

Ellen Kahn and Janice Goldwater:

Ellen: We are unveiling a recruitment campaign aimed at the LGBT community. This is an innovative campaign that will be implemented nationally over the course of the coming year. We're starting in Washington, DC and we're partnering with Adoptions Together, an agency that has indeed done the work to be ready and welcoming and to really stand behind LGBT families who come in with an interest in adopting from foster care.

...There are an estimated 2 million folks in the LGBT community who are interested in adoption...if even 10% of that 2 million took a step and started exploring in more depth the opportunities in foster care/adoption - and had agencies standing with them and believing in them - we could actually solve a problem and, a year from now, we would not have 129,000 waiting children.

Janice: I'm here today to let you know that we need the LGBT community to come forward and consider adopting a child. I know that, historically, many people have not been welcomed in the adoption community and for this, I'm really sorry....My hope is that this campaign inspires those in the LGBT community to come forward who could be a resource for a child and say, "Yes, we are here. We can take a child into our family." Please know our doors are opened; children are waiting; and we need you.

Nathan Monell:

Our organization knows firsthand what it's like for people to grow up alone in this world....For people who grow up in foster care, that sense of being alone is always with them....

People have not spent time going to the GLBT community and said, "You'd make great parents. You'd do a really good job." And we need to be doing that and I'm really proud of this project for doing that.  Our organization is unabashedly supportive of this work because we know firsthand that any qualified parent is the best parent.  It doesn't matter the sexual orientation. That shouldn't be a part of the equation.   

Daniel McNeil:

I think the biggest obstacle that prevents people from becoming families like ours is homophobia. And there's homophobia, both on the inside and on the inside.  I think the first thing parents need to do - potential parents - is look at the homophobia on the inside. I've talked to lots of potential parents. We agonize like, "How do you know if you're going to be the right type of person to be a parent?" I don't have a magic answer - and there's lots of books. But I would say the guiding principle for me is that an adoption is basically a commitment to a child. And commitment means you're going to be there to love them; a commitment means you're going to be there for the long haul. And so if you can say, "Yes, I have the capacity to love. Yes, I'm willing to do the hard work to stick with all it takes to become a family," then you've already answered the most fundamental questions and you can launch forward.

...The most loving thing I've ever done as a person is become a dad... If this program, this new initiative, can help people envision for themselves becoming a family, then I'm really excited to be a part of that and help support and encourage that.

From the Miami Herald:

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman Tuesday declared Florida's 30-year-old ban on gay adoptions unconstitutional -- a ruling state lawyers immediately said they would challenge.

The ruling sets the stage for Frank Gill, a gay man from North Miami, to adopt two foster children he has raised since 2004.

In a 53-page ruling, Judge Lederman said, ``It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent.''

HRC will hold a media availability on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. ET to unveil an innovative adoption awareness campaign targeting the LGBT community.  November is National Adoption Month, during which attention is focused on the thousands of children waiting to be adopted by loving parents.  The campaign is part of the HRC Foundation’s “All Children – All Families” initiative, designed to find permanent families for children by promoting fairness for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender foster and adoptive parents.

Ellen Kahn, director of HRC Foundation's Family Project talked about the campaign today:

This awareness campaign helps make the dreams of thousands of children come true by raising the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender-adoptive families and encourage prospective parents to learn more about the children waiting in foster care.  With more than a half million children in the U.S. foster care system, we can take steps to support the efforts of courts, judges, attorneys, adoption professionals, child welfare agencies and advocates to finalize adoptions and find permanent, loving homes for children, giving them the opportunity to can grow, thrive and succeed.

Of the children in the U.S. foster care system, over 120,000 are awaiting adoption by loving, permanent families.  Agencies may purposefully or inadvertently close the door to qualified families through their practices.  Few agencies recruit LGBT adoptive & foster parents, and many LGBT people feel unwelcome or discouraged.  Similarly, members of the LGBT community may not be aware of the opportunities in domestic adoption and foster care, or they may not know of agencies that welcome their families.  We are working to break down the barriers that stand between thousands of loving, qualified LGBT adoptive parents and the thousands of children who are waiting for a family.

The “All Children – All Families” initiative, launched in 2007 by the HRC Family Project, works to ensure that all qualified prospective parents who wish to open their homes and hearts to children and youth have the opportunity to do so, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  The program seeks to enhance LGBT competence among child welfare professionals and educate LGBT people about opportunities to become foster or adoptive parents to waiting children.  Thirty-four agencies from across the U.S are currently participating, and more than a dozen agencies are close to earning the seal of recognition.  More information about the initiative can be found at www.hrc.org/acaf.

WHAT:  HRC to unveil the “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Family” adoption awareness campaign

WHEN:  Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. ET

WHERE: Human Rights Campaign Headquarters, 1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.  Washington, D.C.  20036

WHO:  Ellen Kahn, director for HRC Family Project;  Janice Goldwater, executive director for Adoptions Together, member of “All Children – All Families” advisory board.  Adoptions Together, a Silver Spring, Md. based adoption agency, is a local partner in All Children-All Families.