HRC Blog

This editorial from HRC President Joe Solmonese was published in last Thursday's Outlook Weekly, the LGBT paper serving the Columbus, Ohio community:

America is preparing for the change of our lifetime. Divisive, anti-gay politics are leaving our executive branch. Congress will have more allies than ever, and our next Supreme Court justices will respect our fundamental rights.  Through our work and our unyielding commitment to a better future for ourselves and our families, LGBT people helped to make this happen. 2009 has just begun, and the opportunities before us are vast. We can finally pass hate crimes legislation covering our entire community and a fully-inclusive ENDA; we can roll back eight years of bad Bush Administration policy on HIV, workplace protections for federal employees, and benefits for families. We can build support for repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and we can help create safe schools. The Human Rights Campaign will be working tirelessly to advance these policies. In winning the elections, we did not pass these bills or secure these policies. The election opened a door that had long been locked, but what lies beyond the door is a steep spiral staircase. In this election, we won the chance to climb it. And my experience tells me that a “fighting chance” is a good way to describe it, because we’re going to have to fight for it. This lesson learned from Prop 8 and of all of the discriminatory campaigns against us and eight years of roadblocks to our legislation is that when our community is getting ready to win, the other side fights hard—and they fight with lies. When we passed hate crimes in the last Congress, the haters rolled out every lie that they would later use to take away our rights in California. We harm religion. We harm children. We take over the schools. We put preachers in jail. Our job is to beat back those same lies. When hate crimes comes up for a vote this year, will those of us who are standing up against the Prop 8 haters come out against those who would kill this bill?  We must. We must never forget that, even as we focus on the right to marry and the economic and spiritual benefits that it brings, we have a duty to protect our entire community’s right to live without fear of being attacked for who we are. We have a duty to stand up in this fight because passing hate crimes legislation ten years after Matthew Shepard’s death is a step toward marriage and every other community goal. Each step upward is a step in full circle: back to facing our enemies, back to the same set of falsehoods, the same tired old bigoted players. But we are climbing upward, even though we have not yet achieved so many of our goals. More Americans support marriage than ever before. Young people, LGBT or not, overwhelmingly believe in our rights, and are fighting for them. Employers are treating our families equally; faith communities are embracing us. Although we find ourselves facing the same people again and again, I truly believe that with each year that passes, we do so from higher ground. But we cannot reach the top if we do not keep the heat on the other side. We cannot reach the top if we do not invest the same energy, time, and even anger into federal laws and policies that we have invested in fighting Proposition 8. After losing California, it is difficult to imagine how working on hate crimes, or an inclusive ENDA, or family benefits, or fair federal workplace policies, is going to move the ball forward for marriage. But it’s clear to me that this is our path—upward and around, steadily and surely. It’s clear to the right wing, which is why they try to block every measure that would help our community at all. Martin Luther King once said that faith is taking the first step when you don’t see the whole staircase. Many of you took that first step in speaking out against Proposition 8, or volunteering for Barack Obama, or coming out. Our equality—in our families, in our workplaces, and in our communities—is that staircase. It is linked together, and one measure follows from the next. The LGBT community is linked together with one future, one path, and one monumental task: to fight hate with truth. That is the next step that we will take together.