The Dangers of Outsourcing Activism: An Open Letter to Gay Civil Rights Advocates

Dear Fellow Civil Rights Combatants,

"Outsourcing" seems to be a political hot potato issue these days, From U.S. manufacturing jobs being outsourced to China and India to our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now largely outsourced to secretive for-profit entities like the mercenaries at Blackwater Worldwide, it's not a particularly popular option these days. So why has the gay community -- and the organizations that supposedly represent us -- embraced "outsourced" activism as our central political strategy in recent years?

I believe it stems from several different factors -- the "activism fatigue syndrome" in the immediate aftermath of the original AIDS battle years, the ascendance of flashy gay civil rights organizations who claim to "know better" than your "average Joe" about how to get things done in this complex political and sociodemographic arena and, most importantly, the sheer laziness and inertia of our own community who finds it easier to make a quick contribution online (and get miles while you're at it on your credit card) rather than take any of one's precious time to learn about the issues and do something yourself.

Despite my recent writings and rantings, I must confess that I'm a bit of a neophyte to these complex and highly-emotionally-charged public battles. I've always been led to believe that I'm a rank amateur and far less seasoned in "standard political operations" than many of our "appointed" gay professional-activist "leaders" at the multi-million-dollar budgeted Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Equality California (EQCA) operations -- groups who seem to enjoy black-tie dinners and rubbing elbows the with the rich and famous as much as they actually score civil rights victories.

In light of this, I've decided to "go rogue" and give my activism a personal touch since these "pros" at HRC and EQCA didn't fare too well this time in their fight against discrimination -- in the form of California's ill-conceived Proposition 8 -- despite raking in millions of dollars from the gay-friendly community. From the overwhelmingly positive feedback I've received for my pro bono efforts so far, I can assure you that it's worth our "amateur" attempts to give personal activism a shot.

Don't be dissuaded by their fancy websites or star-studded galas. Each and every one of us can make a difference in this fight without spending a dime.

How? When you take the time to write or comment on a blog posting, vent publicly on Facebook, forward great emails to your friends and family, march in a protest rally, boycott a "Yes on 8"- supporting business, have honest and spirited discussion(s) with family, friends and co-workers, or simply come out of the closet to everyone around you at home and at work, you are being an "activist."

These days I still donate to worthy organizations and, simultaneously, I personally boycott, debate and expose hypocritical and intolerant people in my immediate world with the power of the written word in the form of impassioned emails and blogs. But there's a new twist in my evolving civil rights philosphy -- I've decided to stop outsourcing my activism to the "pros" at HRC and EQCA.

From the "religious" zealots who organize and fund their anti-gay activities with a passion and fervor as great as their purported love for their Savior to your obnoxious, know-it-all brother-in-law who hasn't read a newspaper or book since his high school days yet somehow "knows" that "traditional marriage" shouldn't be tinkered with, they all share one thing in common. They are dead wrong and no amount of money, ignorance or preaching intolerance from the pulpit every Sunday can stop an impassioned minority group on the correct side of the law who is determined to be recognized by the highest courts as deserving of the same Constitutionally-guaranteed "equal protections" afforded our heterosexual counterparts.

To wit, on Thursday night, I spent an hour on conservative talk radio explaining and debating the whole gay civil rights and marriage struggle with my arch-conservative host and taking live questions from -- believe it or not -- reasonably well-spoken "Yes on 8" supporting listeners. I learned firsthand from those conversations a few shockingly uninformed views that these articulate people still hold:

• Supporters of 8 seem to think that we should shut up and just crawl back into our "gay" rabbit holes after we lost "fair and square" on the ballot Proposition. (Not gonna happen...)

• Even quasi-educated supporters of 8 still think that being gay is somehow under our personal control and is a "moral choice." (I proceeded to educate and eviscerate them with the science and biology of sexual orientation.)

• To a person, the are typical insular Americans who don't look past our national borders to see that gay marriage/civil unions in all those enlightened European nations has not caused the sky to fall on "the sanctity of marriage." (I pointed out the hypocrisy of "protecting marriage" when heterosexual divorce rates are at 50% and infertile couples get all the rights of marriage WITHOUT a child to "protect.")

• And then, of course, there's the Bible (I thumped them over the head with their own Bible by reminding them of all the other things that Leviticus admionishes the faithful not to do and I called the impassioned religious listeners on their selective Bible-quoting hypocrisy).

Bottom line (caution, long run-on sentence coming): we need to educate the people of this troubled nation about who we gay people really are, we must have a coherent and well-laid-out political strategy about how to attain our full civil rights, we need to disseminate intelligent and irrefutable talking points from which to support our arguments and then stick to the same script, and we must craft a way to help our peers stay involved and motivated so that we can continue to move our interests forward in a productive manner.

One problem: I'm getting the feeling that all this web-based activism that's been dominating impassioned Internet discussions in recent days can be a double-edged sword. Although it's highly efficient, it can result in political anarchy when too many well-intentioned humans are moving in too many different directions all at once.

To remedy this general lack of coordination of efforts, I suggest that a "manifesto" of sorts be created which succinctly explains in a few bullet points what our mission statement is. For example, we could put forth something to guide our peers and remind them that:

• Our current struggle is that of civil rights, not religion or morals.

• Our civil rights demands are non-negotiable and are not appropriate to be voted in a popularity contest like the unfortunate Proposition 8.

• We must learn from the history of ultimately successful civil rights movements throughout the 20th century and embrace their wise tactics, most notably the non-violent civil disobedience philosophies of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

• We must always attempt to win "hearts and minds" rather than alienate potential supporters with overly aggressive invective.

• We must use the power of boycotts, the media, the courts and civil actions/protests judiciously so as to minimize the "collateral damage" of our actions on "innocent bystanders" -- an unfortunate outcome which would invite more backlash than forward movement

• We should be fearless in "outing" all major supporters of discrimination as embodied by Proposition 8 -- no matter how powerful or seemingly well-respected these supporters may be -- and target their sources of revenue to cut them off at the knees.

• We should demand specific actionsfrom corporate America, like written (and enforced) non-discrimination policies based on sexual orientation, public repudiation of those in a leadership position in their organization(s) who contributed to "Yes on 8", ask for matching contributions to gay civil rights causes, and of course, full same-sex domestic partner benefits for all of their employees.

Finally, I suggest that we introduce a modified form of the key slogan from President-Elect Obama's superbly organized and executed political campaign -- "change" -- into our civil rights activities. I believe that we need to rethink our passive strategy of "checkbook activism" at organizations like HRC and it's ilk and take more responsibility for our own activist dollars and efforts.

This time, it's personal and we should behave in a manner consistent with that phrase. We must take personal responsibility for our own civil rights.

Our well-paid professional activist representatives must be held accountable for their massive strategic failures on Proposition 8. Like the U.S. automobile industry, their methods are outdated, their leadership is tepid and short-sighted and their inferior, poorly-designed "products" come with a hefty price tag. Our dependence on the imported activism of of HRC and EQCA is both unwise and anachronistic. We should offer these bloated and outmoded organizations no "bailout package" because their days of representing our interests are being quickly overrun by a new generation of gay people who make up for what they lack in cash by their sheer ingenuity, passion and social networking skills.

Expensive, old-school, bricks-and-mortar outfits like HRC and EQCA are being quickly supplanted by the inexpensive yet highly effective ideas, activities and groups that emerge from Facebook and MySpace every hour and which is fueled by a sense of righteous indignation at being treated like second-class citizens.

You need to look no farther than last weekend's massively successful nationwide rallies which came together with lightning speed after a brave young woman from Seattle shared her idea for a "day of protest" with her Internet friends. The concept "went viral" and expanded exponentially in a matter of hours. The result? Every major city in the United States saw many thousands of gay people and their family and friends stand together in solidarity and protest with picket signs, rainbow flags and an enthusiasm that hasn't been seen since the Stonewall riots 40 years ago. I seriously doubt that bloated bureaucracies like HRC could pull that off with the same speed, efficiency or success, at any price.

We must demand change at the very top of the gay leadership hierarchy. We need to take our civil rights struggle back from these corporate activism entities and, to paraphrase a witty blogger, adopt a new catchphrase for our movement -- "Grassroots Political Activism is the New Black."

Thanks for listening. Your thoughts/ideas are most welcome/appreciated.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Gary

Comments

[losangelesmd]

In response to anyone who claims that "morality" is involved in this civil rights/human rights struggle, may I remind them of three quotes by men of greater intellect than I:

"Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual."
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"The ideal of morality has no more dangerous rival than the ideal of highest strength, of most powerful life. It is the maximum of the savage."
- Novalis (pseudonym of Frederich Leopold von Hardenberg)

"There is something more horrible than hoodlums, churls and vipers, and that is knaves with moral justification for their cause."
- P.J. O'Rourke

[MagisterLudi]

"Our current struggle is that of civil rights, not religion or morals. "

If fact an ability to marry for a member of sexual behavior group lies squarely in the morality domain.

Are those polygamists unable to marry are victims of civil right violation?! Or is it the issue of collective morality.

Society decides collectively what moral issues to accept and what to reject. We decided to reject giving full rights to polygamists, homosexuals, bigamists and various other fringe behavior groups. GL community can try to educate the majority as to its position and hope that eventually we accept your talking points. Or not. After all, a lot of the opposition to those 3 aforementioned group behavior exists on a sub-conscious, almost genetic level.
Example: I am sure many gays feel slight feeling of distaste towards Mormon polygamists. Understand?

[MagisterLudi]

To a person, the are typical insular Americans who don't look past our national borders to see that gay marriage/civil unions in all those enlightened European nations has not caused the sky to fall on "the sanctity of marriage."

WRONG--
"All those??" There are only 4 countries in Europe that recognize gay marriage:The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Norway.
No major Euro countries do: Not UK, not Germany, not France.
Majority of European countries oscillate between recognition of domestic partnership to outright rejection of gay marriage.

[mateodelarosa]

I think he meant the sky hasn't fallen on Spain, etc etc...

No major Euro countries? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahah!
Sorry...about that.

[SilentNoLonger]

Thank you for your very sensible article. As a straight, married mother of two with virtually no ties to or familiarity with the GLBT community, I am a strong supporter of same-sex marriage and upholding the civil rights of ALL citizens. While I agree that no oppressed group should have to fight to acheive incremental progress toward the full citizenship that is their birth-right, history shows that laws and court rulings alone cannot deliver full equality.

Changing hearts and minds is essential. Despite the vocal minority of religious nuts, I believe that most straight people simply haven't given much thought to these issues, and a grass-roots campaign of outreach and education could yield tremendous results. A manifesto would be an excellent start, and would help empower people to work constructively within our communities toward the change we need.

[losangelesmd]

Thanks for all the very thoughtful comments.

Think about the lessons from civil rights struggles throughout the history of the 20th century.

Successful movements for equal rights employed the PERSONAL responsibility-approach to motivate the individual (and their peers) to secure their own destinies and worked a bottom-up approach, not a "trickle-down" activism theory. They also had great, inspiring and articulate leaders who understood the power of the people.

Did Gandhi write a check to the "India Rights Campaign" (IRC) to free his people from oppressive British rule?

Did Martin Luther KIng pass the church plate to his parishioners to collect loose change to forward to "Equality Alabama?" ((EQAL)

Of course not. They got the people and their communities motivated and they marched, protested, boycotted, endured firehoses, beatings, dogs and jail to get what they were rightly entitled to by the U.S. Constitution. We must follow their brave example.

We need inspirational UNPAID leadership to guide us, a simple mission statement to serve as our mantra and a huge turnout of the motivated masses of us at this "defining moment" in our civil rights history to get the job done.

I believe in my heart that if we have the courage and fortitude to make the necessary "course corrections," we will prevail.

Gary

[fobrien50]

Great posting.

I agree that we GLBT people need to take charge of our own destiny. The professional gay activists got it wrong every step of the way on Prop 8. However, this a disaster created by the community as a whole. The notion that paid consultants were going to win this fight for us was nonsense. This is a fight every one of us needs to take to every state, city, town, ¦ everyday.

I think the comments about the HRC and EQCA are spot on. I would go further and say we need to recognize that democrats are not going to get the job done for us either. I think some of our recent political failures stem from strategies that were too concerned with costing democrats votes. Meanwhile, democrats like Barack Obama have successfully enlarged their coalition by getting the votes of folks who don't like us. Obama did not do this by changing their minds but by accommodating their hate. We need to recognize what"s good for democrats, is not necessarily good for the GLBT community and vice versa. The democrats recognized this years ago.

This is our movement; it can"t be "outsourced" to "appointed" gay professional-activist "leaders" or the Democratic Party. The former can"t fight this battle for us and the later simply won"t fight for us. We will win this fight when we as a community get involved and take back the responsibilities we should never have delegated to activist and politicians.

[Dan4Equality]

I would resist making "activist" into someone who works for a professional organization. I would encourage everyone to start thinking of themselves as activists in their own unprofessional capacity. It is with that type of involvement that we succeed.

[M1]

What about having a Convention of Gay Leaders and Activists (of all stripes...to include bloggers/protesters/website creators ect..) from every State to create a Nationally synchronized effort to advance Gay Rights? Topics could include a manifesto (Goals, our arguments to assert against the various points raised by the opposition and knowledge of our Gay History which always seems to get missed).....then creation of activist groups to forward the message ect...Legal Group working the courts, Political group working the candidates for Gay rights consistent with manifesto overlapping with a the media group that works tv and the internet and grassroots protestors who will show up to protest at surgically selected locations. Also, a fundraising group. Just a thought?

[carter2004]

That's a great idea. Awfully big project though -- you'd have to have money to start something like that.

[Dan4Equality]

There is an NGLTF Creating Change National Conference on LGBT Equality which kind of fits your description - although it is run by a national organization (although I think NGLTF tends to do a good job of getting good grassroots action going). Jan 28 - Feb 1 in Denver

[CA90046]

Gary,
When I recieved my email from EQCA asking for money so that we can repeal Prop 8 in 2010 because the lawsuit might fail, I thought JESUS!
A writ to hear a petition was only granted 3 times out of 40 in the history of the California Supreme Court.
We are literally breaking glass in case of emergency.
The Court has it on an expedited schedule. There will be a ruling by STONEWALL40. The intellectuals in our community believe that we will be successful. I know that we will WIN. I'll bet the house on it.
But if we lose, perhaps we should start thinking (NOW?) about a new independent group that will collect the signatures for the initiative. EQCA has never done one from what I know so they certainly cannot be experts.
Real petitions have to on the proper paper and meet certain requirements. It can't be done on FACEBOOK but WE CAN INFORM though the internet.
Let us be prepared to win (Gary, I still have a card or 2 up my sleeve), but be educated and organized to move into action at STONEWALL40 to gather signatures for the General Election in Novmeber of 2010.
This is the dawn of the 21st Century version of the Civil Rights movement. Prop 8 right now may look like a defeat but retrospectively in 2010, who knows?
Iit is only the beginning for the United States as a country and they should start getting used to US!

[carter2004]

Very well said.

My only (small) gripe would be the "hearts and minds" portion of your maniefsto as it applies to our supposed "allies" who continually put the economy/war/health care/politics/whatever ahead of our own civil rights. In my opinion, we can't be afraid to challenge people on their assumptions about what is and is not helpful. If they ultimately decide they want to support the movement, or not support it, that's fine. But I think we have to weed out the delusional, passive "supporters" who keep compromising on our behalf, because they are unwittingly sabotaging our efforts. (See: Prop 8.)

[MarkWorthen]

Awesome article Gary. I buzzed, stumbled, and dugg it, I like what you wrote so much.

I love the Manifesto idea and your proposed language. I will post to my blog and on the JoinTheImpact website.

All the Best,

Mark

[Dan4Equality]

Oh and if that sounded as if I think talented web designers who support equality should wait until we have an organized campaign - Absolutely not. We need to start doing the work now for the future. Start working creatively and actively to get the word out to various voting blocks and communities. Key to this will be looking beyond the generic, and targeting various ethnic and social groups, and particularly keeping up educational campaigns to the youngest voters, and voters over 40 all the way up to seniors.

[Dan4Equality]

I agree with your ideas about taking activism into our own hands, and it is the way that I have worked on this issue for 17 years. One of the major areas we are missing in this fight is independent informational websites that are centered around our issues and geared towards the voting public. The Yes On 8 side was very good at generating these sites independent of the campaign. Talented web designers and communicators need to start crafting sites to inform the public of our struggle. To that end, when we do have an organized campaign, (which inevitably there will be, as well as the grassroots efforts) our campaign needs to be more transparent, and at least be more effective at communicating some useful talking points to our community so that grassroots activists can go nuts fashioning posters, websites, flyers, comic books, etc. etc. etc. bearing those messages (as well as any other messages that the grassroots comes up with of their own accord). We saw this a lot on YouTube this time through, but we were not as present in other types of web media.

[itmaybetoolate]

I gave up my HRC membership when they endorsed liberman for senate. That was it for me. Why should I give them my money or my time? I mean, they have been SO effective at getting ENDA passed. (Anyone remember ENDA?)

Now, I focus on supporting local and state organizations who are in the trenches and fighting for our civil rights one issue at a time.

[PhilipB]

I agree.
The HRC is not responding to the Gay community. They seem out of touch, out of step and out of date.
Some of the things that Gay families are saying around the kitchen table are:
The LDS church and other church groups spent losts of money to pass prop 8 and strip away our civil rights. They did.
It is reasonable to question the tax exempt status of political organizations/churches
We want to know what business contributed to prop 8 so we can boycott them.
The no on 8 tv ads had no gay couples. We are not distasteful. i know lots of great gay families, and we need to be visable. It is hard to hate someone you come to know, and find they are not scary at all.
The HRC is planning an inaugural ball. Obama/Biden did not suppoert our marriage, now we throw a party for them? Gay families are not celebrating right now.

[carter2004]

Amen. HRC's blind support of Obama and Lieberman is exactly the kind of "help" we DON'T need.

[karungguni]

I agree with everything you said. The current leaders are inept and Geoff Kors has stumbled horribly in any coherent post prop 8 strategy or dissemilation of information. The paradox is to insure that things do not get out of hand or the boycotts do not get reckless there will have to be leaders as well. This moment should be likened to the Dreyfuss Affair which gave rise to the modern Zionist movement, not that we are looking for a homeland. But it should be the turning moment that we will not accept the current path we have been put on. It is time for Pride to stop being a time to hold circuit parties in different cities on different days but return to be a show of our political power. We need to turn the phrase 'activist judges' into a code for racism and holding back the rights of others. We need to remind Californians of Prevez v. Sharp and Prop 14 in 1963. While we should not be destoying church property it is within our rights to boycott Mormon businesses and to remind the pubic of their goofy founding, rituals and scriptures. This should serve as a lesson for a publcly perceived murky group to not attempt to gain legitimacy but bashing another 'minority' group. I discussed this with a member of the No on 8 campaign and I heard from him was focus group this and focus group that. This is a watershed moment!