Black Gays Meet the Democrats

By Keith Boykin, in politics
Thursday, October 5 2006, 9:00PM

Tomorrow afternoon, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean will meet with black gays and lesbians in Baltimore. It's the first time a DNC official has ever taken part in a Black LGBT Pride Event. It took some coordination by the Stonewall Democrats Black Caucus and others to pull it off, but it's finally happening.

With a national election just a few weeks away, the Democrats understandably want to turn out their base to the polls. But Black LGBT Democrats shouldn't wilt in the presence of the party chairman. There are a lot of serious issues facing our community, and we need to know if the Democrats are seriously planning to address those issues. With that in mind, I asked our guest political columnist Ramon Gardenhire, a former DNC official, to share his thoughts with us about the Howard Dean meeting. Ramon gives us five questions we should ask Howard Dean.

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Five Questions For Howard Dean

By Ramon Gardenhire

This Friday, DNC Chairman Howard Dean will attend a reception to honor Baltimore Black Gay Pride. That's significant because no other chairman of a national political party has ever addressed an audience of Black SGL/LGBT voters. Dean will be speaking specifically to the issues that face Black SGL/LGBT voters in the Baltimore area, which in reality, can be viewed as a localized representation of the issues that we face in large cities nationwide.

Dean’s remarks come in the wake of a firestorm that erupted earlier this year when the DNC announced plans to abolish its GLBT Outreach Desk in favor of Dean's new American Majority Partnership (AMP). The goal of the AMP is to integrate the various offices into the mainstream and to address the concerns of minorities in all of the DNC's departments and offices. Nevertheless, many GLBT leaders and activists (including myself) openly criticized Dean’s efforts.

While the jury is still out on the AMP, its real impact can more accurately be measured after this fall’s mid-term elections and how successful it was in engaging, educating, and mobilizing LGBT voters.

Governor Dean’s historic appearance at Baltimore Pride should be lauded, but is somewhat overdue. The GLBT vote has been essential to the success of many Democratic campaigns in numerous election cycles. More than 4.6 million self-identified LGBT voters cast ballots in the 2004 election at the presidential, congressional, and state level. An estimated 81% of these voters cast a vote for the Democratic Party.

In fact, the LGBT community is now second only to the African-American community as the largest and most loyal base vote community to the Democratic Party. Because of Black SGL/LGBT individuals’ cross-communal presence in both communities, they play a significant role in Democratic Party politics and polices.

Dean’s attendance at Baltimore Black Pride gives us a tremendous opportunity to raise some of our most pressing and grappling issues at the highest level of the DNC power structure. Below are 5 of the most important questions I think Black SGL/LGBT voters should ask of Chairman Dean at Friday’s event.

1. Will the DNC continue to be vocally and resourcefully supportive of LGBT issues?

This includes marriage equality, passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and opposition of federal and state marriage bans. We should also ask Chairman Dean if he and the DNC will denounce those lawmakers, both radical Republicans and fellow Democrats, who use the marginalization, dehumanization, and oppression of LGBT Americans to score political points. In addition, will the party denounce Black Clergy that are espousing rhetoric that is counter-productive to community advancement and instead ensure that the persons that are in front of the microphone are speaking from a place of total community inclusion, not from personal agendas.

2. Will the DNC work towards efforts of full inclusion of Black SGL/LGBT delegates to the 2008 national and state party convention in proportion to their numbers in the electorate?

The importance of our voices and shared experiences in those meetings when party policies are set cannot be understated. Those meetings are where decisions are made that set the course for the Party with regards to a number of issues that directly impact Black SGL/LGBT Americans.

3. How has the AMP been supportive and how will it continue to be supportive of Black SGL/LGBT grassroots activities?

Will the DNC staff and volunteers attend additional black prides, giving Democrats a visible and important role in the community? Will it allow Democratic leaders a chance to interact with the community and hear the concerns and desires of our diverse community and then implement those desires into policies and programs? Will the DNC hire Black SGL/LGBT field staff in key states with a significant Black SGL/LGBT population during the 2006 and 2008 elections?

4. How will the DNC will incorporate LGBT persons into Leadership summits?

This fall the DNC held a number of “Leadership Summits,” for many of the party’s most loyal base vote communities, including African-Americans, Pan-Asian, and Hispanic voters. However, notably missing from these summits were LGBT individuals and/or issues. These national summits are important because they provide an opportunity for base vote community leaders across the country to gather to advance the Democratic vision and discuss and strategize the importance of mobilizing particular base vote community voters for the upcoming mid-term elections.

5. How does the DNC plan to work with Congress in addressing the following: the sky rocketing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the African-American community; the economic downturn in the black community; safe schools, affordable housing, universal health care; as well as the continuing genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region and a host of other issues that are on the pulse of the African-American electorate?

While Black SGL/LGBT individuals may have a unique sub-set of issues that are important to us that should not prevent us from discussing the issues omni-presence within the larger African-American community.

On November 7, Black SGL/LGBT voters are faced with a major decision that could have a great impact on many of our lives. The choice we face is which party or candidate should we cast our vote for in this upcoming election.

I think our choice could not be clearer. Our votes will determine whether we take America in a new direction or continue to be held hostage to a right-wing ideology for two more years. I believe the Democratic Party holds the road map for that new direction. I believe that if Howard Dean expounds on these issues and clearly articulates a reasonable rationale, Black SGL/LGBT voters will pull the levers in the voting booth for the Democrats this fall.

Ramon Gardenhire is a former deputy director of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Outreach at the Democratic National Committee. The Black Pride reception with Howard Dean will take place at the Wyndham Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel at 5 p.m. on Friday.

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