What are you asking people to do?
Pledge to only donate funds and/or volunteer for political parties and committees once the President has signed an Executive Order ending all military discharges under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” immediately.
Isn't asking for an Executive Order short-sighted? We need much more than that!
We understand that this is a mid-term election year and that's all that anyone can think about right now. There are many more promises that we will be demanding our elected officials to come through on during the lame-duck session – this is just the thing that can “stop the bleeding” while elected officials are fighting to save their jobs.
Honestly, we wanted to launch something like this over the summer, so that we could hold our elected officials accountable at the ballot box. However, we were told by our elected leaders and organizational leadership that these things would move forward during the summer, and then the September, legislative sessions. Since that didn't happen, we're starting this campaign in the lead-up to Election Day in order to draw attention to and attach consequences to broken promises, and we'll continue to ratchet up the campaign through the lame-duck session as more opportunities for action become available.
The Democrats haven’t broken their promises -- this is just an excuse to attack the Democratic Party.
In fact, Democrats have broken promises on both ENDA and DADT – we're simply asking for a short-term fix to a long-term (and long-promised) problem. Here are a few broken promises:
ENDA
November 10, 2009 — Rep. Barney Frank says ENDA is “in very good shape,” would be marked up before year’s end, and voted on in the House “in December or in February, with the Senate voting in the Spring.” http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=28029
January 5, 2010 — Rep. Jared Polis and Rep. Tammy Baldwin blame the delay of ENDA on the healthcare reform debate and say “later this month the legislation will undergo markup” and added that they both had “spoken with Speaker Pelosi and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller and were confident that the bill would receive a vote.” http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/01/05/Prescription_for_an_ailing_ENDA/
March 23, 2010 — Rep. Barney Frank says he told House Education and Labor Committee Chair George Miller “now, its our turn” since healthcare reform had passed and then says that a vote on ENDA “may not come this week” after all, but he “expects a vote as soon as they come back” from recess on April 9. http://www.keennewsservice.com/2010/03/23/amid-increasing-hostilities-health-passes-enda-is-poised/
March 30, 2010 — Rep. Jared Polis says “we have the votes to pass ENDA in the house and we hope to bring it before the committee I serve on within the month—by the end of April” and added that “once it passes the committee, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks-a week or two-to schedule it to the floor. http://www.lgbtpov.com/2010/03/rep-jared-polis-says-enda-will-pass-the-house-in-a-few-weeks/
April 15, 2010 — Speaker Nancy Pelosi says “The committee of jurisdiction, the Education & Labor Committee is working very hard to have the strongest possible bill and vote when we come to the floor. I believe that it will be soon, and as soon as they are ready, Leader Hoyer and I agreed that it will come to the floor. So, I think it will be pretty soon.” http://www.dcagenda.com/2010/04/15/pelosi-expects-house-vote-on-enda-soon/
April 18, 2010 — Rep. Barney Frank says legislation aimed at ending employment discrimination against LGBT people will be marked up in committee “this week or next” and then added that “the speaker has promised that we will get this done fairly quickly.” http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=5095
DADT
Jan 27, 2010 — In President Obama's “State of the Union” address, he directly promised to repeal “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” stating, "This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It's the right thing to do." http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/01/27/Obama_Pledges_DADT_Repeal/
May 19, 2010 — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi states clearly that, “I don’t have any doubt that ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ will be a memory by the end of this year.” http://thehill.com/homenews/house/98833-vow-to-end-dont-ask-by-new-year
June 15, 2010 — A spokesperson for Rep. Barney Frank says the congressman was not concerned by Speaker Pelosi’s comments [about ENDA waiting until DADT passed the Senate] saying “he doesn’t think the vote is in jeopardy” and still anticipates a vote taking place this year. http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/05/15/ENDA_Vote_In_Question/
Sept 23, 2010 — Jim Messina promises DADT repeal by the end of 2010, stating when asked by political science major and GetEQUAL board member John Blake that, “We're going to get that done this year.” http://gay.americablog.com/2010/09/jim-messina-makes-firm-commitment-on.html
Sept 30, 2010 — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted the policy would be “just a sad memory” after this year, and suggested the ban could be overturned by President Obama without Senate action. http://www.gaypolitics.com/2010/09/30/pelosi-vows-end-to-military-ban-at-victory-fund-event/
If we follow through with your campaign, don’t we risk losing our pro-LGBT majorities in the House and Senate?
A Democratic majority has been in control of Congress since 2006 -- but this is quite different from a pro-LGBT majority. We believe that it sets the movement back to sit idly by while Congress and the White House break promises to protect us from workplace and military discrimination, much less relationship discrimination (including bi-national couples), and school-based discrimination. While the Democratic Party has been fundraising off many of these promises since 1999 (see https://my.democrats.org/page/contribute/LGBT), it has delivered on very few of them. We believe that it is time to hold the Democratic Party accountable for breaking those promises and the Republican Party accountable for disingenuous overtures to our community, as it’s the only way to ensure they keep those promises in the future.
If we don’t contribute to Democratic campaigns, will we stop all forward momentum and see either anti-LGBT legislation passed or pro-LGBT legislation repealed?
If the dollars heading from LGBT wallets to Democratic coffers are the sole sticking point between Democrats winning and losing, then this is exactly the leverage that needs to be wielded in order to move toward LGBT equality. After all, Democrats have been the beneficiaries of 96% of LGBT political giving in 2010, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Democrats can’t have it both ways -- the party can’t claim that those holding them accountable are a minority within a minority that should be ignored, but also claim that agitators within the LGBT community could single-handedly cause the party to lose in 2010. They also can’t claim that Republicans obstructed pro-LGBT legislation from 2006-2010, but that Democrats couldn’t obstruct anti-LGBT legislation if they lose the majority in the House and/or the Senate.
Additionally, for those worried about anti-LGBT legislation being passed through Congress, we should be able to rely on President Obama to veto anything that would strip rights away from the community. Though he has done little to pass pro-equality legislation, we hope that he would step up in the face of anti-equality legislation.
Why are you targeting Democrats and not Republicans? After all, isn’t the GOP the bad guy in all of this?
To those who are concerned that this campaign is targeting Democrats and not Republicans, we are calling on individuals to cut off political giving to all parties that support anti-equality candidates, be they Democrat, Republican, or any other.
For years, LGBT donors have held up their end of the bargain. We have campaigned for, lobbyied for, donated to, and otherwise supported a Democratic Party that in theory supports LGBT equality and, more recently, a Republican Party that -- in some instances – has begun showing more interest in supporting LGBT rights. Now it’s time for the Democratic Party to hold up their end of the bargain and enact the pro-equality legislation they’ve promised, and for the Republican Party to either step up or to continue their record of anti-LGBT nonsense.
I find it hard to believe that the LGBT community would be better off with Republican majorities in the House and/or the Senate. Haven’t the Democrats accomplished a lot in the last two years?
We are not holding Democrats to an unreasonable standard. We are simply asking them to keep their promises to our community.
But look at the list of accomplishments offered up by Andy Tobias, Treasurer of the DNC (link). The Democrats have done a lot for the LGBT community over the last two years, and this is how you're going to reward them?
The list is quite long, and terribly thin on substance. Inviting our community to a cocktail party does not make up for the fact that the Obama Administration is currently defending DOMA and DADT in court, when they don’t have to. Nor is inviting gay couples to the Easter Egg Roll on par with passing ENDA. For the most part, with few exceptions, this is a very big list of very small accomplishments, and it is intended to fool people into believing that much has done, when it has not.
Isn’t “not helping Democrats” the same as “helping Republicans”?
No. LGBT folks were born LGBT -- and are not Democratic by birthright. Each of us has the option/opportunity to volunteer as we see fit and to withhold our dollars as we see fit. Democrats have long taken LGBT dollars for granted and given us far too little in return. It is incumbent on us as engaged citizens to donate to those candidates, of any party, who are acting in our interest, and to not donate to those who are simply serving up false promises and false hope.
Why are you just asking for an Executive Order? What happened to ENDA, DADT, DOMA, UAFA, and other pro-LGBT priorities?
This campaign is simply to stop the bleeding that DADT has caused and is causing our country. As soon as the legislative session picks back up in November, we will turn attention to ENDA and DADT. We understand that there is a very small legislative window in which to pass ENDA and repeal DADT before a new Congressional session begins next January. We are therefore trying to set realistic goals for the Congress and the President between now and that time. These two pieces of legislation are not controversial (both poll exceedingly well) and have been repeatedly promised to us by the Democratic leadership (again, see GetEQUAL’s ENDA timeline here). We will continue to push for all promises to be kept and, while Congress is back home fighting for their jobs, we will apply pressure to the President.
If Republicans gain control of the House and/or the Senate, won’t we sacrifice our chances for a Supreme Court win for marriage equality?
Not remotely. The Court has been labeled as majority conservative and very well might, in fact, be conservative. But we have also seen conservative jurists understand the scope of “equal protection under the law” in district and state-wide courts as recently as last month. Assuming that we must keep the Democratic Party in power so that we can gamble on a Supreme Court case doesn’t seem like a logical response to the political situation in which we find ourselves.
Isn’t this campaign really just a small group of people who don’t like the President, and don’t like our leaders in Congress?
There are both small-dollar and large-dollar donors who have indicated their discontent with the pace of change that the Democratic Party has adopted regarding LGBT equality.
What we’re talking about doing is exerting pressure on the only point that we believe can work. AmericaBlog launched “Don’t Ask, Don’t Give” a year ago with 10,000 pledge signers and a group of bloggers launched both “Divorce the Democrats” and “Dear Democrats” earlier this year. We're by no means the first group to launch a campaign of this sort – we're just the latest group that has come to the conclusion that our political system doesn't work as-is. We’re asking for what we have been promised and nothing more – and we're not the first to ask for it.
As the campaign progresses, we'll be adding endorsements here.