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(from a yahoo list)
Hi, everyone, from Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality. Allow me to fill you in on what happened this weekend at the Democratic state convention.
Each Friday at the convention, different constituencies have different Caucus meetings. This year, three organizations, Garden State Equality, New Jersey Stonewell Democrats and the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey, produced the LGBTI Caucus. We decided to do something different -- to present an entertainer at the end of our Caucus meeting. We had an open bar and hired a Cher impersonator. Last year's LGBTI Caucus attracted 8 people. This year's attracted more than 100.
Our friends from the predominantly straight Progressive Caucus would have attended without the bells and whistles, no doubt, and we love them for it. But many other party leaders in the room wouldn't have otherwise; they said so. And we got a chance to talk to them about our issues. In a Caucus that began at 6:00 pm, "Cher" only came on at 6:52 pm. It was hardly as if serious business weren't being done.
But before the event started, Diane Legriede, the executive director of the State Democratic Committee, pointed to "Cher" and said the following:
"We cannot have THAT walking in the hallway."
"You cannot have THAT inside your Caucus."
"The State Committee will not have someone like THAT attending dinner -- THAT cannot come inside the ballroom."
"What if the press sees THAT -- what if they report on THAT in tomorrow's papers?"
Diane delivered these statements as a diatribe in the hallway, ironically, drawing attention to an intolerance that was far more embarrassing than anything around her. She was also completely unself-conscious about referring to a transgender person repeatedly as THAT -- as not even a person -- right next to Barbra Casbar, a member of the transgender community who is a leader in the three organizations sponsoring the Caucus.
I answered: "Diane, it's our caucus and transgender people are part of our community. Diane responded, "It's not your event, it's our event." What a telling statement.
She added, "If THAT's going to be inside the room, we're going to boycott your Caucus."
Senator Loretta Weinberg and her staffer Debbie Francica were outraged on behalf of the LGBTI community. They went to Diane and to Chair Joe Cryan and told it like it was: "We can't believe your reaction. You're acting like Republicans. This is supposed to be a Democratic convention where we embrace diversity, not a Republican convention where we're afraid of it. Transgender people are part of this community and they're entitled to be in that room and they include people like Cher."
Friends, we all know Loretta as one of the state's greatest progressive champions. But as those of us who know her and her staff personally can attest -- and as this event proved -- they're also some of the most personally enlightened people you could ever meet in your lifetime.
Also attending our Caucus were Congressman Frank Pallone, Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DiFillippo and Senator Bob Menendez's daughter Alicia. They all loved the event. For those of you who don't know Alicia, she is one of the nicest, most politically savvy and most progressive young leaders in the Democratic Party today. She, too, was in disbelief at the State Democratic Committee's reaction. "Your community was the first to endorse my dad and I know everything you've done since. I can't believe this."
Best of all, the entire Progressive Caucus not only joined us at the LGBTI Caucus, but also expressed passionate solidarity with us on our issues and against the State Committee's behavior. Right on site, the executive board of New Jersey for Democracy voted to protest the State Committee's behavior.
We certainly don't blame Diane Legriede's meltdown on Governor Corzine, whose campaigns, Senate staff and gubernatorial Administration have all been more diverse than any we've ever seen in New Jersey. Governor Corzine has appointed an unprecedented number of women, people of color and LGBTI New Jerseyans at the most senior levels of government. He succeeded dramatically in lifting the glass ceiling. God bless him.
(Incidentally, the Democratic State Chair in recent years with the best record on diversity has been Tom Giblin. He took several dramatic and courageous steps, a guy who walks the walk rather than just talks the talk.)
But the State Committee continues to be an uptight, insensitive and LGBTI-uncomfortable mess that does not reflect the Democratic electorate in New Jersey, likely the country's most progressive Democratic electorate in likely the country's most progressive state. At the two previous year's conventions, party officials repeatedly singled out every constituency in their speeches except for the LGBTI community. And they wonder why the LGBTI community wasn't attending the annual Democratic convention in higher numbers -- duh -- in contrast to Garden State Equality's town meetings that have drawn 10,000 people, straight and LGBTI alike, since 2003. That's an average of 400 people per town meeting.
Diane Legriede's young operatives said her hallway diatribe reflected Chairman Joe Cryan's sentiments as well. That's surprising -- we've found Joe to be a progressive, inclusive guy.
We're troubled by the "boycott" of our Caucus when the state committee has no problem with our community's money and volunteers. In the past two years, Garden State Equality has raised nearly $400,000, including more than well over $100,000 for political candidates. Like our state's progressive organizations, we at GSE have triaged droves of volunteers to Democratic candidates. We conceived and implemented a huge GOTV operation in 2005 and are about to unveil one for this fall's campaign.
The message Diane Legriede's diatribe sent was this: We will accept you in the LGBTI community so long as you look and act a certain way.
Well, she and her state committee had better embrace the LGBTI community's diversity right now. Our community is a rich and proud mosaic. We range from those identify with genders different from their birth genders... to those who like to cross-dress... to those like me who wear suits, ties and even yarmulkes. No one has the right to tell us who in our community is acceptable and who is not. We are all acceptable and we all deserve respect.
If a state party leader in a comparably progressive state like California, New York or Massachusetts delived a transphobic, anti-LGBTI diatribe like that which Diane Legriede did in the hallway of this convention, that official might well be fired.
Rumor has it that Joe Cryan is going to call me to apologize. I'll tell you what I'll tell him: Words don't matter; action does. The Democratic State Committee has got to take some very quick moves to diversify the party's leadership and number of elected officials. It goes way beyond the party's lack of LGBTI diversity -- New Jersey's Democratic-dominated legislature ranks 44th nationally in the number of women officeholders. Tragically, there's not a single openly LGBTI member of the state legislature or even on the State Democratic Committee. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, New Jersey had merely one openly LGBTI delegate whereas comparably progressive states each had many.
More than a seat at the table, we want action.
It's time for the state Democratic Party to endorse marriage equality outright. The state Democratic Parties of California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington State, Iowa, New Mexico and Texas have done so. But it's New Jersey that has the strongest poll numbers for marriage equality in America, where two-thirds of all state Democrats favor marriage equality. If our side loses the marriage case, God forbid, the state Democratic Party had best endorse marriage-equality legislation. Garden State Equality and our millions of straight allies across New Jersey will not take no for an answer.
It's time for the state Democratic Party to get the transgender equality bill passed this year -- 70 percent of New Jersey favors the bill whereas only 19 percent oppose it. The Democrats have not even posted the bill in committee, stalling for nearly two years.
Quite simply, it's time for the State Democratic Committee to leave the Jurassic Era. This is New Jersey, an extraordinary state with a rich history of being on the cutting edge of civil rights in America, and we demand no less.
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