Tell Your Senators to Support LGBT Data Collection in National Health Survey!
Contact Your Senators and Urge Them to Support an LGBT Demographic Question to the National Health Interview Survey
The addition of an LGBT demographic question to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) would provide more accurate and complete data on LGBT communities, which would allow federal prevention appropriations and programming to target vulnerable LGBT populations.
Thanks to advocacy efforts, 46 Representatives in the House supported the addition of an LGBT question to the NHIS. Now Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) is circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter in the Senate to rally support for appropriating the $2 million necessary to add this question to the NHIS. Contact your Senator today to ask them to sign o nto the Whitehouse Letter in the Senate. To contact your Senator, please call the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121, tell them your state, and ask to speak to your Senator. When you are connected to your Senator’s office, ask for the staff member who works on Health and Human Services appropriations.
Tell them that you are a constituent who supports appropriating an additional $2 million for the National Health Interview Survey and that you would like them to sign on. In order to sign on, they need to contact Jordanna Davis in Senator Whitehouse’s office by close of business on Friday, May 1.
WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
Persistent gaps in information about the gay men, bisexual men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) - including gay men and MSM of color - mean that fewer than 8% of gay and bisexual men surveyed in 15 cities received group-level HIV prevention services and only 15% received individual-level interventions.
The bottom line is 85-92% of all MSM at risk for HIV do not encounter prevention intervention services. Most transwomen, also, experience exclusion from prevention programs, and the rate of HIV in this hard hit community is estimated to be as high as 69% (limited data available suggests a range of 14-69% transwomen HIV prevalence).
We need accurate and complete data on LGBT communities, so that federal prevention appropriations and programming will target the communities that bear a disproportionate burden of HIV risk and vulnerability.
Demand Congress Count LGBT People! We have less than a 48 hour window to call for LGBT health data collection!
Thanks to advocacy efforts, 46 Representatives in the House supported the addition of an LGBT question to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Now Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) is leading the charge in the Senate to rally support for appropriating the $2 million necessary to add this question to the NHIS that guides health policy, funding and programs nationwide.
As of Friday, April 24, only 1 of 100 Senators signed on to support LGBT health data collection!
Call your Senators now. Tell them that to end AIDS, LGBT people cannot be ignored in federal surveys any longer. Ask your Senators to sign on to the Sen. Whitehouse “Dear Colleague” letter about LGBT health data collection by Tuesday, April 28.
Contact your both of your Senators by calling the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 (two calls). Tell the operator your state and ask to speak to your Senator. When you are connected to your Senator’s office, ask for the staff member who works on Health and Human Services appropriations.
To locate your U.S. senators’ names, click here.
Talking points
- I urge you to sign on to support the Sen. Whitehouse letter asking for LGBT data collection in the largest federal health survey, the National Health Interview Survey.
- LGBTs have many acknowledged health disparities, but until the federal health surveys stop ignoring us, our hands will be tied in getting the data that’s needed to eliminate these disparities.
- VERY IMPORTANT: For the Senator to join this important effort, please contact Jordanna Davis in Senator Whitehouse’s office by close of business on Tuesday, April 28th.
This is the springboard to getting LGBT people on the Census, and it’s the single thing that would completely change LGBT health overall. So please call your Senators now and insist they sign on to this letter!
Call Script
My name is [NAME], and I live in [CITY, STATE]. Thanks for taking my call. I’m calling to encourage Senator [SENATOR'S NAME] to sign on to the Sen. Whitehouse “Dear Colleague” letter about LGBT health data collection by Tuesday, April 28th. LGBT people have many health disparities, including high rates of HIV. Until the federal health surveys stop ignoring LGBT, our hands will be tied in getting the data that’s needed to eliminate them. For the Senator to join this important effort, please contact Jordanna Davis in Senator Whitehouse’s office by close of business on Tuesday, April 28th. Thank you.
Please make your calls by Tuesday, April 28th. Let us know how your call went by emailing champ@champnetwork.org.
Thanks for taking action,
Vanessa and all of us at CHAMP.
Beyond Marriage: Signatories
SIGNED BY:
o All organizational affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.
o *Asterisks* indicate “BEYOND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE” authors.
o This list is updated as of Friday, August 4, 2006.
Mimi Abramovitz
Professor of Social Policy, Hunter College School of Social Work and the CUNY Graduate Center
Author, Regulating the Lives of Women
Katherine Acey *
Executive Director, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice
Martha Ackelsberg
Prof of Government and Women’s Studies, Smith College
co-author, Why We’re Not Getting Married
Kimberly D. Acquaviva
Washington, DC
Kiran Ahuja
Executive Director, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
Cathy Albisa
Executive Director, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative
Dorothy Allison
Author, Bastard Out of Carolina, and Cavedweller
Faisal Alam
Founder, Al-Fatiha Foundation for LGBTIQ Muslims
Charlotte Albrecht
Volunteer, Fairness Campaign
Rev. Ann Marie Alderman
Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Athens and Sheshequin
Rev. Kharma Amos
Pastor, Metropolitan Community Church of Northern Virginia
Amy Andre
bi activist, and sexuality author/educator and filmmaker
Reymundo E. Anthony
Former Board member and Founder, LLEGO (the National Latino/a Lesbian Gay Organization)
Ellen T. Armour
E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Chair of Feminist Theology, Vanderbilt Divinity School
Katherine Arnup
Associate Professor and Director, Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Carleton University
Editor, Lesbian Parenting: Living with Pride and Prejudice
Nikhil Aziz
Executive Director, Grassroots International
Inelle Bagwell
Coordinating Team Member, Church Within a Church Movement
Marlon M. Bailey
Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender and Women’s Studies,
University of California-Berkeley
Maura Bairley
Parent
Director, the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Program, Columbia University
Karen O. Bachman
Co-Chair, Stonewall Democrats Transgender Caucus
Andre Banks,
Director of Media and Public Affairs, Applied Research Center
Sean Barry
Director of Prevention Policy, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP)
Rachel Baum
Former National Program Associate Director, The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects
Brett Genny Beemyn
Co-Chair, National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education
Author, Queer Studies and Creating a Place for Ourselves
Nancy K. Bereano
Organizer, Tompkins County Working Group on LGBT Aging
Founding publisher and editor, Firebrand Books
Jeanne Bergman
Health Global Access Project (Health GAP)
Lauren Berlant
George M. Pullman Professor of English, University of Chicago
Editor, Intimacy
Tamiko Beyer
Q-Wave (Women and Transgender folks of API decent) Steering Committee
Joan E. Biren (JEB)
Filmmaker/photographer
Ricky Blum
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Staff Attorney, Legal Aid Society
Member, Pride At Work
Terry Boggis *
Director, Center Kids, the family program of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center
Co-Chair, Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Julie Bolcer
Vice President, Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn
Marsha C. Botzer
Founder, Ingersoll Gender Center
Moira Bowman
Family, Community and Sexuality Project, Western States Center
Candice Boyce
Board Chair, African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change
Naomi Braine
Center for Drug Use and HIV Research, NDRI, Inc
Pamela D. Bridgewater
Professor of Law, American Unviversity, Washington College of Law
Laura Briggs
Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Arizona
Author, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico
Member, No More Deaths
Michael Bronski
Visiting Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies and Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College
Author, The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom
Wendy Brown
Professor of Political Science, University of California-Berkeley
Author, States of Injury
Rev. Pat Bumgardner
Chair, Moderator’s Global Justice Team, Metropolitan Community Churches
Charlotte Bunch
Executive Director, Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University
Kent Burbank
Executive Director, Wingspan (South Arizona’s LGBT Community Center)
Linda Burnham
Executive Director, Women of Color Resource Center, Oakland
Judith Butler
Maxine Elliot Professor, Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California-Berkeley
Author, Gender Trouble and Antigone’s Claim
Leslie Cagan
National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice
Deborah Carney-MacFarlane
Amnesty International
Baltimore Polyamory Network
Mandy Carter
Board Member, National Black Justice Coalition
Former Executive Director, Southerners On New Ground
Ellen Carton
Former Executive Director, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
Virginia Casper
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Bank Street College of Education, New York City
Co-author, Gay Parents/Straight Schools: Building Communication and Trust
Aaron Chandler
Vice President, Board of Directors, National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYAC)
Christopher Christopher
Former Executive Director, R.U.1.2 Queer Community Center, Burlington, VT
Jo Ann Citron
Attorney, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, Wellesley College
Eli Clare
Author, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation
Pat Clark
Former Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Cheryl Clarke
Poet and author, The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry: 1980-2005
Thomas F. Coleman
Executive Director, Unmarried America
E.G. Crichton
Professor of Art, University of California-Santa Cruz
Paisley Currah
Executive Director, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS)
Director, Transgender Law & Policy Institute
Wendy Curry
Vice President, BiNet USA
Ann Cvetkovich
Professor of English, University of Texas, Austin
Author, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public Cultures
Debanuj Dasgupta *
Board of Directors, Queer Immigrant Rights Project
Julie Davids
Executive Director, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP)
Trishala Deb
Program Coordinator for the Training and Resource Center, Audre Lorde Project
Kathleen DeBold
Executive Director, Mautner Project, the National Lesbian Health Organization
Lara Deeb
Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, University of California-Irvine
Founding member, Radical Arab Women’s Activist Network
Board member, National Council of Arab Americans Defense of Civil Rights Committee
Joseph N. DeFilippis *
Executive Director, Queers for Economic Justice
Former Director, SAGE/Queens
Joanne DeMark
Queer Progressive Agenda
John D’Emilio
Professor of Gender Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
Founding Director, The Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Co-Editor, Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy and Civil Rights
Bella DePaulo
Author, Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After
Lisa Dettmer
Producer, Women’s Magazine KPFA Radio
Caroyln Dinshaw
Founder, The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
Professor of English and Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University
Founding Co-Editor, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Bill Dobbs
Betty Dodson, PhD
Sexologist
Author, Sex for One and Orgasms for Two
Heidi Dorow
Activist
Marta Drury
Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, 1000 Women for Peace, 2005
Martin Duberman
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, City University of New York
Founder, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY
Author, Stonewall
Aine Duggan
Vice-President, Food Bank for New York City
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Lisa Duggan *
Professor and Director of American Studies, New York University
Author, The End of Marriage: The War Over the Future of State Sponsored Love (forthcoming)
Barbara Ehrenreich
Contributing Writer, New York Times, Harpers, The Progressive and Time Magazine
Author, Bait and Switch and Nickel and Dimed
Ruth Eisenberg
Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg LLP
Rev. Marvin M. Ellison
Willard S. Bass Professor of Christian Ethics, Bangor Theological Seminary
Author, Same-Sex Marriage? A Christian Ehtical Analysis
Annie Ellman
Co-founder and former Executive Director, Center for Anti-Violence Education
David L. Eng
Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University
Jeffrey Escoffier
Writer/Editor
Author, Sexual Revolution and American Homo: Community and Perversity
Kenyon Farrow *
Co-Editor, Letters from Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out
Author, “Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?”
Anne Fausto-Sterling
Professor of Biology and Gender Studies in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Brown University
Author, Sexing the Body
Barbara Fedders
Harvard Law School Criminal Justice Institute
Leslie Feinberg
Co-Chair, LGBT Caucus of National Writers Union/UAW Author, Stone Butch Blues
Chai Feldblum
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Roderick Ferguson
Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota
Author, Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique
Martha Albertson Fineman
Robert W. Woodruff Professor, Emory University - School of Law
Author, The Autonomy Myth: A Theory of Dependency
Jordan Flaherty
Editor, Left Turn Magazine
Laura Flanders
Host, AirAmerica Radio
James R. Fleckenstein
President, Institute for 21st Century Relationships
Charles Flowers
Executive Director, Lambda Literary Foundation
Katherine M. Franke
Professor of Law, Columbia University in the City of New York
Joyful Freeman
Director, GLTBQ Youth Program (Seattle), American Friends Service Committee
Monroe France
Educational Training Manager, GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Susana T. Fried
Independent Consultant on Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights
Former Program Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
Stephen Eagle Funk
Regional Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War
Coco Fusco
Associate Professor, Columbia University in the City of New York
Marcia Gallo
Activist
Author, Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement
Assistant Professor, Lehman College
Robert Galloway
Pastor, MCC Knoxville, Tennessee
Félix E. Gardón
Actor /Activist
Co-chair Queer for Economic Justice
Abigail Garner
Author, Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is
Stephen A. Glassman
Chairperson, Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission
Deepali Gokhale
Founder, Queer Progressive Agenda
David Goldberg
Professor and Director, Humanities Research Institute, University of California-Irvine
Author, The Racial State
Tami Gold
Filmmaker/Activist
Professor, Hunter College CUNY
Richard Gollance
Los Angeles, CA
Letitia Gomez
Gayatri Gopinath
Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, University of California-Davis
Author, Impossible Desires: Queer Diaspora and South Asian Public Cultures
Cynthia Greenberg
Activist, Consultant
Co-Chair, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice
Former Director, Jewish Social Justice Network
Nicky Grist
Executive Director, The Alternatives to Marriage Project
Catherine Gund
filmmaker / writer / activist
Alexei Guren
Program Director, Bi Men’s Conference
Past President and Advisory Board, BiNet USA
General Manager, Bisexual.org & BiMagazine.org
Ellen Gurzinsky *
Educator/Activist
Former Executive Director, The Funding Exchange
Manolo Guzman
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Marymount Manhattan College
Author: Gay Hegemony/Latino Homosexualities
Judith Halberstam
Professor of English, University of Southern California
Director, Center for Feminist Research at USC
Author, Female Masculinity
Eileen Hansen
Catherine Hanssens
Executive Director, The Center for HIV Law and Policy
Jean Hardisty
Consultant
Author, Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers
Kenneth R. Haslam MD
Founding member, Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness
Board Member, Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities
Adam Haslett
Writer
Mary Haviland
Former Co-Director, CONNECT, New York City
Kris Hayashi
Executive Director, Audre Lorde Project
Jesse Lokahi Heiwa
Queer People Of Color Action
Silvia Henriquez
Executive Director, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
Tobi Hill-Meyer
Trans Activist
Robert-John Hinojosa
Field Director, Fairness for all Families Campaign, South Carolina
President, Palmetto Umoja, SC
Co-Director, SONG, North Carolina
Ann Holder
Associate Professor of History, Pratt Institute
Amber Hollibaugh *
Senior Strategist, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Author, My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home
Linda Holtzman
Rabbi, Director of Practical Rabbinics at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
YK Hong
Founder/Lead Trainer, Freedom Trainers
Organizer, Writer, Artist
Susan Horowitz
Publisher, Pride Source Media Group, Between The Lines Newspaper
Mary E. Hunt
Catholic feminist theologian
Co-director, Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual
Nan Hunter
Professor, Brooklyn Law School
Co-Author, Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture
Loraine Hutchins *
Co-Editor, Bi Any Other Name
Advisory Board, BiNet USA
Abbie Illenberger
Assistant Political Director, UNITE HERE!
Jessi Lee Jackson
Director, Women and Prison Project
Beyondmedia Education
Patricia Jackson
Senior Outreach Coordinator, New Leaf Outreach to Elders
Lesbian Activist,
Board Member, San Francisco Gray Panthers
Janet Jakobsen
Director, Center for Research on Women, Barnard College
Co-Author, Love The Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Tolerance
Amira Jarmakani
Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, Georgia State University
Lillian Jiménez
Executive Director, Latino Educational Media Center
Darnell L. Johnson
Organizational Manager, Fairness Campaign
Co-chair, 2004 Kentucky “No on the Amendment” campaign
Founder/past President, Common Ground, University of Louisville
Rebecca O. Johnson
Writer/Activist
Ronald S. Johnson
Former Associate Executive Director, Gay Men’s Health Crisis
Kenneth T. Jones
Research, Community Activist
Board member, In The Life Atlanta
Lani Ka’ahumanu
Co-editor, Bi Any Other Name
Advisory Board, BiNet USA
Samantha & Azaan Kamau
Journalist, poets, photographers and Married Lesbian Couple
Caren Kaplan
Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Chair of the Cultural Studies Graduate Group
University of California-Davis
Co-Editor, Between Woman and Nation
Esther Kaplan
Author, With God on Their Side
Host, Beyond the Pale, WBAI
Morris B. Kaplan
Professor of Philosophy, Purchase College, State University of New York
Jonathan Ned Katz
Historian/Independent Scholar
Author, Gay American History
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
Author, The Issue is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and Resistance
Former Executive Director, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Bobbi Keppel
co-founder, Unitarian Universalists Bi Network
Hamid Khan
Executive Director, South Asian Network
Surina Khan *
Senior Program Officer, Women’s Foundation of California
Former Executive Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
David Kilmnick
Executive Director, Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth
Richard Kim *
Writer, The Nation
founding Board member, Queers for Economic Justice
Laura Kipnis
Professor of Radio-TV-Film, Northwestern University
Author, Against Love
John Klenert
Former National President, LEAGUE at AT&T
Board of Directors Member, Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund
Board of Directors Member, DC Vote
Cathy Knight
Executive Director, Church Within a Church Movement
Debra Kolodny
Editor, “Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith,”
Exec. Dir., ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
Cole Krawitz
Communications and Events Associate, Demos
Board of Advisors, National Center for Transgender Equality
Kitty Krupat
Associate Director, Joseph S. Murphy Center for Worker Education, City University of New York
Co-editor, Out at Work
Frances Kunreuther
Director, Building Movements Project
Former Executive Director, The Hetrick Martin Institute
Meaghan Lamarre
Chair, Board of Directors, Alternatives to Marriage Project
Malachi Larrabee-Garza
Advanced Political Education Coordinator, The School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
Board Member, Transgender and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP)
Deke Law
Arthur S. Leonard
Professor of Law, New York Law School
Asha Leong
Campaign Manager, South Carolina Equality Coalition
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun Magazine
National Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives
Ricci J. Levy
Executive Director, The Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Jenifer Levin
Author, Water Dancer and The Sea of Light
Reverend Jacqueline J. Lewis
Senior Minister in Charge, The Middle Collegiate Church, New York, NY
Yoseñio V. Lewis
Board of Directors, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Writer/Performance Artist
Phoenix Lindsey-Hall
Volunteer Coordinator, The Fairness Campaign, Louisville, KY
Susan Lob
Director, Voices of Women Organizing Project
Kerry Lobel *
Scott Long
Director, LGBT Rights Program, Human Rights Watch
Lisa Lowe
Professor of Literature, University of California-San Diego
Author, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics
Craig Lucas
Writer / Director
Samuel Lurie
Director, Transgender Awareness Training
Chris Lymbertos
Oakland, CA
Larry D. Lyons II
Scholar/Activist
Co-Founder, Rashawn Brazell Memorial Fund
Pat Maher
Co-Director, Haymarket’s People Fund
Martin Manalansan
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
Author, Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora
Rickke Mananzala
Campaign Coordinator, FIERCE!
William Mann
Writer and Historian
Beth Maples-Bays
East Tennessee Bureau Chief, Out and About Newspaper
Co-President, Greater Knoxville LGBTQ Leadership Council
Vice President, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Tennessee Nashville) Chapter
Armistead Maupin
Writer/Producer
Pam McMichael
Director, Highlander Research and Education Center
Founding Co-Director, Southerners on New Ground
Terrence McNally
Writer
Sunita Mehta
Executive Director, Funders Concerned About AIDS
Alice M. Miller, JD*
Ass’t Professor, Clinical Population and Family Health, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health
Marshall Miller
Co-Founder, The Alternatives to Marriage Project
Co-Author, Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living Together as an Unmarried Couple
Ryan Miller
Co-Director, Queer Students Alliance, The University of Texas at Austin
Gwendolyn Mink
Co-Coordinator, Women’s Committee of 100
Charles N. Clark Professor, Studies in Women and Gender, Smith College
Author, Welfare’s End
Donna Minkowitz
Journalist
Author, Ferocious Romance
Nasreen Mohamed
Writer & Activist, Minneapolis
Jeffrey Montgomery
Executive Director, Triangle Foundation
Board Member, Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Richard W. Morrison
Executive Editor, University of Minnesota Press
Anya Mukarji-Connolly
Activist / Attorney
Board of Directors, FIERCE!
José E Muñoz
Associate Professor and Chair of Performance Studies, New York University
Author, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics
Yasmin Nair
Activist, Educator
Member, CLIA (Chicago LGBTQ Immigrants Alliance)
Writer, Windy City Times
Scot Nakagawa
Grants and Program Director, Social Justice Fund Northwest
Mala Nagarajan
Trikone-NW, Washington State Marriage Equality Plaintiff
Holly Near
Singer/Activist
Patti Jo Newell
Deputy Director, Director of Public Policy, New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Joan Nestle
Lesbian Herstory Archives
Heba Nimr
Program Coordinator, Partnership for Immigrant Leadership and Action
Reverend Dr. Penny Nixon
Senior Minister, MCC San Francisco
Robin Nussbaum
Educator/Activist
Former Coordinator, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Queers for Justice Program
John O’Brien
President, Society for Education & the Arts, Los Angeles
Leading Stonewall Rebellion Participant
Founder of the Gay Liberation Front
Michelle O’Brien
Community Organizer, Gay Men’s Health Crisis
Doyin Ola
Welfare Organizer, Queers for Economic Justice
Working Group Member, TransJustice, a project of the Audre Lorde Project
Steering Committee, Uhuru-Wazobia, LGBT Africans
Ana Oliveira *
Executive Director, New York Women’s Foundation
Former Executive Director, Gay Men’s Health Crisis
Nancy Ordover
Author, American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism
Reverend Freeman L. Palmer, Minister
Congregational Life and Development, Middle Collegiate Church, New York, New York
Bruce Parker
Advocacy Coordinator, Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance
Secretary, Indiana Equality
Cori Schmanke Parrish *
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Cindy Patton
Professor of Sociology, Simon Fraser University
Author, The Invention of AIDS
Clarence Patton
Executive Director, The New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project
Gerry Gomez Pearlberg
Poet/Editor
Ann Pellegrini
Associate Professor of Performance Studies and Religious Studies, New York University
Co-Author, Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Tolerance
Denise Penn
Past President, BiNet USA
Board Member, The American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB)
Rosalind Petchesky
Distinguished Professor, Hunter College & the Graduate Center, City University of New York
Author, Abortion and Woman’s Choice
Suzanne Pharr *
Author, In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation and Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism
Former Director, Highlander Research and Education Center
Anne Phibbs
Systemwide Director of GLBT Programs, University of Minnesota
Judith Plaskow
Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College
co-author, Why We’re Not Getting Married
Nancy Polikoff *
Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law
Author, Valuing All Families (forthcoming, Beacon Press, 2007)
Elizabeth Povinelli
Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
Author, Empire of Love: Toward A Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy and Carnality
Achebe Betty Powell *
Activist / Educator
Consultant, Betty Powell Associates
Lisa Powell
Attorney and activist
Reverend Cecil Charles Prescod
Director, Public Voice for Peace and Equality Project, Love Makes A Family, Inc.
Jasbir Puar
Assistant Prof. of Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University
Christopher Punongbayan
Advocacy Director, Filipinos for Affirmative Action
Dr. Carol Queen
Founding Director, Center for Sex & Culture, San Francisco
Susan Raffo
Editor, Queerly Classed: Gay Men and Lesbians Write About Class
Chandan Reddy
Assistant Professor Department of English, University of Washington, Seattle
Eric O. Reece
Board member, Center for Artistic Revolution
Former Executiv Director, Arizona Equality Network
Betsy Reed
Executive Editor, The Nation
Reno
Performance Artist
Pat Reuss
Senior Policy Analyst, National Organization for Women (NOW)
Holly Richardson
Out Now
Ignacio Rivera *
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Founder of Poly Patao Productions / performance artist
Colin Robinson
Founder, Caribbean Pride
Former Executive Director, New York State Black Gay Network & Gay Men of African Descent
David Robinson
Associate Professor of English and Lesbian & Gay Studies, University of Arizona,
Author, Closeted Writing and Lesbian and Gay Literature
Ruthann Robson
Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law
Juana María Rodríguez
Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies, UC Davis
Author, Queer Latinidad
Loretta J. Ross
National Coordinator, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective
Rev. Nori Rost
Executive Director, Just Spirit: A Center for People of All Faiths
Kate Runyon
Program Director, American Friends Service Committee’s LGBT Issues Program & Faith Action Network
Ann Russo
Women’s and Gender Studies, DePaul University
Graciela Isabel Sánchez
Director, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center
Guido A. Sanchez
Director, Jersey City Connections / HudsonPride
Ronni Sanlo ED.D
Director, UCLA LGBT Center
Founding Chair, National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education
Andrea Batista Schlesinger
Executive Director, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy
Ann Schranz
Unitarian Universalist minister
Joan Wallach Scott
Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
Rinku Sen
Director of the New York Office, Applied Research Center
Publisher, ColorLines Magazine
Pedro Julio Serrano
Communications Coordinator, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
President, Puerto Rico Para Tod@s
Vice-Chair, National Latino Coalition for Justice
Member of Sigamos Adelante, effort to construct a new national Latina LGBT voice
Mark M. Sexton and W. Kirk Wallace
Svati P. Shah
Member, South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association
Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality,
New York University
Julie Shapiro
Associate Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law
Eveline Shen
Executive Director, Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice
Andrea Shipley
Your Family, Friends and Neighbors
Carl Siciliano
Founder/Executive Director, Ali Forney Center
Dara Silverman
Executive Director, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Sonja Sivesind
Development Coordinator, Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Kathy Skaggs
Writer
Anna Marie Smith
Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University
Author, Welfare Reform and Sexual Regulation (forthcoming)
Nadine Smith
Executive Director, Equality Florida
Shelby A. Smith
Associate Director, Southern Center for Human Rights
Rita Smith
Executive Director, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Sarah Sohn
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Former Legal Fellow, Immigration Equality
Alisa Solomon
Director, Arts & Culture MA, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University
Former Executive Director, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY
Dorian Solot
Co-Founder, Alternatives to Marriage Project
Co-Author, Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living
Together as an Unmarried Couple
Dean Spade
Founder, Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Judith Stacey
Professor of Sociology, New York University
Author, Brave New Families
Gloria Steinem
Founder and original publisher, Ms. Magazine
Jenn Steinfeld
Co-chair, Marriage Equality Rhode Island
Jessica Stern
Researcher, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program, Human Rights Watch
Board Member, Queers for Economic Justice
Jacquelyn Stevens
Associate Professor, Law and Society Program, University of California-Santa Barbara
Author, Reproducing the State
Julia Sudbury
Professor of Ethnic Studies, Mills College
Founding member, Critical Resistance
Author, Global Lockdown
Ashley Tellis
Beth Teper
Executive Director, COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere)
Jennifer Terry
Associate Professor and Director of Women’s Studies, University of California-Irvine
Author, American Obsession: Science, Medicine and Homosexuality in Modern Society
Kendall Thomas *
Activist
Nash Professor of Law, Columbia University in the City of New York
Juhu Thukral
Director, Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center
Judith Thurman
Writer
Bonnie Tinker
Executive Director, Love Makes a Family, Inc.
Jay Toole
Shelter Organizer, Queers for Economic Justice
Hazel Troost
Trans community activist, Minneapolis, MN
Barbara Turk
Former Executive Director, YWCA of Brooklyn
Judith E. Turkel
Turkel Forman & de la Vega LLP, New York
Rev. Paul M. Turner
Founding and Senior Pastor, Gentle Spirit Christian Church of Atlanta
Sharon Ullman
Associate Professor of History, Bryn Mawr College
Author, Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America
Jo VanEvery
Alternatives to Marriage Project
Paula Vogel
Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Literary Arts and Comparative Literature, Brown University
Playwright, How I Learned to Drive
Anita Wagner
Polyamory Educator and Sexual Freedom Activist
Director of Outreach, The Institute for 21st Century Relationships
KC Wagner,
Director of Workplace Issues, Cornell-ILR, NYC
Leonie Walker
Philanthropic Activist
Carla Wallace
Fairness Campaign Leadership Council, Louisville, Kentucky
Suzanna Walters
Chair of the Department of Gender Studies, Indiana University
Author, All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America
Michael Warner
Professor of English, Rutgers University
Author, The Trouble with Normal
Alisa Wellek
National Campaign & Advocacy Manager, LGBT Community Center
Blanche Wiesen Cook
Author, Eleanor Roosevelt, vols. I & II
Professor, John Jay College & the Graduate Center/CUNY
Denise Wells
Cornel West
Robin West
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Center of Law
Kay Whitlock *
Writer/Organizer
Former National Representative for LGBT Issues, The American Friends Service Committee
Robyn Wiegman
Professor and Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women’s Studies, Duke University
Author, American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender
Gigi Raven Wilbur
Former Board Member, BiNet USA
Maya Wiley
Executive Director, Center for Social Inclusion
Tara Wilkins
Executive Director, The Community of Welcoming Congregations
Penelope Williams
NE Regional Coordinator emeritus, BiNet USA
Co-organizer, People of Color Institutes, Creating Change
Andre A. Wilson
Organizer/Activist, Trans Health Advocate
Co-founder, Transforum of University of Michigan
Member, Pride At Work - Michigan
Joe Wilson
Program Officer for Human Rights, Public Welfare Foundation
Documentary Filmmaker, qWaves Productions
Ellen Willis
Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication
Director, Concentration in Cultural Reporting and Criticism, New York University
JoAnn Wypijewski
Columnist, Mother Jones
Independent Journalist
Jesi Yager
Artist/Activist
Former volunteer, 2004 Kentucky “No on the Amendment” Campaign
Former Director, National Coming Out Day Works on Shirt Project, Louisville, KY
Michael Yarbrough
Law School and Department of Sociology, Yale University
Luna M. Yasui
Policy Director, Chinese for Affirmative Action/Center for Asian American Advocacy
Miriam W. Yeung
Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
Diana Ming Yin
Communications Coordinator, Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice
Editor, Exoticize My Fist!
Kenji Yoshino,
Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Rebecca Young
Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, Barnard College
Karen Zelermyer
Executive Director, Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues
Beth Zemsky *
GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota
Former Co-Chair of the Board of Directors, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
______________________________________________________________________________
August 4, 2006 UPDATE:
BEYOND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE WAS ALSO SIGNED BY:
o All organizational affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.
o This list is updated as of Friday, August 4, 2006 – more updates to follow soon.
Imam Daayiee Abdullah
Islamic Legal Scholar and Moderator, Muslim Gay Men
Margie Adam
singer/songwriter
Glen Adams
Magon Delani Adams
Morgan D. Adams
Morgan Dustin Adams
Patricia K. Adams
Betty Adams
Shirley L. Addington
Jean Addyman
Christina H. Ahl
Saadia Aleem
Attorney and Activist
Olive M. Allen
Jon D. Allison, MD
Patricia P. Almert
Rebecca Alpert
Associate Professor of Religion and Women’s Studies, Temple University,
Author: Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition
Robert H. Ames
publisher and editor, Gotham: A Journal of the Gay Community (NYC),
gay and HIV/AIDS activist (NYC and San Diego)
Alice Anderson
Administrative Assistant, Visual Understanding in Education
David Anderson
Donald Anglin
Craig Apolinario
Bryan W. Arendt
Marc Arendt
Chicago, IL
Robert B. Arno
Joanne E. Arnoold
Maria Asaro
Julio R Asturias
Polly F. Attwood
William Audette
Steve Ault
Cathy Ayers
Paola Bacchetta
Fabian Baez
Heather C. Bailey
Ellen M Baird
Michael L. Baird
Victoria Baker
Darlene Baker-Arkansas
Kazembe Balagun
Jerry Ball
Richard Ballou
Jodi Barnes
Mark Daniel Barney
US Campus Greens Steering Committee Member
Angie Barnfield
Maiyim Baron
Hope Barrett
Vicky Barrios
Barusch
co-coordinator, Harvard Transgender Task Force;
former co-chair, Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters’ Alliance (BGLTSA)
Paula Basta
Elliott Femynye BatTzedek
writer, feminist activist, life-long marriage resister
Colleen Constance Beal
Julie A. Beck
Nathan Bell
Sunny C. Bell
M.E. Benefiel
Anna Benfield
Camill Benjamin
John L Bennett
Open-relationship activist and advocate
Natalie Bennett
John C. Beynon
Assistant Professor of English, California State University, Fresno
Henry Biar
Laura Bierema
Allan Bilsky
Kelly L. Binkley
Christopher Bird
Cecelia Bishop
Bridgette Bissonnette
LOUD Program Director, Pacific Center
Rooni Bissonnette
Mildred Blandisher
Jerry Blankenship
Richard A. Bloom
Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld
Assitant Professor, Multicultural and International Curriculum Studies, Deparment of Curriculum and Instructions, Iowa State University
Jonathan Boarman
Dallas, TX
Abigail Boggs
Drew Boles
Musician/Composer
Eileen Bolinsky
Kathryn Boodry
Julie Borden
Cynthia Bowen
Ryk Bowers
Jennifer P Boyd
Michael D. Bradford
Kimberly Brasher
Doris Breiner
Florida
Patrick S. Brennan
Tim Brewer
Dana M. Britton, PhD
Marie C Briz
Vanessa Brocato
Activist
Brian R. Brotman
Dan Brown
Jerry Brown
Kathryn L. Brown
Arkansas
Leslie Brown
Santa Monica, CA
Dennis Brumm
peak oil activist, original GLF member, Iowa State University
Rebecca M. Budner, MAT
Liz Budnitz
Dickson Bueno
Advertizing Creative
Brenda Buie
Mary Jane Buining
Rodger J. Buining
Hazel Bullard
Nelson Bullard
Mike Burgess
Elisabeth Burke
Cynthia Burnette
Ellen Burton
Raymond Buscemi, Psy.D
Judith Elaine Bush
Lynda Bustilloz
Pamela Wynne Butler
Bertha T. Butt
Amanda Buzzard
Dawn Cameron
Lorne J Cameron Jr
John H. Campbell
Robert Campbell
Mona Cardell
Troy Carlyle
Doug Carmichael
Michelle Carnes
Doctoral Student/Instructor, Dept of Anthropology, American University
Brian T. Carney
Lavender Productions
Dean Carrier
Christopher Carrington Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology & Program for Human Sexuality Studies
Keith Carson
Senior Adjunct Professor of History, Atlantic Cape Community College
Gail Carte
Katherine Warner Cartmell
John P. Casarino, MD
Colin Casey
Legislative Aide/Community Liaison, NYS Senator Thomas K. Duane
Jill H. Casid
Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, and Assistant Director of Visual Culture Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ruby Cervino
Pam Chamberlain
Research Analyst, Political Research Associates
Linda Chapman
Salome Chasnoff
Executive Director, Beyondmedia Education, Chicago, Filmmaker
Miabi Chatterji
PhD Candidate, American Studies, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University
Chelsea
Thomas Chen
PhD Student, Department of American Civilization, Brown University
Stuart Chen-Hayes
Associate Professor of Counselor Education/School and Family Counseling, Lehman College of the City University of New York, Bronx, Past-President, Counselors for Social Justice
Bob Chin
Cathy Christensen
Jennifer Adelia Chrysler
Patricia Church
John Clapp
Amy L Clark
Brian Charles Clark
Abigail Clarke
Ruby Clarkson
Clovis Click
Lucille Clifton
Dorris W. Cogar
Stephan Cohen
Yve Laris Cohen
Nicole Cohen
George Coleman
Mera L. Colling
Alan Collins
Steve Collins
Timothy Colman
Pablo Colon, DPM
Michael Cona
Nicole Conn
John C Conniff, Jr
Chloe Cooney
Mark Douglas Cooper
Ronak Corder
Buena Vista, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Rene Cordero
New Jersey
Margaux Cowden
PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature, University of California-Irvine
Karen Cowgill
Martha D. Craft
Laura Crepeau
Suzanne Cullers
Craig Cullinane
Tyler Curtain
Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Billy Curtis
Director, Gender Equity Resource Center, UC Berkeley
William Cyran
Linda Daigle
Kel S. Dalton
Meg Daly
Writer
Sylvia Dang
Tallie Ben Daniel
Queer Activist
Chris Daugherty
Dennis M. Davidson
Anthony Davis
James S. Davis
Larry L. Davis
Richwood, OH
Sandra L. Davis
Hercules, CA
Patty De Anda
Lynn DeAngelo
Ralph DeCoito
Eli DeHope
Megan Delaney
Mary Delgado
Mr & Mrs William (Shirley) Deniston
Kris Denny
Sandy Derstine
Jesus A. Diaz
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Kean University
Mr. & Mrs. Joesph DiBiase
Verneser Dickson-Frost
Paul Dillon
Co-coordinator, St. Olaf GLOW [Gay, Lesbian, or Whatever]
Joseph R. DiLorenzo
Christos Dimtsas
Carol DiSalvo
Richard Dittbenner
Professor, JD
Sue Doerfer, MSW, LISW
Executive Director, LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland
Lori Doise
Mark Doise
Cheryl Drye
Cindy Duffy
Tom Duffy
Elysia Duke
Rev. Vilius Rudra Dundzila, Ph.D., D.Min.
Associate Professor of Humanities, Truman College (City Colleges of Chicago
Seniunas, Lithuanian Ethnic Church Romuva,
Affiliated Minister, Unitarian Universalist Association
Lacey Dunham
Andy Duran
Bettigail Dyche
Wayne R. Dynes
Professor of Art History, Hunter College, emeritus
Tom Eamoe
Proud Heretic and Self-determination Advocate
Deborah M. Eckberg
Eilene Edwards
Leonard F. Elia III
activist
Victoria Stagg Elliott
Professor Brad Epps
Harvard University
Douglas Erickson
Sumru Erkut
Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist, Wellesley Centers for Women
George Eskew
Mirta Estrada
Jared Evans
David and Liz Ewing
Amy Fannon
Edward B. Farnham
Chicago, IL
Christina Renee Farris
Leslie Elizabeth Farris
Stephen Myers Farris
Stephen Wesley Farris
Veronica Ann Farris
Doug Faunt
Fred Fejes
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Roberta Fell
Rev. Holly A Feray
Danielle Morgan Feris
Community Organizer
Jessica Fields
Assistant Professor, Sociology, Research Associate, Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality, San Francisco State University
Sarah Finken
KC Regional Field Organizer, PROMO
Elliot Fishman
GLBT Community Leader, Columbus, Ohio
Lona Flanagan
Stuart Flavell
Brian A Fletcher
Mike Fliss
Durham, NC
Jennifer Flynn
Executive Director NYC AIDS Housing Newwork
David Forbes
David Forbes
Juanita U. Fordham
Dublin, GA
Emily Forman
artist, activist, Multiple Fronts
Ruby Fowler
Alison Fox
Tucker, GA
Ann Franckowiak
Diane Freeman
Marjorie Freeman
Jeff Furner
Lisa Furst
Allena Gabosch
Christianne A. Gadd
Rahul Krishna Gairola
Doctoral Candidate, English & Critical Theory, University of Washington, Seattle
Rahul Krishna Gairola
Doctoral Candidate in English & Critical Theory, University of Washington, Seattle
Joyce Galay
JoAnne S. Gallimore
Gregory Gallo
Joshua Gamson
Professor of Sociology, University of San Francisco
Ana Gan
Jerome Gangwer
Joan Gangwer
Albert E. Ganter
Jim Garbers
Jennifer Gardiner
Corey Gardner
Reverend John Garlington
Q Gaynor
Steven J. Gerike
Kalamazoo Alliance for Equality, Kalamazoo, MI
Donald Giancola
Ariel Gilbertson
Mr. Charles E. Gilkey Gilkey
Mrs. Sheila K. Gilkey
Voylene Gill
David R. Gillespie
Author
Susan Gilliland
Claudia Ginanni
Terri Ginsberg
Lesley Giovanelli
L. Michael Gipson
Writer/Activist/Youth Advocate
Clik/Pulse Magazines/BICC Youth Center Co-Founder
Danielle Glover
Gina Glover
Amanda C. Goad
Doug Goncz
Replikon Research
Marilyn Gonzalez
Jessica Goodkind
Fae Goodman
Fairness Campaign Leadership Council, Louisville, KY
Mal Gormley
Gary D. Gott
Manfred Gottschling
Becky Green
Evelyn Greer
D. Rae Greiner
Graduate student in English, UC Berkeley
D. Rae Greiner
Graduate Student in English, UC Berkeley
Rhonda Grizzell
Jet Grubaugh
Mark A Gruszka
Carol Guess
Associate Professor, English, Western Washington University,
author Femme’s Dictionary
Frank Guillen
Heather Gulino
Lauren Gutterman
Edwin Hackney
Emily Millay Haddad
Writer/Filmmaker/Activist
Circles of Fire Productions
Patricia Hale
Jane S. Haley
Louise Hall
Blane Halliday
Jenna Henry Hansen
Writer, Teacher, Feminist
James S. Hanson
Associate Professor of Religion, St. Olaf College
Julie N. Hanson
Oswego, IL
Rod and Linda Hanson
Patsy A. Hare
Tamara Harper
Barbara A. Harris
Erin Harris
Kyle Harris
Acquisitions Manager, Free Speech TV
Kyle Harris
Vivien Harrison
Julie E. Hartman
Graduate Student, Sociology, Michigan State University
Jean Hartzell
Vivian Hause
Loie Hayes
Lisa Hazirjian, Ph.D.
Kathryn Denman Heacock
Dwayne Heath
brandon e. heckman
Frank Heidt
Nancy Heiss
Melanie Henderson
Beverly Ruth Hendrix
Paul Hermes
Daisy Hernandez
Theresa E. Hernandez
Olga Herndon
Laura Hershey
Amie Hess
PhD Candidate, Sociology, NYU
Darby Hickey
Activist/Journalist
Program Coordinator, Different Avenues (Washington DC),
Steering Committee member, Best Practices Policy Project
Liz Highleyman
journalist and medical writer
Liz Highleyman
Independent journalist and medical writer
Erin Lynn Hill
Robert J. Hill
University of Georgia
Bryan Hoffman
Hugh Hogan
Executive Director, The North Star Fund
Mark Hogendobler
Natalie Holbrook
Program Associate, American Friends Service Committee Michigan Criminal Justice Program
Edward P. Holcombe III
David A. Holeman
Candace Hollick
Dale Hollick
Cora Ellen Holt
Dan Hope
Joanne Howard
Ray Hsu
Ricky A. Hubert
Bob Hudson
Jared Hudson
Steven Humes
Martheda Humphries
Brandon W. Humpries
Student, The Evergreen State College Olympia,WA
Frankie Hunt
Rachel M. Hurst
Louisville, KY
Adele Hutchins
Kevin Hutchins
T. Haller Jackson, IV
Vice-President, Lambda Law Alliance, Tulane University Law School
Trevor H. Jacques
Author, Sex Educator and Reseacher
David M. Jaffrey
Darrell K. James
David Janvion
Linne Jensen
Co-clerk, Cannon Valley Friends Meeting, Northfield, Minnesota
Joe Jervis
Writer, Activst, Blogger
Matt Johnson
Angela Johnson
Robert Kirk Johnston
Norman W. Jones
Assistant Professor of English, The Ohio State University
Randall Jones
T.J. Jourian
Christopher Judge
Holly K
Founder, HigherThings.com
Molly Kafka
Erica Kagan
Matt Kailey
Author, Just Add Hormones: An Insider’s Guide to the Transsexual Experience
Stephen Bonggyun Kang
Coordinating Committee Member, The Dari Project
Steering Committee Member, Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of New York
Sarah Kanouse
Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema and Photography, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Ronak Kapadia
Ph.D Candidate, Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU
Sara Kaplan
AVP
Zoe Kastl
Kara Keeling
Assitant Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Terry Keleher
Mendi Kellner
Marky Kelly
Wedding officiant, Portland, Oregon
Pira Kelly
Don Kelsey
Kathryn R. Kent
Associate Professor of English, Williams College,
author, Making Girls into Women: American Women’s Writing and the Rise of Lesbian Identity
David Kerlick
Seattle, WA
Geren and Misty Kessler
Cricket Keys
Malachy Kilbride
Activist, DC Anti-War Network/DAWN. Washington DC
Richard Kiner
Gregory S. Kino
Virginia Kircher
Ernest D. Knight
Louise W. Knight
Author, Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy
C.Isa Kocher
Debora Kodish
Director, Philadelphia Folklore Project
Cassandra M. Koenig
John Kominetz
Shari Koopmann
James R. Koury
Editor/Founder, Diversity Rules
Jonathan Krall, PhD
Mr and Mrs Russell Kramer
Tom Kramer
Mt Vernon, GA
Doris M. Krause
Paula M. Krebs
Professor of English, Wheaton College, Massachusetts
Joseph H. Kress
Nancy E. Krody
Charlie and Marilou Kruger
Paige Kruza
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
William D. Kueser
Catherine Marie Kuhn
Kimberley & Kristi Kupferman
Sandra J. Kurt
Local Activist, Akron, OH
Demie Kurz
Co-Direcotr, Women’s Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Janice Kushner
Jarnagin Kyle
Mark LaCore
Jessica LaFrank
Tamilyn LaFrank
Michael Lally
Patrice LaMariana
Psychoanalyst in Private Practice
Sandra Lambert
Barbara Lane
Winifred E. Lane
Joseph Lapsley
History Dept, University of Illinois at Chicago
Dr. John C. Laughton
Professor of Music, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Thomas Lavenir
James Madison University Assistant Director for International Student and Scholar Services and Safe Zone Coordinator
Scott James Lawrence
Norma Lazar
Kimberly A. Lazrine
Andrew H. Lee
NYU
Joseph Lee
Madesta Leonard
William Leonard
Alan Lessik
Regional Director, American Friends Service Committee, San Francisco
Alita Letwin
Leon Letwin
Philip Levin
Cynthia Lewin
Dave Lewis
Rae Lewis
Jacqueline Lindo
Suzanne Liska
becca listermann-hammond
Julian Liu
Timothy B. Lloyd
Aerospace Engineer
Gary Lodato
Liz Loeb
Board of Directors, MIX Festival; Activist / Attorney / Grad Student
Richard A. Loftus, MD
Emilia Lombardi
Asst. Professor, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh
Jeanne Long
Amita Lonial
Judith Lorber
Professor Emerita, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center, City University of New York
Author, Paradoxes of Gender and Breaking the Bowls: Degendering and Feminist Change
Vivica L Loubriel
Alfredo Louro
Heather Love
Assistant Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania
Kaywood Loving
Steven Loyd
Dennis R Lucht
Dana Luciano
Assistant Professor of English, Georgetown University
Susan Luisi
Jerry Luna
Gordon Lundskow
Liam Rand mac Lynne
Donna Jo Mallinson
Laura Mamo
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland
Louise Marchena, LMSW
Director of Youth Programs, Planned Parenthood of New York City
Owen Marciano
Activist
Paul Marcus
Executive Director, Community Change, Inc., Bonston, MA
James K. Marko
Consultant
former Development Director Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders
Lissette Marrero, MSW
Aaron Marshall
Joseph Marshall III
Katy Martin
student, writer
Theresa A. Martinosky
Barbara S. Martz
Michelle A. Marzullo, MA
PhD student & Point Scholar, Anthropology and American Studies Department, American University, Washington, DC
Amy Mashberg
Librarian
Patrick Masterson
Executive Director, National Organizers Alliance
Barbara Mitchell Mauk
Rev. Dr. Fran Mayes
Dean Mazza
William E. McBain
Sister Jean McBride
Lisa McCarthy
Richard McCarthy
Jamie McClelland
Co-Director May First/People Link
Mary McClintock
Better-Me-Than-You Research & Editorial Services
Melissa McCloud
Patrick McCreery
NYU
David V. McCulloch
Marjorie M. McCulloch RN
Todd McDaniel
Connie McEntire
Alvin McEwen
Co-Founder and Secretary, Palmetto Umoja
Renee McGarry
Graduate Student, Art History, CUNY Graduate Center
Reverend Townley B. McGiffert, Jr.
Doris A H McGinnis
Louis W. Mchardy, Sr.
Robert Rankin McKee
Donn L. McKinney
Joyce McKinney
Rev. Melinda V. McLain
United Church of Christ pastor, San Francisco
Paul McPherson
Tey Meadow
JD, New York University, Department of Sociology
Tommi Avicolli Mecca
Longtime southern italian radical working-class queer performer, writer and activist living in San Francisco
Alan Medina
Davia Rakkel Medows
John McLaughlin Meehan
Mark Meinke
Vered Meir
Joan S.M. Meyers
San Francisco, CA
Jo-anne Meyers
Dennis Milam
Houston, Texas
Harlan HE. & Joan M. Mills
Glen Mimura
Associate Professor of Film & Media Studies, University of California, Irvine,
Author, Ghostlife of Third Cinema
Framji Minwalla
Dylan Mira
Program Director, Beyondmedia Education
Pat Mitchelson
Rev. Apostle Darryl! L.C. Moch
Liz Montegary
Tamara L. Moon-James
Corrie Moore
James Moore
Joy Moore
Dr. & Mrs. Elton L. Moose
Megan Morehouse
Richard Morell
Jean Moreno
Milton A. Morey
Patricia L. Morey
Alex Morgan
Nashville, Tn
Freda Morgan
Terri Morgan
Tucker, GA
Carol Morotti-Meeker, MS, MSLP
Advisory Board Member, Institute for 21st Century Relationships
James P. Morris
Danielle A. Moseley
Gwyn Moser
Leann Moyer
Jacqulyn Mulvey
C Edwin Murphey
Evelyn W. Murphey
Robert Musgrave
JoAnne Myers Ph.D.
Afsaneh Najmabadi
Professor of History and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University
Pablo Pérez Navarro
George and Mary Nelson
Mary Nestor
Huong Ngo
Artist
Mimi Thi Nguyen
Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Dorothy & Terry Nichols
Judith Nichols
Writer, Activist, Teacher at Vassar college
Noel Nickle
Sandra Nierste
Jeanette Norman
Polyamorous, bi-sexual Pagan
Joy North
Aaron Norton
Graduate Student, Psychology, UCDavis
Linda Novak
Peter J Novak
Joseph Nutini
Social worker, Out Trans Activist, educator and advocate
Amy-Quai Nystrom
AVP
Pat O’Connor
Thomas R. Offord
Eli Ellis Ogburn
Rev. Marcia Olsen
Unitarian Universalist minister
Ryan A. Olson
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Ellen Orleans
Author and LGBT Advocate
Bob O’Shields
Wayne Otero
Sarah Ottinger
Christina D. Owens
Mr and Mrs David Owens
Jessica Pabón, M.A.
Robert A. Padgug
Maryann Padilla
Gina Paglis
Full-time Student
Bob Paine
Thomas C. Pang
Josefina Paredes
Father Richard Parker
Florida
Randall Parker
C.J. Pascoe
Digital Youth Project
Jenni Paul
T. Brice Pearce
Richard Pender
Conde J. Peoples
Bill Perdue
RainbowRED Organization
Gerard M. Perez
Faustina M. Pernas
Floyd Peters
Spike Peterson
Professor, U Arizona
Mrs. Cindy A. Phililps
“Daddy Bear” David Phillips
Robert Lee Pickens
Ashlan Pike
Tina Pittman
Carol Plamann
California
Stephanie C. Pope
Tonia Poteat
Tom Potter
Socialist Alternative
Ken Prag
Thomas Prokop
Cathy Pruner
Christopher William Purdom
Amy Quark
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Peter Quesnel
Library Media Specialist, Community Activist, HIV Prevention Outreach Worker
Kathleen Quinn
Donna Quinn
National Coalition of American Nuns
Dan Raley
Aaron Ranney
Community Regional Planning
Kate Raphael
LAGAI-Queer Insurrection
Jane Ann Rastatter
Virginia Ravenscroft-Scott
Desmond Ravenstone
325 Huntington Avenue #108, Boston MA 02115
Raymond Rea
Producer/ Director, Cinema Dept, San Francisco State University
Kristine Reed
Matt Reed
Theresa “Darklady” Reed
Frederick L. Reinig
Janet H. Reinig
Greg Resnick
Jesse L. Rester
College Station, Texas
Arlene L Reynolds
Gary Gordon Reynolds
Jen Rhee
John Paul Ricco
Professor of Contemporary Art and Critical Theory, University of Toronto,
Author: The Logic of the Lure
Leonard Gary Rice
Joseph M. Richard
Rev. Reg C. Richburg, LMSW
Austin and Janice Richmond
Isabel and Paul Richter
Jason Riggs
Sarah Rigsbee
Tim Roach
Assistant Professor of English and Cultural Studies, Bryant University
Lois and William Roark
Frank León Roberts
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Performance Studies, New York University
C Lyndsey Robinson
Janis Robson
Carolyn Rockwell
Charles Rodgers
Deborah S. Rodgers
Bridget Rodriguez
Richard T. Rodriguez
Assistant Professor, Department of English and Latina/Latino Studies Program University of Ilinois, Urbana-Champaign
Joseph Rodriquez
Danee G. Roedl
Eric M. Roesch
J. Rogue
Adam Romero
Yale Law School
Don Romesburg
Adjunct Professor of History and Women/Gender Studies, Sonoma State University
Board Member, GLBT Historical Society; Co-Founder, And Castro For All
Randi Romo
Co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Artistic Revolution, CAR Little Rock, AR
Mickey Rooney
Liz Rosenfeld
Filmmaker, MA Student in Performance Studies at NYU
Karen Rosenthal
Andrew Ross
Professor of American Studies in the Department of Social and Culturla Analysis
Director, Metropolitan Studies Program, New York University
Rudy Rottler
Emory Rundle
Gary Russell
Dale Karen Russo
Russ Ruszkowski
Michael Rybicki
George T. Ryerson, Sr
James A Rynders
Lynn Sacco
Assistant Professor of History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Jane M Saks
Executive Director, Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago
Stephanie Sakson
Leela Sami
Jeff Sanders
Vivien Sandlund
Historian, Chair, Social Justice Committee, Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent, Ohio
Jeffrey Sandy
Sarah Sawyer
Marshel Sayres
Daniel Schaffer
State Committee Member, New York State Green Party
Terry Schleder
Organizer, activist, social epidemiologist
Bernie Schlotfeldt
MSW
Susan Schmeiser
Associate Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of Law
Jacquie Schott
Jana Schroeder
Glenda Schuff
Jennifer Schultz
Helen Jean Schwartz
Matthew L. Schwartz
Student, University at Buffalo, Dept of Linguistics & Arabic International Studies
Susan A. Schwartz
Elizabeth F. Schwartz
attorney and activist
Erin Schwiderson
Bart Scivally
Victoria Scolini
DL Scott
Elias Scultori
Music Director/Graphic Artist
Carolyn Sears
Maria Sears
Karla Berrett Sedillo
Director, Safety Net Mentor Program
Darrell Seeger
Sean Sellers
Student/Farmworker Alliance
Paula A. Semones
Jeffersonville, IN
Kristina A. Semos
Opera Singer
Financial Analyst, Christopher Street Financial
Victoria Shannon
Debra Shapiro, MD
Donald K. Sharpe
Mandy Sharplin
Raymond Shelby
Micah Sheppard
Dixie Sheridan
Deanie Sherin
Patricia Shine
Assistant Professor of Human Services, Lyndon State College, VT
Steven D. Shoup
Laurie Shrage
Professor, Philosophy and Ethnic and Women’s Studies Departments, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Author, Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate and Moral Dilemmas of Feminism: Prostitution, Adultery, and Abortion
Emily Silverstein
Ellen Simons
Jerry Sisler
Jan Skidmore
Reverend Holley B. Slauson, II
Gynelle Slayton
Courtney Smith
Donna Jo Smith
Lawanda Smith
Shara Smith
Entertainment technician, polyamory activist
Tommy Smith
Ben Snell
Mark D. Snyder
Founder, QueerToday.com
Scott L. Snyder
Naomi Sobel
Nicole Witte Solomon
Brooklyn, NY
Royce Sormrude
Joseph Jay Sosa
Research Coordinator, Center for Health Behavior and Communication Research, University of Pennsylvania
Meema Spadola
Queerspawn, Documentary Filmmaker
Dolly Spalding
Arnold Sparks
Helen Sparks
T.E. Sparks
Albert Stabler
J. Stancil
Jim Stangarone
Buena Vista, Baja California Sur, Mexico
W. Janelle Statzer
Rabbi Jacob Staub
Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
Barbara Steel
Nicole M. Stefko
Jerry Steinman
Chares & Alice Stephens
Robin Stephens, Esq.
disability rights activist, queer liberationist
Aimee Sterk
Kay A. Sterner
Web Editor, RIVET
Mary StLouis
Carolyn Stockland
Rick J. Storer
Executive Director, Leather Archives & Museum
John R Strong
Becka Stroud-White
Watty Strouss
Robert Stubbs
Betty L. Sullivan
Founder, Betty’s List
Chris Sullivan
New Jersey
Patricia Sullivan RN, MSN
Edwin E. Suman, Jr
Aleza Summit
Toni Sumner-Beebe
Judith Surkis
Associate Professor of History and History and Literature, Harvard University
Author, Sexing the Citizen
Brian Swanson
Donna Allen Swartz
Adam Szymkowicz
Sarah Elizabeth Tackett
Jamie Tam
Julie Taylor
Melanie Teague
Joshua Teitelbaum
Benjamin Thompson
Caroline Tice
Robert Tobin
Professor of German and Chair of the Humanities, Whitman College
Lea Rivera Todaro
Marguerite Tompkins
Karen Tongson
Assistant Professor of English and Gender Studies, University of Southern California
Nichola Torbett
National Organizer, Network of Spiritual Progressives
Jamie Trachtenberg
LMSW
Rebecca Trinite
Sherrie Tucker
Rosanna E. Tufts-Prothro
Opera Singer and Composer
Todd Turley
Main Street Realtors, Long Beach, CA
Rachel Twardowski
John S. Ullman
David Underwood
Matthew Vail
Nicholas Valentino
Jim Van Buskirk
Lila Van Ravenswaay
Ruth Vandenack
Judith L. and Terry L. Vandyke
Magdalena Vanya
Frederick E. Vaughn
Lee Vaughn
Rita Verga
Staff Counsel, PSEA
David Vespoli
Jackie Vimo
Activist
New School for Social Research, Political Science Department
James Keith Vincent
Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies, New York University
Gary Virginia
HIV/AIDS & LGBT Civil Rights Fundraiser & Activist, San Francisco, CA,
Past President, Positive Resource Center, SF CA
Former Member, SF Human Rights Commission LGBT Advisory Committee
Mark Vogel
Margaret M. Vollmer
Massachusetts
Carolyn S. Wade
Glenn Wade
Saba Waheed
Writer/Activist/Researcher
DataCenter, South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection (SAMAR)
Cynthia Walker
Jackie Walker
Howard Wallace
Union/Community Organizer, San Francisco,
Co-Founder, Pride at Work
Vice-President, San Francisco Labor Council
Robert C. Wallis Jr.
Nancy Walsh
Doug Walters
Virginia Walton
Thomas C. Waters
Jennifer L. Wattam
Nancy Wechsler
David Weimer
Erica Weinstein
Alex Weissman
Elisa M. Welch
Nancy and Lawrence West
Toph West
Dennis and Karen Westover
Jess White
Judith A. White
Kathryn J. White
P.A. White
Gwendolyn Whitis
Duane Williams
James Williams
Scott Williams
C. Roy Wilson
Wilbur and Betty Winchester
Shannon Winnubst
Professor of Philosophy, Southwestern University
Lila Winter
Lawrence Wintercom
Scott Winters
Mary Wior
Judith Wittner
Professor, Department of Sociology, Loyola University
Leanna Wolfe, Ph.D.
David Wolkin
Education Coordinator, Storahtelling: Jewish Ritual Theater Revived
Shin-Ming Wong
Elizabeth Anne Wood
LauraLee Woodruff
Terri Worman
John W. Worsham
Ariel Wortzman
Lawana Wright
Patricia Sue Wright
Bo Young
White Crane Journal
Joe and Janie Young
Linda Young
Norma Young
Saphronia R. Young
Mary Jane Zanelli
P. Zapp
Elaine Zaske
Michele Zavos
Julia Zay
Artist and Educator, Faculty, The Evergreen State College
Susan Zimmerman
Stephen C. Zollman, Esq
San Francisco, CA
Bettykay
Poly Potluck, Seattle
Chias
Polyamorous Percolations
Beyond Marriage: Full Statement
|
BEYOND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE July 26, 2006 We, the undersigned – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and allied activists, scholars, educators, writers, artists, lawyers, journalists, and community organizers – seek to offer friends and colleagues everywhere a new vision for securing governmental and private institutional recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships, households, kinship relationships and families. In so doing, we hope to move beyond the narrow confines of marriage politics as they exist in the United States today. We seek access to a flexible set of economic benefits and options regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender/gender identity, class, or citizenship status. We reflect and honor the diverse ways in which people find and practice love, form relationships, create communities and networks of caring and support, establish households, bring families into being, and build innovative structures to support and sustain community. In offering this vision, we declare ourselves to be part of an interdependent, global community. We stand with people of every racial, gender and sexual identity, in the United States and throughout the world, who are working day-to-day – often in harsh political and economic circumstances – to resist the structural violence of poverty, racism, misogyny, war, and repression, and to build an unshakeable foundation of social and economic justice for all, from which authentic peace and recognition of global human rights can at long last emerge. Why the LGBT Movement Needs a New Strategic Vision Household & Family Diversity is Already the Norm The struggle for same-sex marriage rights is only one part of a larger effort to strengthen the security and stability of diverse households and families. LGBT communities have ample reason to recognize that families and relationships know no borders and will never slot narrowly into a single existing template. All families, relationships, and households struggling for stability and economic security will be helped by separating basic forms of legal and economic recognition from the requirement of marital and conjugal relationship. U.S. Census findings tell us that a majority of people, whatever their sexual and gender identities, do not live in traditional nuclear families. Recognizing the diverse households that already are the norm in this country is simply a matter of expanding upon the various forms of legal recognition that already are available. The LGBT movement has played an instrumental role in creating and advocating for domestic partnerships, second parent adoptions, reciprocal beneficiary arrangements, joint tenancy/home-ownership contracts, health care proxies, powers of attorney, and other mechanisms that help provide stability and security for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual individuals and families. During the height of the AIDS epidemic, our communities formed support systems and constructed new kinds of families and partnerships in the face of devastating crisis and heartbreak. Both our communities and our HIV organizations recognized, respected, and fought for the rights of non-traditionally constructed families and non-conventional partnerships. Moreover, the transgender and bisexual movements, so often historically left behind or left out by the larger lesbian and gay movement, have powerfully challenged legal constructions of relationship and fought for social, legal, and economic recognition of partnerships, households, and families, which include members who shatter the narrow confines of gender conformity. To have our government define as “legitimate families” only those households with couples in conjugal relationships does a tremendous disservice to the many other ways in which people actually construct their families, kinship networks, households, and relationships. For example, who among us seriously will argue that the following kinds of households are less socially, economically, and spiritually worthy?
Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. While we honor those for whom marriage is the most meaningful personal – for some, also a deeply spiritual – choice, we believe that many other kinds of kinship relationship, households, and families must also be accorded recognition. An Increasing Number of Households & Families Face Economic Stress Our strategies must speak not only to the fears, but also the hopes, of millions of people in this country – LGBT people and others – who are justifiably afraid and anxious about their own economic futures. Poverty and economic hardship are widespread and increasing. Corporate greed, draconian tax cuts and breaks for the wealthy, and the increasing shift of public funds from human needs into militarism, policing, and prison construction are producing ever-greater wealth and income gaps between the rich and the poor, in this country and throughout the world. In the United States, more and more individuals and families (disproportionately people of color and single-parent families headed by women) are experiencing the violence of poverty. Millions of people are without health care, decent housing, or enough to eat. We believe an LGBT vision for the future ought to accurately reflect what is happening throughout this country. People are forming unique unions and relationships that allow them to survive and create the communities and partnerships that mirror their circumstances, needs, and hopes. While many in the LGBT community call for legal recognition of same-sex marriage, many others – heterosexual and/or LGBT – are shaping for themselves the relationships, unions, and informal kinship systems that validate and support their daily lives, the lives they are actually living, regardless of what direction the current ideological winds might be blowing. The Right’s “Marriage Movement” is Much Broader than Same-Sex Marriage LGBT movement strategies must be sufficiently prophetic, visionary, creative, and practical to counter the right’s powerful and effective use of “wedge” politics – the strategic marketing of fear and resentment that pits one group against another. Right-wing strategists do not merely oppose same-sex marriage as a stand-alone issue. The entire legal framework of civil rights for all people is under assault by the Right, coded not only in terms of sexuality, but also in terms of race, gender, class, and citizenship status. The Right’s anti-LGBT position is only a small part of a much broader conservative agenda of coercive, patriarchal marriage promotion that plays out in any number of civic arenas in a variety of ways – all of which disproportionately impact poor, immigrant, and people-of-color communities. The purpose is not only to enforce narrow, heterosexist definitions of marriage and coerce conformity, but also to slash to the bone governmental funding for a wide array of family programs, including childcare, healthcare and reproductive services, and nutrition, and transfer responsibility for financial survival to families themselves. Moreover, as we all know, the Right has successfully embedded “stealth” language into many anti-LGBT marriage amendments and initiatives, creating a framework for dismantling domestic partner benefit plans and other forms of household recognition (for queers and heterosexual people alike). Movement resources are drained by defensive struggles to address the Right’s issue-by-issue assaults. Our strategies must engage these issues head-on, for the long term, from a position of vision and strength. “Yes!” to Caring Civil Society and “No!” to the Right’s Push for Privatization Winning marriage equality in order to access our partners’ benefits makes little sense if the benefits that we seek are being shredded. At the same time same-sex marriage advocates promote marriage equality as a way for same-sex couples and their families to secure Social Security survivor and other marriage-related benefits, the Right has mounted a long-term strategic battle to dismantle all public service and benefit programs and civic values that were established beginning in the 1930s, initially as a response to widening poverty and the Great Depression. The push to privatize Social Security and many other human needs benefits, programs, and resources that serve as lifelines for many, married or not, is at the center of this attack. In fact, all but the most privileged households and families are in jeopardy as a result of a wholesale right-wing assault on funding for human needs, including Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, HIV-AIDS research and treatment, public education, affordable housing, and more. This bad news is further complicated by a segment of LGBT movement strategy that focuses on same-sex marriage as a stand-alone issue. Should this strategy succeed, many individuals and households in LGBT communities will be unable to access benefits and support opportunities that they need because those benefits will only be available through marriage, if they remain available at all. Many transgender, gender queer, and other gender-nonconforming people will be especially vulnerable, as will seniors. For example, an estimated 70-80% of LGBT elders live as single people, yet they need many of the health care, disability, and survivorship benefits now provided through partnerships only when the partners are legally married. Rather than focus on same-sex marriage rights as the only strategy, we believe the LGBT movement should reinforce the idea that marriage should be one of many avenues through which households, families, partners, and kinship relationships can gain access to the support of a caring civil society. The Longing for Community and Connectedness We believe LGBT movement strategies must not only democratize recognition and benefits but also speak to the widespread hunger for authentic and just community. So many people in our society and throughout the world long for a sense of caring community and connectedness, and for the ability to have a decent standard of living and pursue meaningful lives free from the threat of violence and intimidation. We seek to create a movement that addresses this longing. So many of us long for communities in which there is systemic affirmation, valuing, and nurturing of difference, and in which conformity to a narrow and restricting vision is never demanded as the price of admission to caring civil society. Our vision is the creation of communities in which we are encouraged to explore the widest range of non-exploitive, non-abusive possibilities in love, gender, desire and sex – and in the creation of new forms of constructed families without fear that this searching will potentially forfeit for us our right to be honored and valued within our communities and in the wider world. Many of us, too, across all identities, yearn for an end to repressive attempts to control our personal lives. For LGBT and queer communities, this longing has special significance. We who have signed this statement believe it is essential to work for the creation of public arenas and spaces in which we are free to embrace all of who we are, repudiate the right-wing demonizing of LGBT sexuality and assaults upon queer culture, openly engage issues of desire and longing, and affirm, in the context of caring community, the complexities and richness of gender and sexual diversity. However we choose to live, there must be a legitimate place for us. The Principles at the Heart of Our Vision We, the undersigned, suggest that strategies rooted in the following principles are urgently needed:
We must ensure that our strategies do not help create or strengthen the legal framework for gutting domestic partnerships (LGBT and heterosexual) for those who prefer this or another option to marriage, reciprocal beneficiary agreements, and more. LGBT movement strategies must never secure privilege for some while at the same time foreclosing options for many. Our strategies should expand the current terms of debate, not reinforce them. A Winnable Strategy No movement thrives without the critical capacity to imagine what is possible. Our call for an inclusive new civic commitment to the recognition and well-being of diverse households and families is neither utopian nor unrealistic. To those who argue that marriage equality must take strategic precedence over the need for relationship recognition for other kinds of partnerships, households, and families, we note that same-sex marriage (or close approximations thereof) were approved in Canada and other countries only after civic commitments to universal or widely available healthcare and other such benefits. In addition, in the United States, a strategy that links same-sex partner rights with a broader vision is beginning to influence some statewide campaigns to defeat same-sex marriage initiatives. A Vision for All Our Families and Relationships is Already Inspiring Positive Change We offer a few examples of the ways in which an inclusive vision, such as we propose, can promote practical, progressive change and open up new opportunities for strategic bridge-building. Canada Canada has taken significant steps in recent years toward legally recognizing the equal value of the ways in which people construct their families and relationships that fulfill critical social functions (such as parenting, assumption of economic support, provision of support for aging and infirm persons, and more).
Arizona The Arizona Together Coalition (www.aztogether.org) is currently running a broad, multi-constituency campaign that emphasizes how the proposed constitutional amendment to “protect marriage” will affect not just same-sex couples but also seniors, survivors of domestic violence, unmarried heterosexual couples, adopted children and the business community. The Arizona Coalition highlights the probability that the amendment will eliminate domestic partnership recognition, by both government and businesses. They also point out that DOMA supporters are the same forces that wanted to keep cohabitation a crime. As a result of the Coalition’s efforts, support for the constitutional amendment declined sharply in polls (from 49% to 33%) in the course of a few months (May 2005 - September 2005). Accordingly, should the amendment make it onto the November 2006 ballot, Arizona is poised to become the first state to reject a state anti-gay constitutional marriage amendment in the voting booth. We suggest that the LGBT movement pay close attention to the way that activists in Arizona frame their campaign to be about protecting a variety of different family arrangements. South Carolina The South Carolina Equality Coalition (www.scequality.org) is fighting a proposed constitutional amendment with an organizing effort emphasizing “Fairness for All Families.” This coalition is not only focused on LGBT-headed families, but is also intentionally building relationships with a broad multi-constituency base of immigrant communities, elders, survivors of domestic violence, unmarried heterosexual couples, adopted children, families of prisoners, and more. As we write this statement, the Coalition’s efforts to work in this broader way are being further strengthened by emphasis on the message that “Families have no borders. We all belong.” Utah In September 2005, Salt Lake City Mayor Ross Anderson signed an Executive Order enabling city employees to obtain health insurance benefits for their “domestic partners.” A few months later, trumping the executive order, the Salt Lake City Council enacted an ordinance allowing city employees to identify an “adult designee” who would be entitled to health insurance benefits in conjunction with the benefits provided to the employee. The requirements included living with the employee for more than a year, being at least 18 years old, and being economically dependent or interdependent. Benefits extend to children of the adult designee as well. While an employee’s same-sex or opposite-sex partner could qualify, this definition is broad enough to encompass many other household configurations. The ordinance has survived both a veto by the Mayor (who wanted to provide benefits only to “spousal like” relationships) and a lawsuit launched by anti-gay groups. The judge who ruled in the lawsuit wrote that “single employees may have relationships outside of marriage, whether motivated by family feeling, emotional attachment or practical considerations, which draw on their resources to provide the necessaries of life, including health care.” We advocate close attention to such efforts to provide material support for the widest possible range of household formations. We offer these four examples to show that there are ways of moving forward with a strategic vision that is broader than same-sex marriage, and encompassing of all our families and relationships. Different regions of our country will require different strategies, but we can, and must, keep central to our work the idea that all family forms must be protected – not just because it is the right thing to do, but also because it is the strategic and winnable way to move forward. A Bold, New Vision Will Speak to Many Who are Not Already With Us At a time when an ethos of narrow self-interest and exclusion of difference is ascendant, and when the Right asserts a scarcity of human rights and social and economic goods, this new vision holds long-term potential for creating powerful and vibrant new relationships, coalitions, and alliances across constituencies – communities of color, immigrant communities, LGBT and queer communities, senior citizens, single-parent families, the working poor, and more –hit hard by the greed and inhumanity of the Right’s economic and political agendas. At a time when the conservative movement is generating an agenda of fear, retrenchment, and opposition to the very idea of a caring society, we need to claim the deepest possibilities for interdependent social relationships and human expression. We must dare to dream the world that we need, the world that has room for us all, even as we also do the painstaking work of crafting the practical strategies that will address the realities of our daily lives. The LGBT movement has a history of being diligent and creative in protecting our families. Now, more than ever, is the time to continue to find new ways of defending all our families, and to fight to make same-sex marriage just one option on a menu of choices that people have about the way they construct their lives. We invite friends everywhere to join us in ensuring that there is room, recognition, and practical support for us all, as we dream together a new future where all people will truly be free. |
Beyond Marriage: Executive Summary
Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships
Executive Summary (click here to read the full statement)
The time has come to re-frame the narrow terms of the marriage debate in the United States. Conservatives are seeking to enshrine discrimination in the U.S. Constitution through the Federal Marriage Amendment. But their opposition to same-sex marriage is only one part of a broader pro-marriage, “family values” agenda that includes abstinence-only sex education, stringent divorce laws, coercive marriage promotion policies directed toward women on welfare, and attacks on reproductive freedom. Moreover, a thirty-year political assault on the social safety net has left households with more burdens and constraints and fewer resources.
Meanwhile, the LGBT movement has recently focused on marriage equality as a stand-alone issue. While this strategy may secure rights and benefits for some LGBT families, it has left us isolated and vulnerable to a virulent backlash. We must respond to the full scope of the conservative marriage agenda by building alliances across issues and constituencies. Our strategies must be visionary, creative, and practical to counter the right’s powerful and effective use of marriage as a “wedge” issue that pits one group against another. The struggle for marriage rights should be part of a larger effort to strengthen the stability and security of diverse households and families. To that end, we advocate:
- Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families – regardless of kinship or conjugal status.
- Access for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs including but not limited to health care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance and welfare assistance.
- Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families.
- Freedom from state regulation of our sexual lives and gender choices, identities and expression.
Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. A majority of people – whatever their sexual and gender identities – do not live in traditional nuclear families. They stand to gain from alternative forms of household recognition beyond one-size-fits-all marriage. For example:
- Single parent households
- Senior citizens living together and serving as each other’s caregivers (think Golden Girls)
- Blended and extended families
- Children being raised in multiple households or by unmarried parents
- Adult children living with and caring for their parents
- Senior citizens who are the primary caregivers to their grandchildren or other relatives
- Close friends or siblings living in non-conjugal relationships and serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers
- Households in which there is more than one conjugal partner
- Care-giving relationships that provide support to those living with extended illness such as HIV/AIDS.
The current debate over marriage, same-sex and otherwise, ignores the needs and desires of so many in a nation where household diversity is the demographic norm. We seek to reframe this debate. Our call speaks to the widespread hunger for authentic and just community in ways that are both pragmatic and visionary. It follows in the best tradition of the progressive LGBT movement, which invented alternative legal statuses such as domestic partnership and reciprocal beneficiary. We seek to build on these historic accomplishments by continuing to diversify and democratize partnership and household recognition. We advocate the expansion of existing legal statuses, social services and benefits to support the needs of all our households.
We call on colleagues working in various social justice movements and campaigns to read the full-text of our statement “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision,” and to join us in our call for government support of all our households.
4/20: Stonewall & Beyond: Honoring 40 Years of Radical Queer Organizing
This summer marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary Stonewall Rebellion, a spark that helped launch four decades of queer radical movements — sex radicalism, lesbian feminism, and transgender liberation; anti-war, HIV/AIDS, economic and racial justice struggles; and more. Some LGBT activists would draw a straight line from the uprising against police violence then to mainly the campaign for marriage equality now — but we know there has been a diverse abundance of agendas & visions for queer & trans politics every step of the way.
In conjunction with Left Turn magazine’s new issue focused on queer radicalism, the Audre Lorde Project, FIERCE, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, Left Turn, Queers for Economic Justice, and Sylvia Rivera Law Project present an informative and inspiring evening of stories from movements past, strategies for the present moment, and our dreams for the future.
Confirmed speakers include:
Jay Toole, Queers for Economic Justice
Imani Henry, International Action Center
James Credle, Newark Pride Alliance
Mahina Movement
Julie Davids, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project
Katherine Acey, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice
Rickke Mananzala, FIERCE
Trishala Deb, Audre Lorde Project
Monday April 20, 2009
6:30-9pm
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center
208 W 13th St
New York, NY 10011
(212) 620-7310
New Report Proves Need for Queer Focus on Economic Justice
New Report Proves Need for Queer Focus on Economic Justice
by Joseph DeFilippis, Executive Director of QEJ
Hey, have you heard about that economic crisis? You know — the historic one that seems to have been noticed by everyone else in the world except the LGBT movement? I only ask because with the country facing an economic recession of massive proportions, it is sort of surreal to see our LGBT organizations and media continuing to behave as if the most important issue facing queer people is whether or not we can get married. But a new study documents what some of us have been arguing for a long time now: that poverty is a far more pressing life-and-death issue for many in our community.
“Poverty In the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Community”, which was just released this week by The Williams Institute documents that the widely believed myth of gay affluence and financial clout is just that – a fairy tale.
The report documents, among other things, that lesbian couples and their families are much more likely to be poor than heterosexual couples and their families, and that children in gay and lesbian couple households have poverty rates twice those of children by heterosexual married couples. It also shows that queer couples who live in rural areas are much more likely to be poor than urban queer couples. And same-sex black couples have poverty rates significantly higher than married black heterosexuals, and are roughly three times poorer than their white same-sex counterparts.
So how did we come to be seen as a community of wealthy, white men with no children? The myth of gay affluence gained prominence in the 1980s, in no small part due to some highly publicized marketing surveys of the readership of gay magazines. The existence of gay people with lots of disposable income was an appealing pitch to make to advertisers, and it was quickly used by some gay political leaders eager to flex the community’s developing muscles. But it has also been used against us by our foes who have depicted us as privileged white gay men who do not need additional ‘special rights’. Sadly, our movement has done little to challenge that notion.
The reality is that although those magazines’ subscribers were predominantly gay white men, our community also includes people of color, who, like their heterosexual counterparts, generally make less money than do white men. And in a country where women still make 80 cents for the same work that men earn a dollar, it should come as no surprise that lesbian-headed households often struggle economically. Transgender people find it very difficult to obtain employment at all. LGBT seniors are more likely to live without the financial support of families, and without the social security survivor benefits of a spouse. And in cities like New York, queer youth make up about 30 percent of the homeless youth living on the streets.
The Williams report sheds clear light on the economic crisis that many in our community face. But the report was not able to address the lives of so many others – of gay, lesbian and bisexual people who did not report to the U.S. Census that they live in coupled households. Thousands of single LGB people also live in poverty. Nor does the report attempt to address the financial struggles faced by transgender people, about whom other reports have painted fairly bleak economic pictures.
The information in the Williams report about our community was gathered prior to today’s headlines about our county’s continued economic free-fall. We have every reason to assume that the financial struggles documented in the Williams report have only gotten worse since the data was collected.
And so, it is beyond maddening to continue to see millions of dollars poured into fighting Prop 8 in California and other marriage equality battles across the country. At the exact same time that this is happening, there has been a stony silence from most of our national LGBT organizations, media and funders about the current economic crisis. None of our national LGBT organizations have prioritized poverty as an issue in our community, and our queer media continues to ignore it.
But if you look below the radar, you will see queer organizations across the country that have been working for years on the real issues facing the less-financially privileged segments of our communities. Small groups like Queers for Economic Justice, where I am Executive Director, work with low-income and homeless LGBT people on vital issues crucial to their basic survival. And we are not alone. Other grassroots organizations across the country do amazing work with the most financially disenfranchised LGBT people on the issues that are most crucial to them – housing, welfare, immigration, police brutality, access to health care, etc.
But these groups are underfunded as millions of dollars continue to pour, instead, into the fight for gay marriage – an issue which was put on the top of our movement’s agenda primarily by people who are not facing the harshest of our economic realities. It is time that our movement prioritized the needs of the rest of our community – of the financially struggling or impoverished. And as the current crisis pushes more of us into that category, it is time that our leaders opened the newspaper to something other than the marriage announcements.
QEJ & Allies Announce Non-Support of Gender Non-Discrimination Act
Dear members of the GENDA coalition and all allies in the struggle for trans liberation:
We write to you today because we are deeply concerned with the version of the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) that was recently introduced in the New York State Assembly. We are members of transgender and gender non-conforming communities of color, allies to these communities, and representatives of organizations that work to advocate for and increase the political voice of these communities. As written, the GENDA bill adds gender identity and gender expression to the protected categories of NY anti-discrimination law by adding it to the State Human Rights statute. We are excited and heartened by progress on this front, as many of us have struggled to end discrimination against trans people for years. Unfortunately, the GENDA bill also includes gender identity and gender expression as a “protected” category under the NY hate crimes statute.
We want and deserve legal protection from discrimination in the workplace, in housing, and in public accommodations. Transgender people in New York are frequently fired from jobs; kicked out of housing, restaurants, restrooms and hotels; and harassed in schools and public institutions. It is essential that we have legal recourse to take action when trans people are discriminated against in this way. It is also essential that this form of discrimination is publicly declared unacceptable-in our state, in our society, and across the world.
It pains us that we nevertheless cannot support the current GENDA bill, because we cannot and will not support hate crimes legislation. Rather than serving as protection for oppressed people, the hate crimes portion of this law may expose our communities to more danger-from prejudiced institutions far more powerful and pervasive than individual bigots.
In New York, the hate crimes portion of the penal code adds automatic penalty enhancements to certain crimes that are deemed to be hate crimes: crimes based on a person’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, religious practice, age, disability, or sexual orientation. If a particular crime is deemed a hate crime by the state, the supposed perpetrator is automatically subject to a higher mandatory minimum sentence. For example, a crime that would carry a sentence of five years can be “enhanced” to eight years. As GENDA is currently written, if passed it would further expand this law, providing additional grounds for penalty enhancement.
As a nation, we lock up more people per capita than any other country in the world; one in one hundred adults are behind bars in the U.S. Our penalties are harsher and sentences longer than they are anywhere else on the planet, and hate crime laws with sentencing enhancements make them harsher and longer. By supporting longer periods of incarceration and putting a more threatening weapon in the state’s hands, this kind of legislation places an enormous amount of faith in our deeply flawed, transphobic, and racist criminal legal system. The application of this increased power and extended punishment is entirely at to the discretion of a system riddled with prejudice, institutional bias, economic motives, and corruption.
Trans people, people of color, and other marginalized groups are disproportionately incarcerated to an overwhelming degree. Trans and gender non-conforming people, particularly trans women of color, are regularly profiled and falsely arrested for doing nothing more than walking down the street. Almost 95% of the people locked up on Riker’s Island are black or Latin@. Many of us have been arrested ourselves or seen our friends, members, clients, colleagues, and lovers arrested, often when they themselves were the victims of a violent attack. Once arrested, the degree of violence, abuse, humiliation, rape, and denial of needed medical care that our communities confront behind bars is truly shocking, and at times fatal.
In popular conception, hate crime laws were enacted to protect oppressed minorities against bigots who would seek to terrorize a community through violent crime: racist lynchings, gay-bashing, anti-Semitic violence, and so forth. Unfortunately, the popular imagining of the operation of hate crime laws does not bear out in reality. Hate crime laws do not distinguish between oppressed groups and groups with social and institutional power. Compared to white men, Black men are disproportionately arrested for race-based hate crimes. The second-largest category of race-based hate crimes tracked by the FBI is crimes committed against white people. Every year, the FBI reports a number of so-called “anti-heterosexual” hate crimes-incidents where members of the LGBT community have been prosecuted for supposedly targeting straight people with criminal acts.
If GENDA is passed with the hate crime component intact, trans people could be subject to “enhanced penalties” for crimes against non-trans people. The possibility of hate crime charges could arise in any dispute that involves gender identity or expression. In the case of the “New Jersey 4,” a group of young queer women of color were incarcerated for defending themselves against the homophobic attacks and slurs of a straight man, who accused them of committing a “hate crime” against him. It is all too easy for a prejudice-motivated attack to become a fight for survival, and for a fight to be turned against oppressed communities.
There might be some cold comfort in “enhanced sentencing” if it actually benefited our communities in any way. Unfortunately, the harsher penalties of hate crime laws have not been shown to prevent or deter hate crimes. It is hard to imagine that someone moved to brutally attack a trans person would pause to consider that they might get a longer sentence. In fact, there is some evidence that longer sentences actually increase the chance that an incarcerated person will repeat a crime after they are released. Incarceration does nothing to address the root reasons why someone was violent or hateful; it only plunges them into deeper poverty, further isolates them from their community, and subjects them to further violence and trauma. In many cases, incarceration may worsen prejudices and make people more likely to be alienated and violent when they are released. Worst of all, when our society incarcerates someone who truly hates trans people, we provide them more opportunities to commit anti-trans hate crimes while incarcerated. Our many transgender community members in prison face intimidation, harassment, and violence on a daily basis.
Hate crime laws are an easy way for the government to act like it is on our communities’ side while continuing to discriminate against us. Liberal politicians and institutions can claim “anti-oppression” legitimacy and win points with communities affected by prejudice, while simultaneously using “sentencing enhancement” to justify building more prisons to lock us up in. Hate crime laws foreground a single accused individual as the “cause” of racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or any number of other oppressive prejudices. They encourage us to lay blame and focus our vengeful hostility on one person instead of paying attention to institutional prejudice that fuels police violence, encourages bureaucratic systems to ignore trans people’s needs or actively discriminate against us, and denies our communities health care, identification, and so much more.
Anything that expands the power of a system that damages our communities so severely is against our long-term and short-term interests. Any legal weapon that’s created to make our justice system more harsh and punitive cannot be trusted in the hands of institutions that have shown their prejudices and corruption time and time again. Because of the way this legislation has been turned against the communities they were intended to protect, we regard “sentence enhancement” hate crime laws as one of the greatest follies of late-20th-century liberal politics.
Some of us have expressed this concern to (other) members of the GENDA Coalition after we became aware of the hate crime aspect of the proposed bill. We know that this coalition of many organizations and hard-working community members has been working for years to make anti-discrimination law a reality in our state and we respect their dedication to this work. We were happy that some of us had an opportunity recently to engage in dialogue about the hate crimes provisions of GENDA with them. We left the conversation with the shared knowledge that the United States criminal legal system is deeply flawed, that it would be entirely possible to leave out the hate crimes portion of the GENDA bill when it was re-introduced this session, and that making such a change could mean that it would take more time to get the bill passed because of the need to educate our elected officials about these issues.
We are deeply disappointed that, with this knowledge, the majority of the GENDA Coalition decided that they would rather “come back to hate crimes legislation later” and still actively work to pass a version of the bill that would expand hate crime laws now. Trans communities know all too well what it’s like to be told “we’ll come back later to protect you.” One argument made in our conversation was that because so many other groups are covered by the New York hate crimes statute, trans people should not be “the sacrificial lamb.” Unfortunately, because “sentence enhancements” actually make communities more vulnerable to prejudice in the criminal legal system, it is the many other “protected classes” that have already been sacrificed on the altar of hate crimes.
The real victims who are liable to be thrown to the wolves in this case are the most marginalized members of trans and gender non-conforming communities: poor people, people without jobs or housing, people who resort to survival crimes in order to get by or access health care, people with substance abuse problems, sex workers, youth, people with disabilities, and so many more who are disproportionately targeted for violence, harassment, prejudice in the courts, and incarceration. These are the same people our community must mourn every year at the Trans Day of Remembrance. Can we really continue to shed tears and flowers for the dead if we eagerly hand the state more power to crush the same people?
The signatories to this letter cannot and will not support this version of the bill. We can not help pass a bill through the state legislature that could further endanger our communities. We hope and plead for a better GENDA bill that will make the hard-fought dream of anti-discrimination law a reality for all trans and gender non-conforming people in New York state, without sacrificing the most endangered members of our community. We also commit and ask others to join us in our commitment to work on real ways to address hate violence.
When thinking about responding to hate violence, we believe the most important question is not “who is the perpetrator and how can we punish them?” Rather, we want to ask “how can we help the survivor(s) and the community heal from this violence? How can we prevent it from happening again?” Many people and organizations in New York and around the world are doing creative, transformative work to find real solutions to these questions. Some organize communities to intervene in violence without relying on law enforcement. Some develop alternate ways to resolve conflicts. Some help break down prejudice and fear with public education and training. Some help make sure that our communities have access to basic necessities in life and are not forced to be in situations where they are particularly vulnerable to violence. Some fight to hold the state accountable for violence it perpetrates against our communities. Some educate community members about ways to defend themselves and deescalate confrontations. Some provide services, advocacy, and support for survivors of violence. These are just a few of the strategies that we have used and seen others use locally to develop the approaches to hate violence that we and our loved ones need and deserve.
Please join with us in working to make New York State a safer and more just place for trans and gender non-conforming people. Please join us in supporting an improved version of GENDA that will provide much-needed legal protections against discrimination without endangering our communities and strengthening the prejudiced system of criminal punishment.
Sincerely,
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
FIERCE
Queers for Economic Justice
Peter Cicchino Youth Project
Audre Lorde Project
QEJ Endorses Employee Free Choice Act
Queers for Economic Justice joins Pride At Work, and other LGBTQ organizations to endorse the Employee Free Choice Act, which impacts the ability of workers to be able to unionize with increased penalties for employers who try to block labor organizing.
Here are some details about Employee Free Choice Act, from a factscheet provided by Pride At Work:
What It Is:
The Employee Free Choice Act, supported in 2007 by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, would enable working people to bargain for better benefits, wages and working conditions by restoring workers’ freedom to choose for themselves whether to join a union. It would:
- Establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
- Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
- Allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.
Why Is It Needed?
Today, CEOs get contracts that protect their wages and benefits. But some deny their employees the same opportunity. Although U.S. and international laws are supposed to protect workers’ freedom to belong to unions, employers routinely harass, intimidate, coerce and even fire workers struggling to gain a union so they can bargain for better lives. And U.S. labor law is powerless to stop them. Employees are on an uneven playing field from the first moment they begin exploring whether they want to form a union, and are often crushed by brutal management tactics.
How Does This Affect The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community?
- Statistics show that workers who have union representation on the job have a higher standard of living than those who do not. Workers who belong to unions earn 30% more than nonunion workers. They are 59% more likely to have employer-provided health coverage and 72% more likely to have pensions.
- There are no federal job non-discrimination protections that protect on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In 30, and 37 states respectively, it is legal to fire someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
- Since 1975, unions have been bargaining contracts with non-discrimination protections that include these categories.
- Union contracts allow LGBT workers who face discrimination to grieve and remedy that discrimination, all in a timely manner.
- The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a pending piece of federal legislation, would bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. ENDA and the Employee Free Choice Act are complimentary pieces of legislation. The Employee Free Choice Act steps in where ENDA ends, providing LGBT workers with the opportunity to bargain for benefits federal law does not mandate, including:
- Inclusive language for LGBT families in the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA);
- Extension of sick and bereavement leave to care or tend to issues with your domestic partner, same-sex spouse, or their children;
- Offering domestic partner health care benefits;
- Removing transgender health exclusions from employer provided health care plans; and
- Passing of pension plan benefits to domestic partner, same-sex spouse, or their children upon death
- Statistics show that LGBT people make less than their heterosexual counterparts. A union contract provides a way to level the playing field, helping LGBT people bargain our way into the middle class.
- For people of color in the LGBT community, statistics are very clear, unions bring wages and benefits up:
- African-American union workers’ make 28% more than non-union workers,
- Latino union workers’ make 43% more than non-union workers, and
- Asian-American workers’ make 6% more than non-union workers.
- Unions have stood up for LGBT people, its time for LGBT people to stand with our allies. In California, unions donated over $2 million dollars to defeat Prop 8. 10 international unions, representing over 10 million workers, have endorsed an end to marriage discrimination and yes to marriage equality. Over 60 International Unions and union organizations have endorsed passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
What You Can Do:
SEND AN EMAIL to President Obama, Your Senators and your Congress representative to tell them to support the Employee Free Choice Act!
Welfare Warriors Launch Survey for Low-Income LGBTGNC New Yorkers
QEJ’s Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative needs your help to distribute a survey to document issues impacting low-income LGBTGNC (gender nonconforming) folks in the NYC area. We are a New York City-based participatory action research project of Queers for Economic Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
As a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people from many different backgrounds, we want to find out more about our community in NYC and the surrounding areas.
We value your feedback, and would appreciate if you took a few moments to respond to some questions. To go to the survey, click on the link below:
The Low Income LGBTGNC and Gender Nonconforming Peoples’ Survey
About the QEJ Welfare Warriors:
WELFARE WARRIORS
WE BUILD COMMUNITY AND TRAIN LEADERS
In the wake of the recent federal reauthorization of welfare reform, QEJ organizes low-income LGBT people on public assistance, and offers them the opportunity to become involved in fighting for a more humane, just and inclusive welfare system. Low-income LGBT people work with QEJ on:
- Leadership Development Course: This 10-week course provides low-income LGBT people with political analysis, and concrete advocacy and community organizing tools, to help them increase their ability to be effective advocates for social change.
- “Welfare Warriors”: Through events like our annual “Economic Justice Day of Action”, this grassroots community organizing effort brings LGBT people on public assistance together to work on issue-specific campaigns that will make the welfare system more inclusive of LGBT and gender-non-conforming people and their families, and more humane for all.
- Research Collaborative: We are engaged in a groundbreaking, community-led research project documenting the issues facing low-income queers.