Equality update
April 2009 - a periodic publication of MassEquality.org
and the MassEquality Education Fund
As you’ll see, this newsletter—like every MassEquality newsletter—is full of the victories we’ve achieved together, from fighting for equality in other states to expanding our support on Beacon Hill. But there’s one accomplishment that we rarely boast about enough.
MassEquality has a history of producing experienced, proven leaders that go on to build up our movement across the country. Former executive director Marty Rouse and former deputy director Jeremy Pittman both accepted senior positions at the Human Rights Campaign. Robyn Maguire is now field director at the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force. Today, we feel extraordinary pride that Marc Solomon and Amy Mello are carrying on that tradition, as they bring the lessons of victory in Massachusetts to the fight to overturn Prop 8. On a personal level, we’ll miss their intelligence, passion, and friendship very deeply. At the same time, we know that sharing our experience is a core part of our mission. After all, MassEquality is the first organization to win the fight for marriage equality. Who else could provide such strong champions to take the fight nationwide?
The organization that Marc and Amy leave behind is now a powerful, permanent force for equal rights in Massachusetts and beyond. Today, MassEquality is truly the model for a modern equality organization—one that depends not just on traditional lobbying, but on a potent grassroots network. Just one example: How did the transgender anti-discrimination bill attract more legislative co-sponsors than any other issue? The answer is, you did it. You knocked on the doors of committee chairs. You called your legislators, sent postcards, and turned out on Election Day for equality supporters. Your power and commitment are known on Beacon Hill—and respected. That’s how you get things done. I’m proud and humbled to take on a larger role among such remarkable people.
You have tremendous success to celebrate over the past year.
In 2009, we have more important work to do together—work that no other organization can duplicate. We’ll take the fight for marriage equality to other states, including New Jersey, Maine, and Vermont. Here in Massachusetts, we’ll help pass the transgender nondiscrimination act, and protect critical funding for LGBT youth, elders, victims of domestic violence, and HIV/AIDS programs during the budget crisis. We’ve accomplished so much together, but our best work is still ahead of us.
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Sincerely, Scott D. Gortikov Executive Director |
Winning the Right to Marry One State at a Time
MassEquality has learned valuable lessons about how to win marriage equality. Today, we are sharing these lessons to help achieve equality across the country.
We launched the 6 x 12 initiative along with GLAD to bring full marriage equality to each New England state by 2012. Last year in Connecticut, we played an instrumental role, and now our attention has shifted to Vermont, Maine, and New Jersey, all of which we can win in 2009.
In Connecticut in 2008, MassEquality’s field director spent three days a week in the Love Makes a Family CT headquarters leading a team of four field organizers to win support for the right to marry. Once the court ruled in our favor, the field team shifted quickly to defeat a right-wing ballot initiative that sought to take away equal rights. In combination with strategic and media support from MassEquality, our side was able to defeat that initiative by a vote of 60% to 40%. Now marriage equality in Connecticut is safe for the foreseeable future.
We are thrilled to report that this month, Vermont and Iowa joined Massachusetts and Connecticut as the third and fourth states to recognize equal marriage rights. In Vermont, we partnered with the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force to move marriage legislation. MassEquality volunteers set up phonebanks in Northampton and in Boston to recruit volunteers to attend more than 100 Town Meetings. Our field coordinator Ryan Brown spent time on the ground in Vermont organizing in the southeastern part of the state. Thanks in part to Ryan’s help, our side recruited over 1,000 advocates to come to the Vermont State House on March 18th. Shortly after, the Senate and House voted in favor of the marriage equality bill, which was then vetoed by Governor Jim Douglas. On April 7th, the Vermont Legislature voted to override Governor Douglas's veto and recognize marriage equality for all. Leading up to the override votes, MassEquality played a critical role, helping to secure additional votes for the override, contacting thousands of constituents, mobilizing them to make calls to Vermont lawmakers.
Beginning in April, we will be leading door-to-door canvasses in southern Maine, in partnership with Equality Maine, to help pass a marriage bill this year. We will also be phone-banking in Boston and in Worcester to mobilize volunteers and identify supporters in both Maine and New Jersey to help pass legislation this year.
Winning Marriage Equality: A Manual
Thanks to a generous grant from the Arcus Foundation, the MassEquality Education Fund produced a user-friendly manual containing our best practices and lessons learned from our five-year campaign to protect marriage. We also produced an on-line version, which contains over 300 documents that we produced over the years, downloadable so that our colleagues in other states can easily adapt them for use.
We have made the manual available to all members of the Equality Federation—an organization that represents state-wide LGBT organizations throughout the country. And the feedback has been tremendous. Our friends at One Iowa and Fair Wisconsin asked us to send them several more copies, and we’ve gotten calls from a number of other groups asking for guidance about running a marriage campaign.
Election Update
November 4th, 2008 was another banner election day for MassEquality. We rebuffed our opponents' efforts to take out pro-equality legislators once again, and built an even stronger cushion of pro-equality votes in the State House.
Our opponents vowed to change the composition of the legislature in order to advance another anti-gay initiative petition. In this endeavor they failed. Instead, we increased our pro-equality votes in the State House from 151 out of 200 (in June 2007) to 158. We are just short of having 80 percent of the legislature stand with us for marriage equality.
Opponents also promised to "punish" those 10 courageous legislators who switched their vote. They ran anti-equality challengers and dropped tens of thousands of pieces of nasty, negative mail attacking our incumbents for their pro-equality votes. But again they failed -- every single legislator who switched their vote last June and ran for re-election won.
Some particular success stories include Representative Paul Kujawski (D – Webster) who won with 53% of the vote; Representative Richard Ross (R – Wrentham) who won with 61% of the vote; and Representative Geraldo Alicea (D – Southbridge) who won with 60% of the vote (see related article in this newsletter).
MassEquality also signed on in support of the coalition working to defeat the proposed abolition of the Massachusetts income tax. As a large part of our advocacy stems from protecting funding priorities for the LGBT community during budget season, an abolished income tax would most certainly render basic state services and support obsolete. We worked to defeat this risky proposal – and helped achieve a 70% - 30% victory for our side.
Perhaps our greatest strength comes from our electoral might. By fighting on behalf of pro-equality candidates and causes, we are continuing to build a better and more equal commonwealth for all.
Legislative Update
Among the 6,000+ bills introduced this session, the transgender non-discrimination bill received more co-sponsors than any other.
MassEquality’s top legislative priority this year is the transgender non-discrimination bill: An Act Relative to Gender Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes. Introduced by lead sponsors Senator Ben Downing (D – Pittsfield), Representatives Carl Sciortino (D – Medford) and Byron Rushing (D – Boston), this bill seeks to include gender identity and expression to non-discrimination laws covering employment, housing, credit, and public accommodations, as well as to hate crimes statutes.
Working with our stellar relationships on Beacon Hill and utilizing our successful grassroots model, MassEquality was able to help enroll 104 original co-sponsors for this bill. This number is remarkable for two reasons: it represents a broad-based and bipartisan list of supporters, and the number reflects majorities in both houses of the legislature. But we still have our work cut out for us: this bill has to go through the hearing process at the Joint Committee on the Judiciary and then, hopefully, go before a full vote of both houses.
Yet we feel hopeful that passage is imminent. Governor Patrick is a steadfast supporter of this bill and we will continue to work with the elected leadership in shepherding this bill through the legislative process.
As always, we need your help! Please visit www.MassEquality.org/transgender to learn more about An Act Relative to Gender Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes, contact your legislator, or join our Transgender Advocacy Network. With your help, we will make sure that this bill passes, and Massachusetts cement’s its reputation as the most inclusionary state in the Union.
A Message from Represenative Geraldo Alicea
On June 14, 2007, at the Constitutional Convention, I cast a vote in favor of marriage equality. I am not going to pretend that it was an easy decision for me. Leading up to that vote, I spent many sleepless nights remembering the conversations I had with so many constituents, activists, and lobbyists. At the time, I was torn because I had made a campaign promise—that I would allow the people to vote on the issue of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. I genuinely believed in that promise. After all, I thought I was elected to ensure that the citizens of the 6th Worcester district had a voice on Beacon Hill, regardless of what that voice demanded.
“I am indebted to MassEquality, not only because of the support its members provided during my reelection, but because of the way in which MassEquality helped to open my mind to assume a more tolerant and inclusive perspective as a Representative and as a human being.”
But over time, by listening to my constituents—all my constituents—my thinking evolved. I’ll never forget one encounter I had with a woman who worked at a Church day-care center in my community. She asked me how things were going at the State House, clearly alluding to the marriage issue. As I prepared myself for combat, poised and ready to heed yet another impassioned lecture about the “sinfulness of homosexuality,” I was surprised when she said, “You know, I just want our children to be happy. Isn’t that what all parents want?” And it hit me—her simple plea for kids and families to be happy invoked a more universal theme: the universal human right to the pursuit of happiness; a right that we all seek, and a right we must all respect. Whether or not that happiness can be found with another person of the same-sex is not for us to judge, or more importantly, for us to deny.
I had determined that to successfully fulfill my responsibilities as a State Representative, I was obligated to uphold and protect the rights and dignity of EVERY citizen of the Commonwealth. Though such a position might jeopardize my political career, I knew that this was the right thing to do.
After I took the vote to protect marriage equality for LGBT couples, I did receive a wave of angry letters and calls, but these subsided and were soon replaced by more routine letters concerned with budget issues and health care costs. Over time, the repercussions of my same-sex marriage vote consisted of random faxes from evangelicals from Louisiana, and the occasional indignant email from the same two or three constituents.
After a year had passed, the thought of running for reelection no longer seemed so improbable, and I ultimately decided to run again. Nevertheless, my opponent in the general election wasted no time reminding voters about my marriage vote. With the help of groups such as the “Massachusetts Family Institute,” my opponent exploited my vote by trying to portray me as an immoral and untrustworthy flip-flopper. Yet despite the countless mailings and attempts to revive the old anger, my opponent was unsuccessful.
Ultimately, I won my reelection by a landslide, and I am well aware that this is something I could not have done without the support of MassEquality and other such groups. I am indebted to MassEquality, not only because of the support its members provided during my reelection, but because of the way in which MassEquality helped to open my mind to assume a more tolerant and inclusive perspective as a Representative and as a human being.
The GAYLA
“I also want to say how proud I am to be not only a supporter but a sponsor of the transgender legislation that we’ll be taking up this session.”
- Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo
MassEquality held it’s first ever GAYLA at the Roxy on February 14th, celebrating the accomplishments of the past year and our community of supporters. There was dancing, laughing, and a couple of surprises.
The Gayla was Bob DeLeo’s first public event since his ascension to the Speakership. This again highlighted the political influence that MassEquality has developed over the years.
A special announcement was made for all: that Freedom to Marry Coalition of MA was merging with MassEquality. Valerie Fein-Zachary represented the group at the podium, declaring the need to advance marriage equality in other New England States and to never be complacent with the goals we have accomplished.
Donors
MassEquality is grateful to the many donors who have supported us so generously this past year. In particular, we'd like to thank those individuals and institutions who have made significant contributions to our work.
