Contents Introduction The Religious Right Homosexuality and Religion The New Right Race and Religious Right The Christian Coalition Stealth Concerned Women for America Look to The Right Coalition Building Divisions That Kill Organizing Organized Labor Working With Communities of Color The Business Community People of Faith (not available in this edition) Suggestions For Faith-Based Action An Anecdotal Study in Rural Organizing Coaltions: The North Carolina Experience Leadership Support Legal Foundations Civil rights, Special Rights Activists' Legal Pointers Campaign Strategies & Tactics Media Advocacy Tips Successful Advertisements Soundbites Effective Fundraising House/Dinner Parties Voter Contact Walking the Talk No On 9 Campaign Field Strategy Orgainizing Against Violence The Boycott Strategy Bigot Busting Lists and Resources They fight The Right Bibliography Biographies Fight the Right Action Kit Introduction ----- by Scot Nakagawa, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Fight the Right Director ----- The issue of limiting civil rights, freedom of expression, and democratic participation has become the single most divisive and loudly debated issue of our time. A right wing movement, formed as part of a society-wide backlash against New Deal economic policies and the gains of the Civil Rights movement, has taken the lead in organizing against the most fundamental principles of democracy Ñ equal protection, equal participation, and self-determination. A central theme of this movement is that in post-Civil Rights movement America, minorities are claiming "special rights," signalling a need to return to "traditional family values." The effectiveness of this movement can already be measured in terms of compromises in welfare and abortion rights; right wing takeovers of school boards; passage of "Official English" measures in Colorado and Florida; the Bush Administration's attacks against the 1990 Civil Rights Restoration Act; the ideological composition of our federal courts; and numerous other changes in the social, cultural, political, and economic life of our society. In every arena, all signs seem to point to the rising power of the right. Throughout the country, much of the debate over democratic participation and equal protection has centered on the issue of gay and lesbian equality. The gay rights controversy has become the wedge issue of the right wing. Using this wedge as a point of entry, right wingers are infiltrating mainstream institutions, raising money, and building a base of power that will ultimately serve a much broader political agenda that only begins with dismantling many of the gains of the civil rights movement. 1992 was a critical year in the development of the right wing movement. In that year we saw the right wing launch a national test of a strategy for building institutional power by championing heterosexism. Right wing groups in Maine, Florida, Oregon, and Colorado put on a populist fade and organized ballot measure campaigns aimed at amending state and municipal civil rights codes to make gays, lesbians and bisexuals second-class citizens. Portland, Maine Right wing activist Jasper Wyman and the Christian Civic League of Portland organized the Concerned Portland Citizens "People's Veto" campaign. The goal of the campaign was to repeal a city human rights ordinance extending civil rights protection to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. The themes of the anti-gay campaign were "Stop Special Rights for Homosexuals," "Protect Your Family," and "Protect Your Freedom to Choose." Concerned Portland Citizens argued that while Portland gays and lesbians made claims of widespread discrimination and violence motivated by anti-gay bias, "statistics do not indicate a higher incidence of homosexuals among the unemployed or homeless. Existing criminal laws protect all citizens from acts of violence. Homosexuals really seek special government endorsement of their sexual behavior." Concerned Portland Citizens used a very typical right wing tactic of claiming that gays and lesbians use hyperbole, money, and exaggeration to manipulate government into granting "special rights." By making gays and lesbians out to be the ultimate tyrants of "Political Correctness," the right wing has tapped into populist rebellion against the specter of civil rights activists as "Big Brother." Portland human rights activists responded by organizing the Equal Protection/Portland campaign which successfully defended the city's human rights ordinance. Using the theme "Vote No to End Discrimination in Portland," the group defeated the anti-gay measure in all but 8 of Portland's 28 precincts. Florida In Tampa, Florida three right wing groups operating under the names Take Back Tampa, the Lot Committee, and Citizens for a Responsible Tampa joined forces to support a general election measure to repeal a local ordinance extending civil rights protection to gays and lesbians. In spite of valiant opposition from the Say No To Hate PAC, the measure won by a margin of 58% to 42%. A late start and lack of funding forced the Say No To Hate PAC to run a campaign which used three mailings and free media to move the message, "Say No To Hate." In contrast, the proponents of the measure outspent Say No To Hate PAC 5 to 1 to fund an aggressive broadcast and direct mail campaign that emphasized the slogans "No Special Rights," and "Sodomy is not a civil right." Polls conducted in Tampa just after the election reveal that 85% of those surveyed oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment, and 81% oppose discrimination in housing. Those who disagreed with the ordinance repealed in the election said they believed the ordinance would give homosexuals access to children and special rights. Currently, the Human Rights Task Force of Tampa, formed following the election, has organized a "Buycott" of Tampa businesses. The task force has assembled lists of businesses that support equal protection and are providing the guides to conscientious consumers. Oregon In Oregon, the religious right wing Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) led a multi-level and multi-issue assault on civil rights and community values. During the course of the campaign year, the OCA initiated several petition drives to place questions on Oregon state and municipal ballots. The OCA petitioned to place a measure on the ballot that required a voter mandate of all tax and fee increases in Oregon. While the measure seems to democratize the system of taxation, it would, in reality, seriously damage local government. The initiative failed to receive enough signatures to qualify for placement on the ballot. The OCA's "No On Hate" initiative to amend the state hate crimes law would have changed the protected category "sexual orientation" to "abnormal and perverse behaviors such as homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism, and masochism." Their use of a slogan that was well known as the name of a local gay and lesbian organization was clearly intended to confuse voters. The initiative, which might have made the OCA the first group in U.S. history to sponsor a ballot initiative to make pedophiles a protected class under civil rights law, was abandoned. In Portland, Oregon, the OCA petitioned for a measure aimed at repealing the city's civil rights ordinance that extends civil rights protection to gays and lesbians. The initiative failed in part because of a "Bigot Busters" campaign sponsored by the No On Hate campaign. The "Bigot Busters" picketed petitioners, and deterred potential signers with educational materials. In Corvallis, Oregon, the OCA sponsored a measure in the primary election aimed at changing the city charter to exclude gays and lesbians from civil rights protection. The OCA used the theme "No Special Rights," and played heavily on backlash against affirmative action and fears of child molestation. Corvallis civil rights activists countered the OCA with a high visibility campaign emphasizing direct voter contact. Using the message "No On Discrimination," they mobilized 65% of voters in this town of approximately 30,000 to vote against the measure. In Springfield, Oregon the OCA organized a successful campaign to sponsor an identical measure in the primary election. In spite of a courageous effort on the part of STOP-PAC activists to defeat the measure by asking voters to "Stop Hate," measure 20-02 was passed by a margin of 55% to 45%. Measure 20-02 changed Springfield's civil rights code to prohibit "promoting, encouraging, or facilitating" homosexuality, and from adopting or enforcing any laws requiring civil rights protection on the basis of sexual orientation. Since the election, attempts have been made to censor the Springfield public library, and the city lost its liability insurance. In the general election, the OCA sponsored Ballot Measure 9, which attempted to change Oregon's constitution to declare homosexuality "abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse." The measure, crafted by a Heritage Foundation attorney, would have forced state and local governments to proactively discriminate against gays and lesbians, and deny some services to those "facilitating" homosexuality by enforcing internal organizational bans against anti-gay bias. The No On 9 Campaign together with a massive statewide effort that included Republicans Against Prejudice, the Catholic establishment, and 14 rural political action committees defeated the measure by a margin of 57% to 43%. The Oregon campaign focused on creating an atmosphere in which it was possible for people who were strongly anti-gay to vote no on the measure by using the messages "no on discrimination," and "its a danger to us all." The influence of anti-gay organizing in Oregon has extended far beyond the state's borders. Lon Mabon, Director of the Oregon Citizens' Alliance, took his grassroots bigotry on the road, appearing as guest of honor at conferences announcing the formation of the Idaho Citizens' Alliance and the Citizens' Alliance of Washington. In addition, he plans to travel throughout 1993 to spread anti-gay ill will across the nation. Colorado Amendment 2, passed in the Colorado general election, is an attempt to change Colorado's constitution to exclude gays, lesbians, and bisexuals from civil rights protection. Amendment 2 was sponsored by Colorado for Family Values (CFV) which is tied to nationally-based right wing groups such as the Traditional Values Coalition and Focus on the Family, which provided more than $8,000 worth of in-kind donations to CFV's Amendment 2 campaign. In spite of efforts on the part of Equal Protection of Colorado to counter the anti-gay measure by arguing that Amendment 2 would legalize discrimination, right wing money and a homophobic campaign which used the "No Special Rights" message took 54% of the vote. The measure is the first statewide constitutional amendment to limit civil rights in the history of the U.S. Amendment 2 demands that "Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected stat us, or claim of discrimination." The amendment and the CFV campaign play very heavily on backlash against the gains of the civil rights movement and other efforts by "minorities" to win civil equality. Coupling the statement "claim of discrimination" with misleading and inflammatory concepts like "quota preferences" allows the right wing to continue its campaign of misinformation about affirmative action. Simultaneously, this allows them to skirt the issue of discrimination which a majority of voters strongly oppose. In the wake of the passage of Amendment 2, Coloradans have responded with a legal initiative which may prove Amendment 2 unconstitutional under Colorado law. The success or failure of efforts to "undo Amendment 2" will have a profound effect on the tactical viability of the right's current anti-gay strategy. However, a course has already been set for the right wing movement which is unlikely to change soon. The Fight Back The success of these campaigns in building right wing institutions has sent a signal to national right wing leaders. National leaders of the religious right have called for efforts to target at least 12 states for measures to constitutionalize discrimination. Already, the right wing's strategy to mobilize against gay and lesbian civil rights has unleashed a torrent of activity on the part of reactionary groups all over the country. In states where citizens cannot sponsor initiatives, the right wing is stepping up its attacks against gays and lesbians in state legislatures, school boards, PTA's, labor unions, neighborhood associations, and community task forces. In those states where citizens can sponsor initiatives, the right is attempting to sponsor measures in Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Washington, California, Florida, and Michigan as of March 1993. Christian Right commitment, sacrifice, and audacity is already quietly paying off in terms of public policy changes affecting education, health care, taxation, schools, welfare, the arts, gender and racial equity, and environmental protection. Their latest tactic of attacking gays and lesbians may give them the fund raising capacity and mainstream base to achieve their further goals. The continued success of the gay and lesbian liberation movement will largely depend on the ability of gays and lesbians to stave off right wing attacks successfully. The fight back will require changes in the way we think and organize that will fundamentally change the character of our movement. First of all, success will require an acknowledgement of the political landscape in which we are fighting for our freedom. In the 1960's the leadership of the African American led civil rights movement used civil disobedience and legal strategies to bring state and local governments operating in violation of federal civil rights policies into compliance. In the 1990's gay and lesbian civil rights activists find themselves facing a situation in which the reactionary nature of the new judiciary, along with the electoral and legislative nature of the right wing attacks against us signal a need to find new strategies and tactics. We need to develop a strategy for targeting very broadly defined constituencies in and outside of the gay and lesbian community in order to defeat the right wing. This project of expanding our constituency calls for coalition building, which in turn calls for involvement in a process of negotiation and power sharing with many diverse groups. To respond to the immediate threat of the right wing, we need to build tactical coalitions that include every group in society that recognizes the right's threat not only to society as we would like it to be, but to society as it is currently configured. As we build coalitions of this type we must understand that we can't expect to borrow power from other interest groups and institutions. Nobody loans out power without extracting a price, and the price we may be expected to pay could eventually divide our communities. For this reason, we need power, and in order to build power we need to build and support our community-based institutions as never before. Then we can enter into these coalitions with real and unified bases of grassroots support. In service of our longer-term struggle for full equality, we must begin the process of building another kind of coalition between oppressed groups both within and outside of our community. Entering into this type of coalition will extract a very different kind of price from our movement. The payment will include creating a movement that genuinely values multi-racial democracy, gender equity, and other community values. The two types of coalitions are not the same, nor will they serve exactly the same purposes. The first is tactical, and the second strategic; one is based on shared fear, while the other is based on shared needs, hopes, and dreams, and a shared experience and analysis of oppression which understands that equality doesn't emerge from an absence of discrimination, but rather in the presence of justice. The second type of coalition will require that we build strength in our community institutions by both building funding bases and acquiring tools and technological know-how, and by changing the way in which we define our constituencies, our issues, and our organizing practice. It will require recognizing the leadership of people of color. It will mean designing and implementing real and meaningful affirmative action policies that can take us beyond "diversity" to multi-racial and gender equal democracy. Already the right wing is attacking other oppressed groups in order to build institutions that can attack us. In Colorado, there is a direct link between the sponsor of Amendment 2 and the sponsor of the Official English measure passed by Colorado voters in 1990. If we had stopped them then, when they were attacking the rights and the dignity of people of color, the right wing in Colorado might not have had as strong a base going into the Amendment 2 campaign. At the same time the right wing attacks gay and lesbian people, they attack people of color, women, the poor, and the very concept of civil rights and human equality. They say gays are trying to take something away from the majority community while simultaneously popularizing the notion that whatever it is "militant homosexuals" are after, women better not be exposed to it, and people of color already have it. The attacks, and the oppression that results, are connected. If the right has given us anything, it is this recognition of our mutual interdependency. This is the challenge being placed before us by the rise of the right wing. This action kit is intended to be just one small resource as we begin to fight back. ----- For more information or to request a complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Homosexuality and Religion ----- by The Center for Democratic Renewal ----- "bans (against homosexuality) appear alongside a longer list . . . against such things as eating raw meat & oysters, wearing garments made of blended fibers, and planting two different kinds of seed in the same field." ----- Here are many reasons gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals have been cynically targeted by the right wing for use as scapegoats in their effort to dominate society. Chief among the reasons is the widespread popularity of anti-gay prejudice. Among all groups who are subjected to discrimination and prejudice in American society, gays, lesbians, and bisexual people are the most universally and openly despised. It is still okay to hate a queer. While the majority of American citizens believe we deserve equal protection, the majority are still not comfortable with gays and lesbians, or what they perceive to be the gay and lesbian lifestyle. The mainstream public is still full of exploitable fears, false stereotypes, and even hatred creating a strategic point of entry through which the right wing hopes to penetrate the mainstream. Further, it is still okay to hate a woman, and homophobia is the product of sexism. The normative standards governing gender roles that have traditionally been used and perpetuated to maintain patriarchal male dominance over women and the family in our society are the same normative standardsthat promote and maintain homophobia. Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are hated precisely because we defy traditional gender roles and traditional configurations of family. Additionally, the gay and lesbian movement is a relatively new movement that has not yet been able to develop strong ties with other progressive movements, nor to educate the public about gay and lesbian identity and expression. Both the lack of long-standing relationships with other progressive movements and the information void regarding gay, lesbian, and bisexual realities offer opportunities for the right. Finally, the religious rationalizations for homophobia offered by the right wing allow rightists to demonize us in the minds of the core of their activists and funders. The mere existence of people identifying as gay, lesbian, or bi is both the cash cow and the catalyst par excellence for the religious right wing. The following excerpt from When Hate Groups Come to Town, a publication of the Center for Democratic Renewal, offers some specific insights into the religious right wing's view of homosexuality. -- The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force ----- For most of human history, gay men and lesbians have been viciously persecuted. Today, homosexuals are a favorite target of the religious right, whose members frequently quote scripture to justify anti-gay bias and even violence. There are even those who claim that AIDS is God's punishment on homosexuals. In an August 17, 1992 op-ed piece in the New York Times, Peter J. Gomes, an American Baptist Minister and professor of Christian morals at Harvard University, observed that nine Biblical citations are customarily invoked to condemn homosexuality. Four (Deuteronomy 23:17, I Kings 14:24, I Kings 22:46, and II Kings 23:7) simply prohibit prostitution by men and women. Two (Leviticus 18:19-23 and Leviticus 20:10-16) explicitly ban homosexual acts. These bans appear alongside a longer list of biblical injunctio ns against such things as eating raw meat and oysters, wearing garments made of blended fibers, and planting two different kinds of seed in the same field. Tattoos, adultery, and sexual intercourse during a women's menstrual period are similarly outlawed by this Holiness Code. According to Gomes, three references from St. Paul are frequently cited as scriptural evidence of the evils of homosexuality (Romans I:26-2, I Corinthians 6:9-11, and I Timothy 1:10). "St. Paul was concerned with homosexuality only because in Greco-Roman culture it represented a secular sensuality that was contrary to his Jewish-Christian spiritual idealism. He was against lust and sensuality in anyone, including heterosexuals. To say that homosexuality is bad because homosexuals are tempted to do morally doubtful things is to say that heterosexuality is bad because heterosexuals are likewise tempted. For St. Paul, anyone who puts his or her interest ahead of God's is condemned, a verdict that falls equally upon everyone," writes Gomes. Felicia Fontaine, a lesbian minister with Universal Fellowship of the Metropolitan Community Church, says the religious right is misusing the Bible. "I don't read the same Bible as other people," she said. "I read John 3:16, 'Whosoever believes in Jesus Christ shall have eternal life.' That passage does not specify race, sex, or sexual orientation." Fontaine believes the Biblical quotations cited against homosexuals are misinterpretations. For example, Ezekiel said the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was greed - not sex. "Even the use of the work sodomite in the King James version of the Bible refers to prostitution, not homosexuality," Fontaine said. So, when St.Paul condemned a sin, he was referring to prostitution, not homosexuality. Gomes' column offers a similar observation: "...the story [of Sodom and Gomorrah] is not about sexual perversion and homosexual practice. It is about inhospitality, according to Luke 10:10-13, and failure to care for the poor, according to Ezekiel 16:49-50:'Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.' To suggest that Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexual sex is an analysis of about as much worth as suggesting that the story of Jonah and the whale is a treatise on fishing." According to Gomes, there is no mention of homosexuality in the four Gospels of the New Testament. "The moral teachings of Jesus are not concerned with the subject," he writes. Biblical interpretations that are used to condemn gay men and lesbians are used in much the same way that other readings of scripture have been to justify the perceived inferior status of other minority groups. This is, in part, because the Bible itself contains many opportunities for potentially controversial interpretations. For example, after literally centuries of debate over the portrayal of the role of the Jews in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church and most Protestant denominations have officially renounced earlier interpretations which held the Jews responsible. Supporters of segregation and white supremacy have also often invoked the story of the Children of Ham as a way of explaining the existence (and inferior status) of people of color. Today those interpretations are not regarded as either credible or morally just. Those who interpret scripture to justify the persecution of gay men and lesbians are misusing the Bible in exactly the same way that segregationists and anti-Semites manipulated scripture to justify the oppression and victimization of blacks and Jews. -- from When Hate Groups Come to Town: A Handbook of Effective Community Responses, 2nd. edition, 1992, published by the Center for Democratic Renewal, P.O. Box 50469, Atlanta, GA, 30302. Reprinted with permission. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit The New Right and the Christian Right ----- by Jonathan Mozzochi, Gillian Leichtling & Steven Gardiner of the Coalition for Human Dignity ----- In order to appreciate the scope and assess the threat of the current right wing insurgence, one must consider something of its history and the social context out of which it grew. The importance of understanding this history is apparent when the great gulf between the way the "New Right" represents itself and the reality of its history is considered. The so-called New Right has managed to sell itself as the populist, democratic, alternative to an entrenched liberal elite that enforces an "alien" ideology on the American people. The roots of the New Right are not in democratic process, however, but in mass mobilization against the civil rights of blacks women, and gays and lesbians. With the example of George Wallace's independent presidential bid, the leadership of what became the New Right realized that a broad sector of white, Christian America could be won over with populist rhetoric and more or less open race-baiting. With this realization the New Right had its winning formula: mobilize "democratically" to attack the rights of others. Origins In 1964 when Lyndon Johnson soundly defeated conservative Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, it looked as if the American right was dead. The Civil Rights movement, the mass protests against the Vietnam War, the women's movement and the Nixon administration scandals in the early 1970s only seemed to confirm that verdict. But according to William A. Rusher, co-founder of the conservative National Review, "the most important event of 1964...was not Johnson's landslide victory...Rather it was the fact that the Goldwater campaign introduced the conservatives of America to one another." In practical terms the Goldwater campaign was a watershed for the right. The outspoken conservative candidate received a greater number of small donations than any presidential candidate up to that time, and the mailing lists built up in the process became a priceless asset to conservative organizations that subsequently acquired them. In fact, Richard Viguerie, the man who was to become the right wing guru of direct mail solicitation in the '70s and '80s, began his career as a fundraiser with a list of so me 12,500 contributors who had given fifty dollars or more to the campaign. Ironically enough it was the decade of the 1960s, hardly thought of as the heyday of conservatives, which marked not only a huge growth in the number of right wing journals and organizations, but the point during which the post-war right first started to flex its political muscle. The Goldwater campaign of 1964 was significant as the moment when the Right first attempted to organize independently, behind their own candidate. It was not until 1968, however, that anyone at the national level was able to mobi lize the mass of socially conservative Southern whites, who had traditionally voted democratic, behind a reactionary agenda. Significantly it was not Republican Richard Nixon, but the insurgent third party candidacy of Alabama Governor George Wallace that moved this constituency. Wallace, who laced his rhetoric with populism and ran against the Civil Rights movement, managed to get on the ballot in all 50 states, receiving nearly 10 million votes, heavily drawn from the ranks of blue-collar workers, farm labor, and Southern whites. His combination of racism and anti-elite "populism" was electric, mobilizing and politicizing thousands of new activists and sending a powerful signal to more traditional right-wing organizers. The lesson was clear: the way to move the white electorate t o the Right was through direct appeals to racism and attacks on the Civil Rights movement; as prominent African-American scholar Manning Marable explained, "Wallace used vulgar race-baiting as a technique to win the allegiance of poor and working-class whites behind a reactionary political program" (The Crisis of Color and Democracy, Essays on Race, Class and Power. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1992, p. 138) The leadership of what became the New Right was quick to capitalize on Wallace's tactics, both to expand their coffers and to bring Wallace's constituency into the Republican Party. By 1972, in the aftermath of the Wallace campaign and Richard Nixon's landslide re-election victory over liberal opponent George McGovern, it was reasonably clear that there was a large reactionary constituency in search of someone to lead it. The only thing standing between the right wing and state power was an autonomous political structure with a comprehensive set of institutions - think tanks, PACs, single-issue organizations, and umbrella groups - that could take advantage of this constituency. Following the Watergate scandal and President Nixon's resignation there was a proliferation of just such institutions. Using the mailing lists Richard Viguerie had developed as a base, the key institutions of what was to become the New Right were founded in the mid-1970s. In 1973 Viguerie helped reactionary Senator Jesse Helms establish the Congressional Club. In the next two years Paul Weyrich (with the backing of beer mogul and John Birch Society member Joseph Coors) founded the Heritage Foundation and the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress; Howard Phillips created the Conservative Caucus; and John T. Dolan started the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). By the early 1980s these organizations would be the wealthiest and most influential political action committees and think tanks in the country. The Christian Right It was the same men, particularly Howard Phillips and Paul Weyrich, who played a major role in the creation of the major Christian Right organizations. The televangelists and pastors of the superchurches, men like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Tim LaHaye were recruited to lead the new organizations, but it was the New Right organizers who pushed the religious leaders to form the national groups. But the mobilization of the Religious Right was not simply an adjunct to secular conservative politics. In retrospect it was a movement on the verge of emergence at the time the New Right leaders came along and helped get it started. The women's movement, the movement for gay and lesbian liberation, and sex education in the schools gave the Religious Right an agenda. The advent of "superchurches," some with congregations of twenty thousand or more, along with the electronic ministry, provided the means with which to mobilize the fundamentalist/evangelical community. In the early years of the Reagan Administration these New Christian Right organizations found themselves thrust into the spotlight, with groups like the Moral Majority becoming widely known. But in spite of their high visibility, the Reagan Administration managed to deliver on very little of the Christian Right's agenda. Contrary to appearances, the Christian Right did not really even begin to come into its own until 1988. In 1988 George Bush was the Republican candidate for president. From the point of view of the Religious Right, Bush's lukewarm stance on conservative social issues represented everything that was wrong with the Republican Party. Televangelist Pat Robertson was ready to take advantage of that fact. As early as March of 1985, Paul Weyrich was quoted in the Saturday Evening Post as supporting a "Robertson for President" campaign in 1988. He told the Post that he would lead a "Draft Robertson" movement. Robertson countered by staging a formal announcement on September 17, 1986, but instead of confirming his candidacy-which would have required him to leave his post as host of the "700 Club" Ñhe told his supporters that, "If by September 17, 1987, one year from today, three million registered voters have signed petitions telling me that they will pray, that they will work, that they will give toward my election, then I will run as a candidate for the office of President of the United States." (Spiritual Warfare, Sara Diamond, Boston: South End Press, 1989, p.73). The more than 3 million signatures collected by Robertson's supporters over the next year became the base mailing list for his campaign. Moreover, since those who signed the Robertson for President petition were asked to indicate their party affiliation and voter registration status, the Robertson campaign was able to mail registration materials to unregistered supporters and Democrats. Meanwhile Robertson already had the skeleton of a political machine on the ground in the form of his Freedom Council, an organization founded back in 1981. The Freedom Council was formed to mobilize activists to write letters, make phone calls and otherwise work on "Christian" legislative issues, on a precinct by precinct basis. Though the Council was officially dissolved in October of 1986 in the face of a tax audit, the same activists who had been involved in the Council became the foundation of the Robe rtson campaign organization. Robertson, like Goldwater in 1964 and Wallace in 1968, failed to capture either the nomination or the Presidency, but the impact of his campaign should not be underestimated. Placing second to Robert Dole and ahead of George Bush in the Iowa caucus and winning 10-15% of the Republican vote in the South, Robertson vowed to continue to build for the future. Moving away from the spotlight of national politics, his Christian Coalition has emerged from the shadow of his campaign to be a major force on the Chris tian Right. The campaign marked a turning point when the Religious Right recognized that it had gone as far as it would likely go through a frontal assault on the national political level. A new strategy was needed. As it turns out the content of that new strategy was presaged in a memo which was circulated during the buildup for the Iowa caucuses, instructing Robertson's supporters to infiltrate local Republican parties. Included in the memo, which later became something of an embarrassment, were the bibl ical prescriptions to "rule the world for God" and to "be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." At the same time it advised activists to hide their strength and not to flaunt their Christianity. In the wake of Robertson's campaign, the Religious Right has learned to adopt new tactics, concentrating on local and state politics and coalition building. It has learned to moderate its rhetoric, self-consciously appealing to "common sense" values instead of quoting scripture. In November of 1990, in fact, a symposium of Christian Right leaders was held under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. to develop this new strategy. The symposium was organized around an article written by former Robertson staff member Thomas C. Atwood for Policy Review, the Heritage Foundation house organ. Atwood accused the Christian Right of ignoring the basic rules of politics, suggesting that its leaders "often came across as authoritarian, intolerant and boastful, even to natural constituents." His message suggested that the Religious Right concentrate on appeals to "common sense" values and avoid "messianic rhetoric." Summing up he stated, "the best thing that could happen to the movement is for it to be less identifiable as a movement and have its people and its ideas percolate through the system" (The Freedom Writer, May/June 1991, p.1). The Christian Right Reaction During the 1960's when strong movements for women's rights, gay liberation, and civil rights were ongoing, the Right was forced to define its agenda in reaction to desegregation, the struggle for sexual equality, and opposition to the Vietnam War. Before the rise of the New Right, the reaction was incoherent; to many who would later become involved in the Christian Right it seemed as if society was under attack by a militant minority and that the Powers That Be were not making any serious effort to oppose those attacks. Hence the initial organizing of the New Right was framed as opposition to these ongoing movements. From the Wallace campaign to the Moral Majority, the rhetoric was of patriotic, Christian, white Americans retaking their country from the decadent blacks, feminists and homosexuals who were ruining it. In the early 1980s the first of two strategic shifts began. The New Right attempted to re-frame debate and take control over the language of civil rights, to become a pro-active movement instead of a reactive one. The rhetoric was reformed: resistance to reproductive rights became "pro-life," opposition to sexual freedom became "pro-abstinence." After years of defining itself as anti-feminist, the movement began to refer to itself as "pro-family." The new clarion call for the New Right and the Religious R ight when dealing with gay and lesbian liberation or affirmative action is "special rights for none...equal rights for all." Then in the mid-1980s a second shift took place. After redefining their movement as pro-active rather than reactive, the New Right redefined itself. It was no longer the Moral Majority, but the new oppressed minority. The political figures who rode the crest of this reactionary wave perceived themselves as social outcasts rather than guardians of the status quo. They began to stop presenting themselves as defenders of the moral order, and to recast themselves as revolutionaries seeking to recreate the world they imagined existed before feminism and the civil rights movement. The effect of this has been a reinterpretation of social reality. White Christians are now "true minorities," defending themselves against "special interest groups" that have won "special rights" through gerrymandered elections, a judicial system dominated by liberals, a powerful, morally corrupt school system, and a Congress that promotes the destruction of the family. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Race and the Religious Right ----- by Scot Nakagawa, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Fight the Right Director ----- The long history of right wing activism against the rights of people of color is reflected in their choice of tactics in all of their campaigns. Racist ideology and rhetoric are underpinnings of current anti-gay propaganda and strategy used in the right wing's latest attempts to subvert democratic potential in American society. Activists organizing against the religious right wing's anti-gay attacks must come to understand how racism and sex oppression are connected in right wing rhetoric and strategy. This is especially important because the struggle to overcome race-based discrimination provides the legal and ideological foundation for our gay and lesbian liberation struggle and for the larger movement to realize the promise of full civil equality for all people. Any attempt to undermine the civil rights gains made by African Americans and other people of color will undermine the ability of all groups to achieve civil equality. History of Race and U.S. Racism The struggle for multi-racial democracy in the US is a fight against both interpersonal and institutional forms of discrimination that have deep roots in slavery. Racism in the US, as experienced by all people of color, is largely based on the justification for and institutionalization of slavery. Despite the abolition of slavery and the contributions of African Americans to the establishment of a more democratic society during reconstruction, its legacy persisted both on an interpersonal and institutional level into the 1960's. The historical effects of slavery continue even now to be a critical element of American social, cultural, political, and economic life. Prior to slavery, Native Americans, Africans, Latinos, and Asians were regarded as subhuman based on religion. To white Americans and Europeans, the world's people existed in two categories: Christian or heathen. The human worth of any individual was defined according to their relationship to a Christian god. The problem this presented to slaveholders and to those involved in the project of pacifying and destroying Native American nations is that the evangelical nature of Christianity allowed for people of color to "find religion." Hence, the development of the concept of race as a biological or "natural" determinant of human worth, and the subsequent development of a racial hierarchy in the U.S. Both the science of racialism and the institutionalization of racial hierarchy were constructed as more permanent answers to white America's presumed need for slave labor. The civil rights movement of the 1960's and the continuing struggle against race-based discrimination is rooted in the struggle against slavery. In the 1960s African Americans led a fight to remove the legally codified vestiges of slavery from our constitution and from state and local laws. Most odious among these were Jim Crow laws that required racial segregation. The right wing has popularized the misconception that the African American-led civil rights movement defines civil rights in the United States. In truth, the civil rights movement of the 1960's was a movement against only one kind of civil rights violation, race based discrimination. Right wing attempts to promote the myth that only people of color have civil rights are based in racism. The right wing repeatedly states that "legitimate minority status" may only be conferred to those who can be identified as minorities because of "innate, natural characteristics" such as race. However, the concept of race in the US was largely invented, and justified through pseudo-science, by white Americans to rationalize the exploitation and slavery of blacks. In short, the concept of race in the American context is a socially constructed system for placing people in a hierarchical structure of social and economic relations. There is nothing "innate" or "natural" about "race". A Legitimate Minority? There is no such thing as "legitimate minority status" as defined by the religious right. People of color are not defined as a minority on the basis of income or morality. In fact, right wing definitions of "morality" have been an obstacle to the achievement of equality for people of color throughout the history of the U.S. The right wing has argued that gays and lesbians, and in some cases bisexuals, are not eligible for consideration for "minority status and all the privileges thereof...." This argument promotes the myth, popularized by the right wing, that being a minority in a majority rule society comes with privileges. As new right leader Paul Weyrich of the reactionary Free Congress Foundation has stated, "The politicians have been scared because the homosexual lobby, like the civil rights lobby, has exaggerated importance in Washington." When we hear the right wing talking about "minority privileges" and "minority rights," we need to ask just what those privileges and rights are, and whether poor education, substandard housing, and low life expectancy are part of this "special" benefits package. Acting Affirmatively Affirmative action has been associated with quotas and called a "special right" by the religious right. We need to understand just what affirmative action does and does not do. Affirmative action is not a "special right." No one has a right to affirmative action. Instead, it is a program that intended to remedy some problems associated with a historical pattern of discrimination. Because affirmative action is a remedy and not a right, it is not intended to be permanent. Affirmative action does not mandate quotas that require hiring unqualified people of color to take jobs away from white men. No quotas are associated with affirmative action. Instead, some employers are required to review the racial and gender composition of the qualified applicant pool when hiring new employees. The percentage of those eligible for affirmative action in the qualified applicant pool and the actual applicant pool set a standard intended to prevent discrimination. It is neither true that all people of color are employed because of affirmative action, nor that people of color are the only people to benefit from affirmative action. More Right Wing Myths The religious right claims that people of color "deserve" civil rights protections on the grounds that racism has resulted in disproportionate levels of poverty in communities of color. Leaders of the religious right have simultaneously made the claim that racism no longer exists, and have even gone so far as to claim that racism has been reversed and whites are the new victims. They further claim that Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, or Asians with higher than average incomes are indices that those people of color who are poor, particularly Blacks, are suffering from a lack of moral turpitude. Facts they Ignore How rich or poor someone or some group may be, all have civil rights, and the option of making claims of discrimination and demanding government redress of our grievances. While poverty is frequently the result of discrimination, the presence of poverty is not a test for whether any group may enjoy civil rights. Not all people of color are poor. The proportion of African Americans families with incomes over $50,000 increased over the last two decades from 10.0 to 13.8 percent. While the total number of African American families earning more than $50,000 has increased, the median income for Blacks overall has decreased since the 1970's. These statistics are indicative of the lack of real civil rights protection and enforcement in the 1970s and '80s. Over this period there has been a rapid erosion of the gains of the civil rights movement. One key force behind this erosion is the new religious right wing. Recognizing connections The history of racism and the struggle for civil equality of people of color in the United States is far broader and more complex than can be covered in this brief overview. It is critical that we come to understand this history and its impact on contemporary society in order to effectively combat a right wing movement that has been an integral force in that history, and has as one of its goals a return to the "traditional values" of openly expressed and overtly institutionalized racism. It is simply not enough for us to "honor diversity." We must recognize that we are the products of a history steeped in racism and sexism, and that our oppression as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people is one product of this history. Rather than simply honoring diversity we must build democracy. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit The Christian Coalition -- An Introduction ----- by Skipp Porteous ----- "There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that sanctifies the separation of church and state." -- Pat Robertson ----- Christian Coalition P.O. Box 1990 Chesapeake, VA 23320 (804) 424-2630 Executive Director: Ralph Reed Founder: Pat Robertson, 1979 Membership: 400,000+ Chapters: 750+ Budget: 10 million/year Staff: 30 The failure of Pat Robertson's 1988 Presidential bid, the collapse of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, and the downfall of several major TV evangelists caused many people to breathe a collective sigh of relief. The radical religious right, which had been gaining momentum, finally seemed to be running out of steam. But in fact, the Christian Right itself has been born again. It has reorganized, and is beginning to arise as a major religious and social force. These radicals have not gone, and will not go away. Having failed in his venture into national politics, Pat Robertson switched his efforts to the local arena. In 1989, Robertson Ñwith the encouragement of Billy McCormack, a Shreveport, La. preacher who once backed Neo-Nazi, ex-Klansman David Duke Ñfounded the Christian Coalition. With a detailed, long-range plan, superb organizing, and millions of dollars in their war chest, the Christian Coalition has taken the nation by storm Ñalthough most Americans are still unaware of the group's activities. According to Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition's executive director, "The Christian community got it backwards in the nineteen-eighties. We tried to charge Washington when we should have been focusing on the states. The real battles of concern to Christians are in neighborhoods, school boards, city councils, and state legislatures." Jodie Robbins, assistant to Ralph Reed, said, "When Pat was running for President, and when Reagan was in, we saw that, even with Reagan and his very conservative views, the Christian community was still put on the back burner, so to speak." Robbins said that the American Civil Liberties Union works on the local level; that is where their strength is the greatest; and she indicated that the Christian Coalition learned from the ACLU's savvy. While they tried to make their voice heard in Washington, Robbins said, they were losing the battle back in their hometowns. They realized, she said, that "back home," they could "really make an impact." "We can decide who our school councils are going to be, who the board of education's going to be, who our city council's going to be, who the representatives are, etcetera." Then, in 1990, with the newly-formed Christian Coalition looking on, the religious right in San Diego County, California, covertly ran candidates for 90 county offices. By and large, these people did not advertise their candidacy, or participate in public forums or debates. Utilizing a massive Christian phone bank culled from 100 selected churches, church members were contacted and informed of the identity of the "pro-family" candidates. On the Sunday before the Tuesday election, teams visited church parking lots and placed voter guides on car windshields. When the smoke cleared on Tuesday, two-thirds (60) of the Christian Right candidates won. This was accomplished with hardly any campaigning, aside from organizing the conservative Christian vote. This strategy has become known as the "San Diego model," and is being replicated in other areas of the country. (See STEALTH: The Christian Coalition Takes San Diego, following this article.) In 1991, the Christian Coalition held its first "Road to Victory" political training conference in Virginia Beach, Virginia. About 800 Christian activists from practically every state attended to hear rousing speeches and receive hands-on training in political activism. At the time of Road to Victory I, about 225 Christian Coalition chapters existed nation-wide. By the time Road to Victory II rolled around in 1992, about 440 chapters were operating in every state except Utah. In 1992, about 1,500 Christian right activists attended Road to Victory II. Highly motivated and well-trained, these zealots returned to their respective states and began organizing. Now, with over 725 chapters and 350,000 members, the Christian Coalition's goal is to have 1,500 chapters and 800,000 members by the end of 1993. Guy Rodgers, the Christian Coalition's National Field Director, claims that one new chapter is added every day. In addition, in 1993, the Christian Coalition aims to have a full-time staff in 20 states, with 50,000 precinct leaders who will provide grassroots leadership. Also, 25,000 church liaison leaders will work to link the Christian Coalition with local churches and local political precincts. The annual Road to Victory conference is followed up with local Leadership Training Schools. More than 70 of these two-day intensive training seminars are scheduled for 1993. According to Jodie Robbins, the seminars use "a nuts and bolts manual on how to start a coalition; how to fund raise for your candidate; how to be a candidate; and how to canvass your voters." Robertson's goal is to make the Christian Coalition bigger and more superior than any political group on the right or the left. "I believe that the Christian Coalition," said Robertson, "will be the most powerful political force in America by the end of this decade." Anyone opposing the Christian Coalition's agenda is accused of "religious bigotry." This is a constant theme, both on Robertson's "700 Club" TV program, and in articles in the Christian Coalition's full-color tabloid newspaper, the Christian American. Typical of the religious right, the Christian Coalition employs deceptive tactics to further their political agenda. For example, Tony Rivera is Deputy Ombudsman of the City of New York. A Democrat for East Harlem, he works in City Council president Andrew Stein's office. Rivera addressed a Christian Coalition meeting in New York City in 1992. Realizing that most New Yorkers are liberal and moderate Democrats, Rivera endorsed the Christian Coalition's method of concealing its real ideology behind a bland facade. "The majority of our leaders are pro-abortion," he said, explaining how Christians could involve themselves in local affairs. "So, you don't go in there and say, ÔI'm an advocate against abortion.' No, you say, ÔI'm interested in housing, or development, or sanitation.' And you keep your personal views to yourself until the Christian community is ready to rise up, and then, wow! They're gonna be devastated!" These words are familiar Christian right rhetoric. In 1985, at a conference in Washington called "How to Win An Election," Michael Carrington admonished the gathering, "Always talk in terms of traditional values...we can get more narrow later..." And Pat Robertson has said, "We have enough votes to run this country...and when the people say, ÔWe've had enough,' we're going to take over!" The Pennsylvania Christian Coalition hand book further reveals the deception. In the hand book, members are instructed: "Become directly involved in the local Republican central committee so you are an insider." Then, this caveat: "You should never mention the name Christian Coalition in Republican circles." Most of the funding for the Christian Coalition comes from its members. Contributions made to the national organization are kept separate from the state organizations. For instance, in New York, membership costs $35, even though one may be a member of the national group. State and local chapters are expected to raise their own funds. Nationally, the Christian Coalition is operating on a $12 million annual budget. This doesn't include what state chapters raise. During the Road to Victory conference in September 1992, members of Robertson's "Inner Circle" were invited to a special reception at his Virginia Beach home. More than a hundred Inner Circle members attended, and experienced a rare privilege Ñthe chance to shake hands with the President of the United States. During the reception, officials of the Christian Coalition circulated among those attending and obtained financial pledges to the Coalition. The short event raised approximately $160,000 for the Christian Coalition. The Christian Coalition is still in its developmental/experimental stages. Focus is being placed on starting new chapters and training Coalition members for political activism. These are, however, examples of how the Christian Coalition can sway elections. In his 1990 reelection bid, Senator Jesse Helms was behind in the polls. He contacted Pat Robertson, and the Christian Coalition swung into action. On the Sunday before the Tuesday election, the North Carolina Christian Coalition distributed 750,000 half-page size voter guides on behalf of Helms. Some were inserted into church bulletins, others were distributed outside in church parking lots. Helms won reelection by a narrow margin. The Christian Coalition takes credit for Helms' come-from-behind victory. "The press had no idea what we were doing," said North Carolina state director Judy Haynes, "and they still don't know what we did. But it worked." In 1992, Iowa voters had the opportunity to make the Equal Rights Amendment state law. Polls released the Sunday before the election indicated Iowans favored the amendment 54 to 33 percent. Iowa, however, is a Christian Coalition stronghold. Long-time Robertson organizer, Marlene Elwell, and her Iowa Committee to Stop ERA, hand-delivered 1,085,000 anti-ERA pamphlets door-to-door in every precinct in the state. The Christian Coalition distributed 600,000 voter guides in Iowa and 45,000 phone calls urging voters to reject the ERA. Pat Robertson mailed a letter to his Iowa supporters in which he said, "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." The Christian Coalition also provided funds for literature drops, radio ads, and a two-thirds page ad in the Des Moines Register the Sunday before the election. When the votes were counted, the ERA lost, 53 to 48 percent. Again, the religious right, and the Christian Coalition in particular, took the credit. ----- Some material in this section was first reported by Frederick Clarkson and Joe Conason in The Freedom Writer, published by the Institute for First Amendment Studies(IFAS). ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Stealth -- The Christian Coalition Takes San Diego ----- by Jonathan Mozzochi, Gillian Leichtlig & Steven Gardiner of the Coalition for Human Dignity ----- The following analysis of Christian Right organizing strategy in Southern California was prepared by the Coalition for Human Dignity for the Western States Center as part of a research project on the Christian Coalition. We reprint it here with permission from CHD and Western States. "Stealth" strategy is guerrilla warfare in the electoral theatre, and must be understood to be successfully challenged. The year was 1990, the morning after election day. Longtime San Diego incumbents awoke to what must have seemed like an overnight palace coup. Prior to the election many local office-holders had been completely unaware that they faced any serious opposition, much less an organized overthrow by a supposed "fringe" element. When the smoke cleared, two-thirds of the candidates on the Christian Right slate (60 out of 90) had won their races for low-level state and local positions. Today, the 1990 elections in San Diego are considered a blueprint for Christian Right political organizing nationwide. Christian Coalition and other Christian Right strategists have since duplicated the winning methods of the "San Diego model" in a number of other states, attempting to gain control of school boards, hospital boards, water districts, community planning boards, city councils, county supervisory boards, state legislatures, land use boards, and Republican Party committees. The San Diego model, using "stealth candidates" and running "covert campaigns," hinges on three political facts: 1) local campaigns only rarely generate the kind of interest or media attention that is lavished on national and statewide elections, so 2) voter turnout tends to be relatively low, and 3) the absolute number of voters involved in most elections of this type is also small. The result is that the systematic mobilization of a very few like-minded voters can often turn the tide in elections of this type. In fact, in many local elections, it takes only a few dozen, or at most, a few hundred committed voters to make the difference. Of course, this campaign works best when the opposition doesn't know that a systematic, ideologically coherent campaign is being run, hence the "stealth" factor. The candidate may know that someone is running against him or her and may even know that the opposition is a conservative, Christian fundamentalist, but he or she is unaware that the opposition has the backing of a covert political machine. Thus the stealth candidate may or may not try to hide his or her political philosophy, but will certainly try to hide the fact that he or she has organizational backing. Candidates are instructed in the Christian Coalition organizing manual to never reveal their affiliation. In San Diego, it was the California Pro-Life Council (CPLC), an affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, which was instrumental in the success of implementing the stealth strategy. The Christian Coalition and CPLC work closely in Southern California, where CPLC helped the Christian Coalition establish 32 chapters in only six months in the wake of the elections. Similarly, the Christian Coalition, as a powerful, multi- issue organization, provided the CPLC leaders with the training and strategy necessary to gain influence in the state Republican Party. Perhaps the most successful part of the San Diego stealth strategy was the production of a simple voters' guide, quietly distributed on cars in church parking lots (intended to give the impression that these candidates were endorsed by the church) and mailed shortly before the election to voters previously identified as "pro-family" through phone surveys. Voter registration drives were also held in church congregations and telephone banking was done of names drawn from church directories. Candidates on the slate otherwise kept a low profile, declining invitations to participate in debates and candidate forums, declining to complete election questionnaires from citizen groups, and seeking little mainstream publicity. Deception and evasive tactics were also used, with some candidates seriously misrepresenting their qualifications and using names of non-existent people and organizations to attack the character of other candidates (Mainstream Voters' Project Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4, p.1). After the election, winning "stealth" candidates began to make their presence known and their theocratic agendas heard. Christian Right board members in a number of San Diego County school districts used their positions to oppose counseling to pregnant teenagers, federally sponsored breakfast programs for poor children, and the release of students for confidential medical appointments during school hours. These board members also have the support of Christian Coalition "monitors," people who attend every meeting and sign up to speak, in order to defend the positions of their board members and monopolize meeting time. In addition to winning seats in non-partisan offices, candidates backed by the Christian Coalition have also taken control of the county Republican party. As Jay Grimstead of the Coalition on Revival explained, "We went out and recruited a bunch of nice, intelligent people who all happened to be godly and praying people, but didn't announce it. They just put their names on the ballots and got elected" (NY Times; 10/27/92). The Christian Coalition has already had a profound impact on Republican party politics in San Diego. Members of Congress explain that if they fail to vote along the Coalition party line, they face strong opposition in future elections. The 1992 elections proved to be a different story. Christian Right candidates had less success than in 1990, when the opposition was completely unprepared. This time, 107 candidates aligned with or supported by Christian Right organizations ran for low-level offices, but only 36 won (still enough to make a significant impact, especially on the school boards). While their campaigns were far better organized and had much more national Christian Coalition support, they couldn't rely on the same secrecy that aided them in the previous election. Citizen's groups such as the Mainstream Voters' Project, along with the media, began exposing Christian Right candidates who ran for school boards while their own children attended private schools, repeatedly changed their mailing addresses in order to run in more receptive districts, or asked opponents, "Are you a Christian," as if there was no room left in politics for people of other faiths. One write-in "Democrat," 18 year-old high school student Julie Pierce (daughter of an anti-choice candidate running in a neighboring district), misrepresented her anti-choice views, political affiliations, qualifications, and home address in order to divert enough votes from the pro-choice Independent incumbent to allow the Republican to win in the 39th State Senate District. Such methods were far less effective when brought into the light of day, however, and the momentum of the Christian Right political takeover in San Diego has clearly been slowed. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Concerned Women for America -- A Case Study ----- by Steven Gardiner, Research Director, Coalition for Human Dignity ----- "Homosexuals expect society to embrace their immoral way of life. Worse yet, they are looking for new recruits!" -- Beverly LaHaye Concerned Women for America 5/92 ----- Concerned Women for America 370 L'Enfant Promenade SW Suite 800 Washington, D.C. 20024 (202) 488-7000 President: Beverly LaHaye Founded: 1979 Membership: 600,000 Chapters: 1,200 Budget: $10 million/year Staff: 25 Publications: Family Voice (200,000 monthly), Issues at a Glance (150,000 monthly) Other Media: "Beverly LaHaye Live" (30 minute daily radio, heard by 350,000 people over 28 stations nationwide) 501(c)3 - Concerned Women for America Legal Defense Foundation 501(c)4 - Concerned Women for America, Inc. Founded in 1979 by Beverly LaHaye, the wife of fundamentalist Baptist minister and Moral Majority co-founder Tim LaHaye, Concerned Women for America (CWA) is the largest Christian Right organization targeted at women. CWA representatives claim that it is the largest women's organization in the country. Membership estimates vary widely, from 350,000 to 750,000Ñdepending on who's countingÑbut with a monthly newsletter (Family Voice) that is mailed to 200,000 subscribers, a daily syndicated radio show ("Beverly LaHaye Live") that reaches upwards of 350,000 people on twenty-eight stations nationwide, an annual budget of $10 million and what may be the most effective multi-issue, grassroots lobbying network in existence, Concerned Women for America is a force to be reckoned with. While CWA has sought to portray itself as something of a "ladies auxiliary" to the efforts of male-led Christian Right organizations, the reality is rather different. LaHaye makes this abundantly clear in her 1984 book, Who But a Woman? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers) in which she argues that women have a special role to play in pushing the "pro-family" agenda forward. The story LaHaye tells about her political awakening and the origins of Concerned Women for America offers an idea of what this "special role" might be: The year was 1978. Dutiful wife Beverly was lounging with her husband Tim in their San Diego living room, watching the evening news. Barbara Walters was interviewing feminist leader Betty Friedan. Friedan made the claim that her views represented those of a great many American women. LaHaye jumped up and declared, "Betty Friedan doesn't speak for me and I bet she doesn't speak for the majority of women in this country." It was then that she decided something had to be done to prevent feminists from destroying the family and the nation. She called a meeting, uncertain if anyone would show up. When twelve hundred women filled the hall, LaHaye concluded that "the majority of women out there don't agree with Betty Friedan and the ERA." (Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi, [New York: Crown Publishers, 1991], p. 247-248). Though CWA is a multi-issue organization, its "special role" in the Christian Right has been that of an exemplary foil to the women's movement: the good, pro-family, "spirit-controlled" women, who, in LaHaye's words, are "truly liberated" because they are "totally submissive" to their husbands (The Spirit Controlled Woman, [Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1976], p. 71). CWA activists, though they may appear to be showing dangerous signs of independence, are in fact doing the will of their husbands and their Christian duty to promote pro-family values. The Structure Concerned Women for America, like most new Right institutions, is not one but, at least for tax purposes, two groups: Concerned Women for America Education and Legal Defense Foundation, a federal income-tax exempt 501(c)3 charitable organization confined to non-partisan, non-political grassroots lobbying; and Concerned Women for America, Inc., a 501(c)4 income-tax exempt corporation that can engage in non-partisan lobbying; e.g. in favor or opposition to a particular bill or ballot measure. The major difference between the two sorts of groups is that donations to a 501(c)3 organization are tax deductible, whereas donations to a 501(c)4 are not. CWA national headquarters are located in Washington, D.C. and employ some 25 full-time staff people. In principle, and for the most part in fact, the national office controls not just CWA's philosophical direction, but directly instructs local chapters on which specific issues to act on --- although the local chapters maintain some autonomy with respect to addressing local issues. How is Works The well known phrase "kitchen table activist" has its origins in a pamphlet entitled "How to Lobby From Your Kitchen Table," distributed by CWA beginning in the early years of the Reagan Administration. Borrowing a structure common in the fundamentalist/evangelical world from which most of the Concerned Women are drawn, the basic CWA unit is a "prayer chain." In the case of Concerned Women for America, a "prayer chain" does more than pray. Seven individuals, including a prayer leader, form a prayer group; seven such groups form the chain; and seven chains form a local chapter of CWA which is run under the direction of a chapter leader. Each chapter thus consists of fifty members. Chapters are under the direction of a regional director who reports to the national CWA headquarters. (Spiritual Warfare by Sara Diamond [Boston, South End Press, 1989]; see also "Kitchen Table Activists" in Interchange Report, by Kris Jacobs, Winter/Spring 1985). Ideally, action directives come from CWA headquarters in the form of "Special Messages" from President LaHaye. When an important "pro-family" issueÑe.g. abortion legislation, funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, or gay rightsÑis about to come before Congress, CWA activates its "535 Program" (435 Representatives and 100 Senators). The program instructs all CWA members to drop an avalanche of letters and phone calls to legislators and public officials at both their Capitol Hill and home offices . The effects of such efficient organizing can be devastating as thousands of letters and phone calls bombard Capitol Hill in a matter of days. Legislators in both houses and in both parties, particularly those who depend on conservative support, know that a "wrong" vote on one of these hot issues will come back to haunt them at the next election. Even centrist legislators are affected by the deluge, regardless of their own opinions on an issue: the safest political position is often with the majority of the activists, as opposed to the majority of citizens or voters. They may not expect the support of the CWA crowd, but they definitely don't want to be targeted by them as a special enemy in the next election. Though it is clear from the results that the Concerned Women chapter/prayer chain network does work, closer examination reveals an organization that is not quite as tightly organized as it pretends to be. For example, a call to the national office in Washington, D.C., asking for information about local chapters in the state of Oregon produced a claim that no active CWA chapters existed in Oregon at the time (February, 1993), and the suggestion that the caller might contact the district coordinator and con sider starting an Oregon Chapter. Further inquiries with local Christian Right groups, however, eventually produced the name of a local Concerned Women organizer. This local CWA leader, one Beth Augee, a former legislative aide from Salem, Oregon, indicated a looser structure, focused more on the state legislature than on Congress and working with other Christian Right groups, particularly Eagle Forum, the other major Christian Right women's organization. When asked about the work of CWA locally in a recent interview (February 11, 1993), Augee responded: For example, last period there was a child pornography or child abuse or what was it child pornography bill [before the legislature]. We got hold of ballot statistics, circulated the information, informed legislators, etc.. We also work on issues like "No Special Rights" for homosexuals, what's been called the "gag rule" on abortion, and sex education in the schools. Augee's version of the group structure, although not disagreeing with the official version, does come across as somewhat less grandiose, reflecting, no doubt, the difference between the organization as it appears on paper and how it actually works on the ground. In her words: "The group is made of Ôprayer action chapters' formed around geographical areas, focused on writing letters and keeping track of legislative issues." She added that between legislative sessions they focus on "education of ourselves and others." This is not to say that CWA isn't effective; the results speak for themselves. Rather it suggests that the strict hierarchy CWA would like is difficult to maintain and the work that goes into a CWA mobilization likely involves more than just activating the chapter/prayer chains. In fact, many more people receive action alerts who have never been part of a prayer chain. This suggests that in addition to the chapter/prayer chain structure, there is also a good deal of direct mail that goes out from CWA headquarters to produce the waves of mail received around extremely hot issues such as Supreme Court nominations, NEA funding, or the proposed Executive Order ending the ban on gays and lesbians in the military. What are they so worried about? Though the focus of CWA has always been the women's movement, they are also active in opposing sex education, gay rights, drug and alcohol education, funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, and, of course, the Freedom of Choice Act. Until recently, LaHaye and CWA also spent a good deal of time fretting about communists. But apart from these issue positions, CWA is part of the Christian Right effort to change the way we structure our entire society; they are part of the effort to infiltrate and influence secular institutions of all sorts in an attempt to remake them in the image of their Biblical morality. As LaHaye put it in an interview with Ms. Magazine, "Yes, religion and politics do mix. America is a nation based on biblical principles. Christian values dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the Bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office" (Feb. 1987). Feminist Propoganda? A case study in CWA organizing Perhaps the best way to understand the local impact of Concerned Women for America organizing is to look briefly at a case in point. In Arizona, the Governor's Office of Women's Services scheduled a forum in the city of Phoenix on March 8, 1992, in honor of International Women's Day. The panel of speakers for the event was composed of feminist activists and scholars. The Arizona regional CWA office saw this as a threat and mobilized. Cathy Herrod, CWA regional director for Arizona, sent letters to Governor Symington, several key legislators, and the Office of Women's Services. The IWD committee capitulated to pressure and agreed to include "pro-family" speakers on the panel. At the same time, the local Phoenix chapter hastily put together an exhibit at the event, distributing action alerts asking people to write to the Governor and state legislators, urging them to scrutinize the use of tax dollars to promote feminist propaganda (Family Voice, April 1992, p.26). Earthshaking results obviously do not always come about as the direct effect of CWA organizing. In the Phoenix case, only a single event was affected, and only by being altered to accommodate additional speakers and points of view. However, this is misleading. The fact that CWA was able to gain a hearing in the bastion of their enemies is of far less importance than two key victories: 1) the ease with which the governor's office and Office of Women's Services capitulatedÑbefore CWA had a chance to mobilize its prayer chains and letter writing campaigns, and 2) the effects of the aftermath of the event and the challenge to the very existence of the Office of Women's Services. It is with exactly this type of small, easily overlooked victory that successful political movements are built. Far away from the scrutiny of a Presidential election or high-profile piece of legislation, local institutions: school boards, libraries, hospitals, citizens' commissions, neighborhood associations and precinct-level political organs are the key battlegrounds in grassroots organizing. Each victory legitimizes the agenda of the victorious group, forcing allies and opponents alike to accommodate themselves to the demonstrated power of a group like CWA. Conclusion The politics of Concerned Women for America are the politics of reaction. Though the Christian Right might have emerged in reaction to any number of social movements of the last thirty years, CWA is inconceivable without the women's movement. Though its agenda goes beyond anti-feminism and CWA is thoroughly involved in the struggles of the Christian Right, it is impossible to understand CWA's "special role" in the movement without understanding its position as the right wing foil to feminism. Taking cues from the rest of the movement, CWA has developed its own pro-active rhetoric pro-family, pro-life, pro-chastity, etc. This does not change the underlying reality. At the same time, since the bottom line is political power, CWA has jumped into the middle of the current anti-gay backlash for example, leading a successful effort to stop a City of Boston ordinance which would have extended family leave benefits to gay and lesbian partners of municipal employees. They are, in short, willing to work on issues that will be effective organizing tools for their ultimate political ends. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Look to the Right ----- Compiled by NGLTF ----- A comprehensive list of all New Right/Religious Right institutions would be many pages long. Explaining the multiple, interlocking relationships between such groups would take many more, even if the detailed network analysis required to make such an explanation had been done at the national level, which it has not. Political Research Associates, the Coalition for Human Dignity, People for the American Way, the Institute for First Amendment Studies, and the Center for Democratic Renewal are all undertaking various parts of this study, and the significance of their work must be acknowledged with gratitude. The research assistance and contributions from these organizations have been invaluable to the production of the Fight the Right Action Kit. More information about these organizations and many others researching and organizing to counter the religious right can be found at the end of the Action Kit, where we have reprinted a thorough compendium prepared by Political Research Associates. ----- Christian Coalition Pat Robertson P.O. Box 1990 Chesapeake, VA 23320 (804) 424-2630 Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition is probably the most influential national Christian Right group in the United States. Founded in October 1989, the Coalition boasts more than 400,000 members organized in county-level chapters in all 50 states, and has a goal of 700,000 members by the end of 1993. The army of the faithful have begun to wield real political power in the past year through their tireless efforts to take control of the Republican party from the grassroots level up, and by supporting and electing "stealth candidates" to local school boards, county commissions, and other offices. The Christian Coalition's local chapters produce voter guides outlining which candidates support the "pro-family" agenda, which are distributed through church networks to Christian voters. In 1992 the Oregon Citizens' Alliance became the official Oregon affiliate of the Christian Coalition, earning a $20,000 donation in support of Measure 9. 1993 has seen the Coalition take part in the battle over the "Children of the Rainbow" curriculum in New York City schools and coordinate a county-by-county campaign in Tennessee county commissions to issue statements opposed to the inclusion of lesbians and gays under the Federal Civil Rights Bill, among many other activities. This edition of NGLTF's Fight the Right Action Kit contains an extensive case study of the Christian Coalition and an analysis of their successful "stealth" electoral strategy. ----- Citizens for Excellence in Education Robert Simonds P.O. Box 3200 Costa Mesa, CA 92628 (714) 546-5931 Citizens for Excellence in Education (CEE), like the Christian Coalition, is heavily involved in grooming like-minded candidates for school boards. School curricula frequently face attack from CEE activists, concerned that books, educational materials, courses, and faculty conform to a heavily-censored Christian party line. Restoring prayer to schools, teaching creationism, and eliminating any traces of "secular humanism" in the educational environment remain among their primary goals. People for the American Way record Simonds' boast that CEE has helped elect 1,965 school board members through the work of its 925 chapters. CEE's radio program, "Issues in Education," is broadcast in 26 states. ----- Concerned Women for America Beverly LaHaye 370 L'Enfant Promenade SW, #800 Washington, D.C. 20024 202-488-7000 Concerned Women for America, with more than 1200 tightly structured chapters across the country, is a multi-issue organization with tremendous grassroots organizing skills and an innovative "535" program they use with great effectiveness to influence Congress. Via small local groups known as "prayer chains," CWA can rapidly force grassroots political pressure on elected officials to promote their antigay, anti-choice, "pro-family" agenda. This issue of NGLTF's Fight the Right Action Kit contains an extensive case study of Concerned Women for America. ----- Eagle Forum Phyllis Schafley Box 618 Alton, IL 62002 (618) 462-5415 Though much smaller than the other Christian Right women's organization, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum has gained respect from religious right leaders for their godly efforts. Ralph Reed, Executive Director of the Christian Coalition, has described Schafly as the one woman most responsible for the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment. In any case, Schafly's high media visibility has allowed Eagle Forum's denigration of "feminism" to reach a mainstream audience. Schafly founded the Republican National Coalition for Life in 1990 and has maneuvered Eagle Forum into a position of great responsibility within the committee drafting national Republican party platforms and policy with regard to abortion and homosexuality. ----- Family Research Council Gary Bauer 700 13th ST. NW, Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 393-2100 The Family Research Council (not to be confused with the Family Research Institute associated with decertified homophobe "psychologist" Paul Cameron) is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that split from Focus on the Family in late 1992. The FRC is primarily a lobbying organization opposing laws that allow unmarried domestic partners and homosexuals the same legal protections and privileges as married heterosexuals. They also oppose government-funded child care, health care, and equal protection laws for women in the workplace. FRC adamantly believes that lifting the ban on gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in the military would dramatically increase the incidence of AIDS. ----- Focus on the Family James Dobson P.O. Box 35500 Colorado Springs, CO 80935 (719) 531-3400 Focus on the Family portrays itself as an educational institution meeting the political development needs of evangelical Christians. In addition to seminars and voter guides, Focus on the Family produces books, children's magazines, and a radio program broadcast over more than 4000 stations worldwide (many in the former Soviet Union). Focus on the Family employs approximately 900 people and has an operating budget of about $80 million per year. ----- Free Congress Foundation Heritage Foundation Paul Weyrich 717 Second St. NE Washington, D.C. 20002 202-546-3000 The Free Congress foundation is a grassroots development organization that has recently developed an "Empowerment" program, including a newsletter and several monthly television programs (billed as National Empowerment Television, or NET) carried over satellite cable. In addition, the Free Congress Judicial Selection Monitoring Project has begun its lobbying efforts to influence the appointment of social conservatives and religious right judges to the federal bench. Weyrich has long been a Christian Right leader. It was he who turned abortion into a major issue around which to rally fundamentalist voters. In 1973 he founded the Heritage Foundation and in 1974 the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, both of which were funded by reactionary beer mogul Joseph Coors. The Heritage Foundation is easily the most politically influential think tank in the country, and the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress became the prototype for an organization specializing in training and promoting candidates and targeting vulnerable incumbents. Weyrich was the first prominent New Right figure to support Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign, and he has recently allied himself with the Christian Coalition, for which he provides strategic support through the Heritage Foundation. ----- Operation Rescue Randall Terry P.O. Box 1180 Binghamton, NY 13902 607-723-4012 Founded in 1986 by New York used car salesman Randall Terry, Operation Rescue has received national media attention for its efforts to shut down clinics that perform abortions. Operation Rescue brought street fighting tactics, and what is, in effect, urban guerilla warfare, to the anti-abortion movement. Not content to lobby Congress or petition the Supreme Court, OpRes activists physically barricade clinic entrances, vandalize property, and terrorize both women attempting to enter the clinics and medical professionals who work within them. Following the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Florida in March, 1993, Randall Terry, while admitting that murder can never be advocated, expressed relief that at least Dr. Gunn would no longer be able to murder unborn babies. Following President Clinton's pledge to lift the Department of Defense ban on gays and lesbians in the military, Terry added opposition to changing the ban to the Operation Rescue agenda. ----- Rutherford Institute John Whitehead Charlottesville, Virginia The Rutherford Insitute is the premier legal arm of the religious right, acting as a sort of reactionary version of the ACLU. Whitehead has said, "There can be no solution to problems...both individual and social, other than those the Bible offers." R.J. Rushdoony, the "Marx" of Christian Reconstructionism, is a former board member of the organization which specializes in what they term "religious liberty" cases. As Skipp Porteous from the Insititute for First Amendment Studies has written, Within the framework of the radical Christian right, "religious liberty" can include Sunday blue laws, prayers at public school graduations and sporting events, the teaching of creationism in public school science classes, tax exemptions for churches and church-run businesses, and housing and employment discrimination against gay and unmarried couples who cohabitate. ----- Traditional Values Coalition Lou Sheldon 100 S. Anaheim Blve., Suite 320 Anaheim, CA 92805 (714) 520-0300 Lou Sheldon was once described by USA Today as a "California Falwell," a label that fits the high-profile preacher as well as any. His media-friendly crusades have played a major role in defeating gay and lesbian rights legislation in California in recent years. Sheldon has suggested, according to reports in the Los Angeles Times that people with AIDS should be segregated in "cities of refuge" for their own good and the good of society. He also pushes the "no special rights" for homosexuals line and the claim that gays and lesbians subvert the "heterosexual ethic." Traditional Values Coalition chapters are known to exist in 17 states, but Sheldon's influence extends further, as dozens of small groups using "traditional values" and similar language claim at least ideological affiliation to Sheldon and his California organization. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Organizing Organized Labor ----- by Beckie Capoferri, Oregon Public Employees' Union ----- The union movement is a working class movement as old as the history of workers in this country. Union organizers and activists fought and died for the right to form and join unions, and built those unions into a major force in American history that continues to affect the lives of people in this country and around the world. The labor movement championed the fight for the eight hour work day, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, and compensation for workers injured on the job. It is the labor movement that, through bargaining for and winning health care benefits for union members, sets the standard for fair treatment of non-union workers. While the labor movement isn't perfect, it has a history to proud of and deserves the support and respect of the broader progressive community. Imagine what it would be like to organize for gay and lesbian equality if our employers did not have to release us after an eight hour work day. For those of us who live in communities without legal remedies for anti-gay or lesbian employment discrimination, unions may provide the only protection we have, while again setting the standard for non-union employers. The connected problems of union busting, replacement workers, exporting jobs, a floundering economy, and decreasing numbers of organized workers have all taken a very heavy toll on the labor movement. Many of the setbacks in the union movement are directly linked to the right wing agenda. It is critically important for labor unions to recognize the right wing as the extremely well organized and well monied enemy of the working class that it is. Unions must begin to seriously examine the ways in which the right wing uses single issues Ñsuch as anti-gay and lesbian campaignsÑas a way to advance their much broader agenda; an agenda which includes the further erosion of organized labor. The union-busting tactics of the Coors Brewing Company, founded by John Birch Society member Joseph Coors, is but one example of the relationship between anti-union activities and radical right wing politics. The Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank, was founded by Joseph Coors and significantly funded with Coors Brewing Company profits. The Heritage Foundation is an organization that plots strategy for the right wing. They pick an emotional issue, name the scapegoat, and launch attacks in order to build their membership and solicit large sums of money. The Heritage Foundation was a primary contributor to the plan to target gay and lesbian citizens in the "Save Our Children Campaign" in Dade County, Florida in 1977. The Heritage Foundation was also involved in the Briggs Initiative in California in 1979, and in the Oregon and Colorado anti-gay initiative campaigns in 1992. Simultaneously, the Heritage Foundation helped Ronald Reagan become the most rabidly anti-union president in recent history. The Heritage Foundation has also been at the forefront of efforts to oppose pay equity for women, parental leave, government subsidized child care, social security, fair taxation, and numerous other issues directly affecting labor. One hand washes the other on the side of the right wing. Its time for labor and the civil rights movement to do the same. Unions can begin to rekindle the spirit of trade unionism in its broadest sense and make unions relevant again to members and unorganized workers by being visible in struggles that people really care about. Individual union members participate in a variety of social movements, but they may not be identifying themselves as union activists in those organizations. There are gay and lesbian people involved in every union. However, many union activists don't understand this. Because homophobia and heterosexism exist in the labor movement just as it does in the broader society, many union activists are "closeted" in their unions. They may be "out" in their social life, to their families, and to their friends, and still not be comfortable enough to "come out" in their local. Some of those inactive members who never attend meetings or participate in union events may be gay and lesbian members who would participate actively in their union if they knew that their union cared about their concerns as gay and lesbian people. Additionally, unions could and should see organizing against the right wing as good public relations. Because the right wing has a broad reaching agenda, countering their activities provides unions with a chance to organize on a variety of fronts with a variety of constituencies. This provides workers with positive contact with labor unions. Unions can play an important part in the fight against the right wing. There are structures in place that reach a broad cross-section of American society. Members can activate their unions to take on the right wing, and community activists can learn to support and utilize unions in common struggle against the radical right. Unions Have Something Unique To Offer Any Struggle The union movement is rooted in struggle. Struggle is a way of life to a union activist. >> Experienced union organizers bring a wealth of information and experience in the mechanics of organizing. >> Identifying leaders, developing organizing committees, and recruiting activists are essential skills for both internal organizing (empowering membership) and external organizing (organizing the unorganized). >> Union organizers do both, and can bring this expertise to a campaign. >> Unionists are often experienced campaigners. 1. Most unions have a communication system set up to contact members. Regular meetings, phone trees, mailings, and newsletters are common. Generally the rank and file membership represent broad cross sections of working class people whose support is critical in our fight against the right wing. 2. Unions may be in a position to donate money and/or staff support to the cause. Unions can also make in-kind donations of services and equipment, office space for field operations, and other critically important resources for organizing. 3. Union activists are used to engaging in concerted action-strikes, demonstrations, picket lines, etc. A committed union activist is fearless. Union activists who identify as union organizers generally have experience in organizing people, conducting meetings, designing plans, taking assignments, and reporting back on those assignments. 4. Unions are opinion leaders. The endorsements of unions give campaigns and candidates credibility. Union support may translate into support from candidates and elected officials. How To Get Your Union Involved 1. Know the structure of your union local, and identify the key players. 2. Locate members of like mind and call a meeting. Develop an organizing committee or a lesbian/gay/bisexual caucus that targets other members for inclusion. Seek out people who are elected or natural leaders and others who have leadership potential. 3. Create a plan that targets key leadership in the union structure and assess each for support or opposition to the issue. Include an action component at each meeting with assignments and a system for follow up to ensure that the assignments are completed. 4. Once you identify leaders who are supportive, give them all the information on the issue you can so that they feel comfortable discussing it with undecided leadership. 5. When you know that your issue has the support of a majority of the leadership in the union structure, find a leader to make a motion at a meeting and establish who will second the motion. If its an open meeting, make sure you have plenty of supportive voices or votes for your position in attendance. Bring more people than you think you will need; your opposition may be trying to stack the meeting. 6. If you believe you have the support of a majority of the rank and file membership, and there is significant opposition and/or resistance among official union leaders to taking a position on your issue, you will need to design a special plan to move the leadership to your side. >> In a small local, that may mean running a petition of support for your position targeting at least 50% of the members. >> Schedule a special meeting or stack a regular local or board meeting with members who support your issue. >> Present petitions at a leadership or general meeting. >> Consider organizing a labor coalition around the issue. 7. Once the union has taken an official position, make further requests Ña newsletter article, a mailing, or press conference. Start over at step one again if necessary. 8. Continue the work of the organizing committee by utilizing union activists in the activities of the larger coalitions involved in the fight against the right wing. How Community Activists Can Help Bring Unions & Union Members Into The Struggle 1. Don't send in anti-union community activists to make contacts with a union. I know this sounds obvious, but it can and has happened with disastrous results. 2. Find out what sector of the work force and how many workers the union you are targeting represents. 3. Find out whether there are activists in your group who are union members (even if they are not union activists) who can work on bringing in their locals. 4. Make every effort to identify a member of the union you are targeting to accompany you when making all approaches to leadership and membership. 5. Learn as much as you can about the issues the union local you are targeting is most concerned about. Consider whether your group or coalition of groups can be or are supportive of these issues. 6. Learn about the structure of the targeted union. >> How are decisions made and who are the key decision makers? >> Is there a board of directors? >> Is it a single site local or geographically spread out? >>How many people does the union employ? 7. Learn the history of involvement in similar fights of the union you are targeting. For example, what kind of financial/activist support has this union provided to pro-choice campaigns? The point is to know what the union is capable of and best at accomplishing. 8. Create an action plan for your group, and for the unions you want to involve. >> Keep your plan simple. >> Be clear about what you want to accomplish and build in flexibility. >> If what you want is money, know how much they are capable of giving, how much you want. >> If you need staff support, have a job description of what the staff person would do for you ready. >> Never plan for less than you want and can realistically get. >> Build in a system of accountability. Who is making sure that people are actually accomplishing the tasks you have planned for and assigned? 9. Don't bother to do outreach to AFL-CIO affiliated unions unless your organization is prepared to use union labor for such things as printing, bumper stickers, and buttons. Generally, AFL-CIO activists will look for a union "bug" on your literature and other materials. The "bug" is a tiny logo certifying that the work was done by a unionized shop. General Information All unions have some sort of formal organizational structure that varies from union to union. All have constitutions and by-laws that govern the way in which they operate. Most union structures include Executive Boards or a Board of Directors empowered to make decisions between larger general membership meetings or conventions. For example, Oregon Public Employees Union (OPEU) which represents 20,000 mostly government employees in Oregon is made up of more than 75 locals. OPEU has 6 Districts for which leadership is elected to the Board of Directors. the President, Vice-President, and Secretary/treasurer are elected at General Council every two years. OPEU is Local 503 of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which has one million members, and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO and CLC. So OPEU's name is Oregon Public Employee s Union, Service Employees International Union 503, American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations, Canadian Labor Congress. OPEU/SEIU 503, AFL-CIO, CLC for short. The majority of individual unions are members of the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, though some remain independent. Unions that are members of the AFL-CIO generally do not take positions in direct opposition to the AFL-CIO, though they may take positions on issues which the AFL-CIO had taken no position. Many national and international unions are made up of numerous smaller locals. Assess the state AFL-CIO chapters for the level of support on your issues. If you can get the leadership of the AFL-CIO on board, organizing in the individual locals will be easier. In the earliest days of the labor movement, unions were built around specific trades ie., coal miners were organized into one union and painters in another, etc. Much later, unions began to organize "wall to wall" units where workers might have different jobs but all worked for the same boss. Public sector unions organize and represent government and private nonprofit organizations. These are sometimes called service sector organizations. Since the government is "the boss," many public sector unions have political programs. Today, private sector unions tend to still be organized according to trade while public sector unions tend to be organized in wall-to-wall units. All unions have basic common purposes Ñto organize workers, engage in collective bargaining for contracts, and enforcement of contracts. Some locals are very politically active, others are less so. The unions you are targeting may have Political Action Committees or political departments. If so, you and members of the union will need to see that both the board and the political department are supportive to your cause. You May Encounter Resistance Often unions will respond to your attempts to get them involved in gay and lesbian issues by claiming that the fight for gay and lesbian equality is not a union issue. They may say gay and lesbian issues are too controversial, or that taking on the fight will divide the union membership. Some unions may respond by saying that they're not political. In order to defeat resistance, you must have an adequate base of support built before making your approach to a union. Your support base should be prepared to deal with resistance, and stay unified in your articulation of why it is so important for unions to take on gay and lesbian civil rights struggles. You already know that labor cannot stand divided on the issue of civil rights for any class of citizens based on sexual orientation, race, gender, national origins, religion, or disability any longer, and that the survival of the unions as viable working class movement building agents may depend on getting political. Now is your chance to debate these issues in a way which speaks to the needs of both gay and lesbian union members, and the union as a whole. Remember to curb your dogma and speak in language easily understood by most people. Asking a union to decide to take a stand on something controversial can already be difficult. Making it sound as though the stand they are taking comes with multiple and vaguely defined strings attached may make it impossible. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Working with Communities of Color -- The Asian And Pacific Islander Experience In Oregon; ----- by Lynn Nakamoto ----- Lesbians and gay men of color have always been involved in the lesbian and gay movement and the struggles of people of color in this country. This reality stands in sharp contrast with the relative isolation of white gays and lesbians from communities of color, Japanese Americans or African Americans, for example. Increasingly, however, sexual minority communities and racial and ethnic minority communities are recognizing, and must recognize, that cooperative efforts are necessary and will benefit everyone over the long run. At one level, the motivation of white gays and lesbians working with communities of color is a matter of self-interest. Lesbians and gay men can learn from the political experience that communities of color have developed over the years. The understanding and support of communities of color in our struggles also results in much more leverage in terms of publicity, credibility among the electorate, votes, dollars, volunteers, and resources. However, this is only the short-term view. If we only reach out our hands to take, the relationship will be short-term indeed. At another level, lesbian and gay organizations working with organizations of people of color is absolutely vital to creating long-term change. How credible is it to demand justice for ourselves from the rest of society when we would do nothing or even oppose justice for some others in that society? If the lesbian and gay movement or any other movement is on track, it has to seek justice for all, not justice for Òus,Ó whomever that may be. To do otherwise is inconsistent and hypocritical. It is also self-defeating because it suggests that it is acceptable and appropriate for those who have resources to ignore the injustices done to others. This essay tries to describe steps that help in multi-racial organizing campaigns. In broad strokes, these steps include: 1) getting started 2) developing an initial work group 3) finding and making appropriate contacts 4) accomplishing your mission with the help of your contacts 5) overcoming hurdles 6) developing long term relationships. The steps are generic enough that they can probably be applied to any community. However, each community is different (e.g., size of locale; urban, suburban, or rural nature; region; culture), so the details of such steps will differ. I have drawn on the Oregon experience of working with a number of Asian and Pacific Islander organizations to obtain endorsements and to put together a joint Asian and Pacific Islander press conference opposing the draconian statewide Ballot Measure No. 9 that was put to a vote in the November 1992 election. Getting Started Gaining agreement that communities of color should be involved in campaigns for gay and lesbian equality is the first step. In many campaign situations, there is at best a very loose coalition of groups involved in a campaign. If there is a central coordinating body, such as a steering committee, the generation and acceptance of the idea may come from that committee. Regardless of commitment among official campaign leaders, however, an effort to reach out to communities of color for help can be successful. In Oregon, the idea to gain unified Asian and Pacific Islander opposition to Measure 9 did not come from the No On 9 Campaign, but instead from Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbians and Gays (APLG), a Portland-based group for lesbian and gay Asians and Pacific Islanders in Oregon. Depending on the nature and function of any campaign steering committee, it will probably be helpful to contact them regarding the idea to make sure there is no duplication of effort, and to determine whether they can or will take on the idea, devote resources to it, or have any helpful advice. Asserting the idea can be as simple as contacting the campaign steering committee, and, if at all possible, offer potential contact people who might know how to help to make the approach to the community. Follow up to make sure the idea was accepted and is being actively pursued. Or, you can assert the idea and volunteer to assist in the effort to involve the community, working either with or outside of any established coordinating group working on the campaign. Getting the idea on the table as an appropriate measure, however, is the first necessary and hopefully easy step. If there is no coordinating group for the campaign, you can speak with others you know who may be supportive of the idea, have contacts in the community you hope to reach, or might be interested in checking to determine whether anything is being done and where potential support may lie. Examples of contacts include local lesbian and gay organizations for people of color, politically active lesbians and gay men of color, and people knowledgeable about civil rights and community groups in the area. Thus, you donÕt need any significant sum of money or to personally have numerous contacts in the community you hope to reach to get started. And, the sooner you get started the better. A tremendous amount can be accomplished even in the relatively short span of two months, which is the approximate amount of time APLG took to initiate the idea and to accomplish the mission of getting endorsements for the campaign against Measure 9 and holding an Asian and Pacific Islander press conference opposing the measure. Establish a working group Once it is determined to go forward with the attempt to work with the community of color on the campaign, commit to creating a working group. The working group will develop a mission and a rough work plan. The working group must have some person or persons who will make the first contacts with leaders within the community you want to reach. Ideally then, the working group should include at least one person who already has personal contacts with community leaders. The working group can be quite small. In our case, the working group consisted of three people from the leadership of APLG. One person had significant contacts among other Asian and Pacific Islander community organizations, the second person had some limited contacts, and the third person had virtually no contacts. Develop a Mission & a Draft Work Plan The working group should develop a mission that can serve to direct the groupÕs activities and that can be communicated as you do outreach. In our case, we determined that our mission should be to: 1) contact and educate leadership in the various local Asian and Pacific Islander communities 2) to get endorsements from community organizations for the campaign against Measure 9 3) to get endorsing organizations to publicize their endorsements and the campaign to their members 4) to hold an Asian and Pacific Islander press conference opposing the measure. This mission was consistent with and helpful for the ongoing statewide effort to defeat Measure 9 in terms of publicity, votes, and solicitations for money and volunteers. The mission was significant in other ways. For example, the work group was making contacts as openly gay and lesbian people with the hope of opening the doors of Asian and Pacific Islander community groups to openly gay and lesbian people in the future. To get things done, the work group should immediately develop a rough work plan consisting of objectives provided by the mission, tasks necessary to accomplish those objectives, time deadlines, and personal assignments of the tasks. Our work group started by contacting those with whom we already had some prior contacts. Find and Make Contacts in Communities of Color Besides losing the potential support for your cause, to leave out significant segments of the community invites criticism and bad feelings. Given the limitations of a small working group, however, there will undoubtedly be significant segments of the community of color with which members of the working group have no personal contacts. This was particularly so in our case given the numerous Asian and Pacific Islander communities as a whole (for example, Vietnamese, Hmong, Laotians, Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos), not to mention the major community organizations, including churches, within those individual communities. Thus, part of the organizing must include identifying significant segments of the community and finding and making contacts within those segments of the community. The way our working group did this was to repeatedly ask ourselves and then people outside our working group who else we should talk to. We considered a variety of sources, e.g., different ethnic groups, churches, business organizations, family organizations found in some of the Asian communities, community and political groups, and news media. Whenever we talked to community leaders. we got their input regarding other community organizations and leaders. Eventually, we started receiving the same names of groups and of individuals from a variety of sources throughout the Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Accomplish Your Mission with Your Contacts Our small working group was able to accomplish its mission through the help of our contacts. Although we were unable to expand our working group with fully participating members, we asked others to help us and received their help to do discrete tasks. We asked for the contacts that others had. We asked some people to go to their organizations and ask for endorsements when we did not have personal contacts. We asked others to introduce us to leadership and to encourage endorsements by their organizations. We engaged the media coordinator from the statewide campaign to help us write a press release, to disseminate it, and to advise us on how to get the media to attend. We also relied on our contacts to help us to obtain the location for our press conference. I believe that we were able to accomplish what we did in part because we took time to develop contacts with the appropriate or key people. In the end, we as a working group had spoken to dozens of people. We obtained endorsements from a cross section of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities in Oregon. Our press conference was held at a major institution of and for the Southeast Asian community, and we received print and television coverage despite the fact that our press conference was held late in the election campaign. An openly gay man from APLG was on a panel at the press conference that included speakers from religious organizations, Southeast Asian refugee groups, a Korean small business owners organization, from progressive coalitions of or including Asian and Pacific Islanders, and from a local chapter of a national Japanese American civil rights organization. This sort of unified Asian and Pacific Islander press conference, not to mention one that included a lesbian and gay organization, was unprecedented in Oregon. Hurdles and a Few Ideas for Overcoming Them The biggest hurdle for lesbian and gay communities working together with people of color communities is likely to be fear Ñracism, homophobia, fears of experiencing racism or homophobia. Our working group also encountered defeatism and resignation, those who believed their piece of the pie would diminish if lesbians and gay men were to ever obtain full protection from civil rights discrimination, and those who trivialized or reduced lesbians and gay men to nothing but sexuality. One idea for overcoming these fears is to forge ahead with an appropriate work plan. There was significant disbelief among lesbians and gay men and among Asians and Pacific Islanders that we would be able to get many Asian and Pacific Islander organizations or individuals to help or to oppose Measure 9. At times, we as a working group were surprised by the support we received. If we had not attempted to do something despite this prevailing attitude of resignation, we would have missed the opportunity an d success ultimately achieved. Our experience counsels that it is well worth it to take the risk of rejection. Sometimes we were subjected to rejection or were unable to dispel fears. However, some fear was countered because the working group was Asian and our passion regarding the campaign as vital to everyoneÕs civil rights. Additionally, our descriptions of our oppression as people of color and as gay men and lesbians were perhaps more believable or better delivered and received by an Asian and Pacific Islander audience because we are Asians and Pacific Islanders. We were able to go forward despite the reject ion because of the successes along the way, our clarity regarding the mission, and our mutual support for each other. Support & Work with Others Afterward You have developed a valuable network of people who were willing to help you on your issue. After the work on the campaign has been completed, donÕt abandon your contacts. That network can help the next time there is an issue that requires concerted action, whether it is gay and lesbian discrimination or an issue directly concerning people of color. In addition, by failing to maintain any contacts or to help other organizations, gay men and lesbians and their organizations lose credibility. Claims of justice for all ring hollow when it is apparent that you are willing to work only for your own interests. One small way to maintain the network is to write to everyone to thank them for helping. APLG in our case wrote notes thanking people for helping and wrote letters to each organization that made an endorsement or participated in the press conference. APLG asked to be contacted regarding issues of interest to that organization and promised to notify the other organizations of issues in which they might have interest. Another way is to distribute a mailing list. We did so to people who requested mailing lists of the organizations in the network. Once work on a particular issue has died down, however, use your contacts to continue to build an ongoing working relationship in an active way. The work can be on issues of mutual interest. APLG and other Asian and Pacific Islander community organizations are working together with Asian American journalists in Oregon to put on a workshop for our communities on utilizing the media. It promises to be outstanding and is helping us to build a stronger movement towards an inclusive and just society. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit The Business Community -- Constituency Organizing ----- By Linda Lee Welch ----- The business community is one of the most overlooked constituencies in gay and lesbian community organizing. For many activists, the stereotypical image of business people as conservatives in pinstriped suits keeps us from approaching them for support. The reality is that the business community is just as diverse as the gay and lesbian community...and sometimes just as difficult to organize! Organizing in the business community opens doors to new sources of income, marketing expertise, different perspectives on how your community operates, outlets for sales of buttons and bumper stickers and a potential educational forum which is difficult to equal. In considering how to organize in your own business community, answer the following questions: 1. What is my resistance to working in this community? What do I fear the most? 2. Who are the business leaders in my community? Talk with the Chamber of Commerce, the Visitors Bureau, Local and State Government, the Hotel and Restaurant Associations, the museum development director, and any large business owner you know. 3. Of the business leaders in this community, which ones have the most influence with their peers? Who in the campaign has some connection with these people? What are their personal positions on this issue? 4. Who would be willing to be involved with or lend their name to organizing the business community? 5. What do I want from the business community? Fundraising? In-kind contributions of office space, phone banking locations, equipment, advertising? Volunteer recruitment? Workplace presentations on the issue? An outlet for sales of merchandise? Their name and logo on a signature ad? 6. Who has the best list of business owners in this community? 7. Who is the best person to invite a group of business people together to talk about their involvement in this campaign? 8. Who should be invited to this meeting? 9. Where should the meeting be held? 10. Who will facilitate the meeting and what will be on the agenda? As in most communities, business people respond best to their peers. They will expect to be addressed, at least once, by the campaign manager and/or chair. A good time for this is at the initial meeting. Invite the campaign manager and steering committee chair to give a State of the Campaign" report and to introduce the staff person or key volunteer who will be assigned to work with the business community. This gives the committee the message that they matter enough to the campaign to warrant the attention of the people in charge." People in the business community are used to getting their questions answered and will want to know about campaign strategy and polling information. Periodically invite either the campaign manager or the chair to give an update. Without revealing campaign secrets you can keep this group informed and up to date on changes and progress in the campaign. Don't be intimidated by this community. Many of them have very strong social consciences and want to be involved in your issue. Ask for what you want! They have to make difficult business decisions regarding their involvement in your campaign and most will do whatever they can to support you. If you've asked for a campaign message on the local grocery chain's marquee and they've said no...accept this! They will be more inclined to give what they can if they know that you understand their limitations. For many business owners this will be their first involvement in the struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights. Respect the stage they're in in their public coming out process. You are asking them to take personal and professional risks and only they can evaluate their readiness to take them. Most anti-gay and lesbian groups threaten boycotts of businesses they consider to be pro-gay and members of your business community need to measure the weight of that threat in their decision making. In working with this community (as with any other!) be respectful of their time and recognize the value of their contribution. Rather than asking for too little or too much, facilitate a discussion where they choose the level of their involvement. You may go in asking them to raise $10,000 when they were thinking they could raise $100,000. Be clear about your needs and allow them to set their own goals. Go back to them when you have additional requests. In most business communities, if the people you have at your meeting don't have what you need, they know where to get it! If you empower the business community by allowing them to set their own goals and level of participation, they will become invested in your campaign and expand their level of involvement as they get excited about being part of a larger cause. They will come up with new ways they can help that may never occur to you if you go in with a narrowly focused agenda. Remember that community organizing is about empowerment and facilitating other people's leadership. Business owners are already leaders in your community - give them the opportunity to provide leadership in some segment of your campaign and they will influence their peers as well as thousands of their own employees. The Business Breakfast -- A Case Study During the summer months, before the November election, we convened a group of business people to discuss their involvement in fundraising for the No on 9 Campaign. We asked people to attend a one-time only meeting to determine their level of interest. We invited representatives from the Visitor's Bureau, the Hotel and Lodging Association, a public relations firm, a banker, the executive director of an orchestra, a developer, the owner of an insurance company, a large bookstore owner, and several other business people. They had set their own goals for fundraising - about four times what we had anticipated asking them to raise and they were successful in reaching half their fundraising goal. The committee decided that the best way to involve the community was to invite business people to a breakfast to hear about the campaign and how they could be involved. We recruited a host committee and included people we thought would receive the most positive response from their peers in the business community. Members included a rabbi and his wife, a former governor, a large urban property owner, the vice-president of a large grocery chain, the owner of a nationally known book store, a business owner and philanthropist for whom a concert hall is named, and the owner of a very visible real estate firm. All these people had to do was lend their name to our invitation and personally invite a few people to attend the breakfast. We sent out invitations to hundreds of business owners through lists provided by an industry association and the chamber of commerce. The invitation was simple and inexpensive. Printed in black ink on grey card stock, the outside read, "If You're Concerned About Oregon's Business Future..." The inside completed, "...You Must Attend The 'No on 9' Ballot Measure Business Breakfast." It then listed the hosts and gave the details about where, when, how to R.S.V.P., etc. A message appearing below the general information read, "This measure would make Oregon the first state to mandate discrimination. Don't Let That Happen." The committee and other volunteers made follow up telephone calls to anyone who did not R.S.V.P. Over 100 people attended the breakfast including prominent business owners who had never before taken a public stand on gay and lesbian civil rights issues. The breakfast was paid for by a business owner as part of his contribution, so the only cost incurred was for printing of materials. We had small conservative buttons designed for this group - a black number 9 within the universal red no" symbol. On each chair we placed a packet of information geared solely to the business community including a sheet on why Measure 9 was bad for business in Oregon. We also included general campaign information, a donor card specifically for the business community, and envelope and a pen. We served a continental breakfast beginning at 7:30 a.m. and held the program from 8:00- 8:30 a.m. By the time the program began, we had a standing room only crowd that included many more than those who had made reservations. We had several enlarged charts placed around the room with the text of the ballot measure and the fundraising goals for the campaign. The program was introduced by the former governor who is also a well-respected business person. He talked about why this was so important to him and to the business community in Oregon. He introduced the host committee. The campaign manager gave a short presentation on the issue and the campaign and introduced other campaign volunteers and staff. Several members of the host committee gave testimonials" about their involvement. There was a brief, moving speech made by a much-loved member of the business community who had recently been told he was dying of cancer and had just a short time to live. He indicated that he was putting the last bit of energy he had into defeating the ballot measure and that he and his wife had decided to give $1,000 to the campaign. The former governor made the fundraising pitch which was followed by silence to allow people time to fill in their pledge cards. Members of the business committee moved through the crowd and collected pledge cards. As this happened, a member of the committee recognized some of the contributions - $15,000 from one business owner, $5,000 from another - to encourage donors to come forward with their checks. After the breakfast, follow up calls were made to people who did not attend or did not pledge. More than $60,000 was raised as a result of the breakfast and by the end of the campaign, the business community raised almost $100,000. Many of the business people became more involved in the campaign by appearing in commercials, providing phone banking space, speaking at rallies, and soliciting their peers. This constituency had the drive and the passion to make a difference. With a minimal amount of staff support and encouragement, they were able to make a substantial contribution to the campaign. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Suggestions for Action from People of Faith Against Bigotry 1) Write a letter to your friends asking them not to sign petitions for discriminatory ballot measures, and vote against these measures when they appear on the ballot. 2) Offer to make a presentation in your place of worship (or ask your leader to preach a sermon) or offer to lead an adult education lesson which contrasts the reconciling love of God with the hateful implications of this ballot measure. Or ask for a speaker from local support groups for gays and lesbians belonging to faith communities. 3) Place items in church/temple bulletins which offer information regarding anti-gay referenda from a faith perspective. 4) Be present near a table where signatures are being gathered (usually near a major shopping center) and leaflet/dialogue with the people who are thinking about signing. Let them know that there are people of faith who strongly oppose these discriminatory initiatives. 5) Join others for scheduled events, marches, and rallies as they are announced. 6) Start an ad campaign drive in your city or community to place signature ads opposing discriminatory measures. The ads should list the names and religious affiliations of clergy and lay people belonging to a wide variety of faith based groups. 7) Wear buttons and display bumper stickers which proclaim both your faith in God, and your belief in equality for all people. People of Faith who oppose discrimination must know that they are not alone. 8) Ask your governing body to declare your place of worship a "bias free zone," open to all people including gay men and lesbians. 9) Organize & participate in prayer vigils. 10) Use the "bridges" theme; e.g., silent vigils holding hands across bridges, other symbolic acts demonstrating bridges across fear and division. 11) Wear a pink triangle to show your solidarity, just as non-Jewish Danes wore yellow stars to confound the Nazi invaders. 12) Talk to friends, neighbors, and relatives. Talk about homophobic bias and the right wing to anyone who will listen. Educated them about discrimination, and remind them of the importance of freedom of speech and separation of church and state from your perspective as a person of faith. 13) Put together a speakers bureau among other people of faith and contact civic and religious groups and arrange to address them on the issues. Those who are heterosexual should go where our gay and lesbian friends may not be able to go as easily. 14) Let your creativity run rampant with other unique ideas from your heart to fit your particular church, congregation, or group. 15) Volunteer your time. 16) Most of all, make sure you "come out" as a person of faith who opposes anti-gay bias in your faith group, and other organizations you belong to, especially if they have not yet made resolutions to oppose right wing bigotry. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit An Anecdotal Study in Rural Organizing ----- by Marcy Westerling in July 1992 for inclusion in The Witness, the newsletter of the Coalition for Human Dignity of Portland, Oregon. The essay is reprinted with permission. ----- Columbia County, in the northwest corner of Oregon, is home to 37,000 people, the state's only nuclear reactor (which employs approximately 25% of Columbia County residents and is scheduled to shut down this year), and a growing struggle over who will define the community: white supremacists, right wing Christians, and other organized bigots...or those who believe in democracy for all. Encompassing seven small towns, and 620 square miles of surrounding farmland and forests, Columbia County's economy is based on timber, with unemployment now at 13% and rising. Like other rural parts of the Northwest, Columbia County seems an ideal haven for racialist groups and Christian warriors who hope to turn the clock back to a time before the great social justice movements of the 20th century. Many local residents regularly travel into Portland to act as "foot soldiers" in the fight to shut down access to abortion clinics. At the same time, many of us in Columbia County have watched the growth of the right wing with alarm from our silent corners of the community. Occasionally we have gathered, such as at the school board meeting in the spring of 1991 where 300 people debated whether creationism should be taught in our public schools. But even when we found ourselves together in our common concern over what was going on, we were assembled as individuals; we failed to assemble in clear unity. At the end of any given meeting we each went home in despair, feeling as if we were losing control of our community...and we were. Naming the Challenge Back in August of 1991, something hopeful began to happen. A variety of community leaders and everyday citizens (often one and the same) met over a potluck to name what was happening to our community. As elsewhere in the state, the impetus came from the local feminist rape and domestic violence program, the Columbia County Women's Resource Center (CCWRC). With its long history in the community of opposing oppression-based violence, challenging dominant social norms, and organizing among targeted groups, the CCWRC was able to provide a clear analysis of the present danger and the need to develop counter-strategies. The most immediate cause of alarm which brought people together was the campaign the OCA was orchestrating to amend the Oregon constitution to require discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. People in Columbia County were concerned about the implications: we were not so ready to allow democracy to be weakened. For the first time we talked about what each of us saw: homophobia, social control, bigotry, Christian authoritarianism, and disinformation. We all shared our clear commitment to reclaim our community as a place that actively protected the minority voice a community of democracy. The power of this initial meeting where we acknowledged our common concerns, gave us tremendous energy to move forward together into action. Getting Organized Our immediate strategy was to gather a strong base of support. Our premise was that our strength would come not only from sheer numbers but from the diversity that would truly represent our community. We each took on the task of meeting with neighbors, co-workers, family members and friends who had a history of leadership and ethics. Such criteria allowed us to approach fundamentalist Christians, loggers and other individuals not traditionally seen as being aligned with the progressive community. The common ground was concern over the erosion of civil rights and the immediate targeting of the gay and lesbian community. Soon our base of support included people of color, Christians, pagans, Jews, laborers, office workers, a few gays and lesbians, and a lot of committed heterosexuals. We talked with people about what we were seeing and presented them with the hopeful prospect that a group was organizing to unite our voices. Most people that we approached not only asked for inclusion in the project but also sought out an immediate role for themselves. We found that it became critical to have some tasks that each member could embark on even if the task was as loosely constructed as approaching five others. None of us could remember a time where people were so ready to move into action. Once we had a base of support of almost 50 people clearly signed on to reclaim our community, we felt we had a credible and safe starting point for formalizing our group. Our group agreed on the value of completing some routine tasks. We attempted to differentiate which tasks were needed to develop a solid structure and which would merely distract us from our real purpose of mobilizing. We drafted a mission statement that clarified why we were gathered together this was to prove an invaluable tool as we set about to attract additional folks. We struggled to come up with a name that would represent our group perfectly, compromising on a name that offended none in our group. We acquired papers from the county clerk that established Columbia County Citizens for Human Dignity as an official Political Action Committee(PAC), which enabled us to generate money (we knew we would need some money). We elected officers. At the close of this two hour meeting we had dealt with most of the more mundane details of becoming a formal organization. By now we were beginning to learn how to work with one another. A couple more tasks would solidify our ability to work together while respecting each other's dignity. By the time we had selected our "official" steering committee, designed our letterhead and agreed upon our decision making process we were truly ready to move outward into our community. The Campaign Selecting an initial strategy for communicating with the community was hard. By then we had had our first (and last) run-in with the OCA. We had peacefully attended a few of their meetings and observed them taking over the only supermarket and post office in one of our towns in an effort to collect signatures. It hurt and almost immobilized us to witness our neighbors advancing bigotry. Our initial response was confusion; for a week we struggled to find a direction for action. Again our high standards slow ed us down as we sought the "perfect" strategy. It took a few discussions before we recognized that moving forward with plans that were ethically sound was more realistic than waiting for the perfect campaign plan. We finally moved forward with some simple steps. We designed a signature waiver form to gather the names of dozens of "friends and neighbors" who would publicly affiliate themselves with us in future education efforts. More immediately, this would serve as a tool to frame discussion with other people we knew. Another group set about to draft a press release that would announce our formation in our five local papers. A few folks compiled 100 "organizer's packets" that described what our group was all about and provided tips on how to move into action by gathering signature waivers. A sequence of small group discussions were set up with potential allies, providing each participant with accurate information and an opportunity to sign on to the campaign. When there have been candidates' forums we have been there to ask clear questions on where each candidate stands of civil rights. We've moved down the roster of churches and community groups and met with them group by group. The local papers have printed editorials, articles, and letters reflecting our views and activities. Throughout each of these projects we have kept our meetings minimal and fun. Food and casual settings are incorporated whenever possible. We've tried to anticipate possible barriers to participating, finding rides for those without cars. Inclusion of children is standard. Our campaign, to date, is very much a work in progress. We interweave our strategies into our everyday lives in our community. We have found that our most effective strategies are very simple. Most accomplish the immediate task of breaking down the isolation of rural progressive people, and broadening our campaign to provide information to decent, often conservative, people who have rarely needed to challenge their perceptions. Being able to demonstrate to the uncertain the diversity and strength of our numbers inspires many to take one of the first stands they've taken in recent history and, for some, their lives. Again and again we find that a decade of repressive politics has left many people eager to grab hold of the opportunity to belong to a group that stands for human dignity. Traditionally Democratic but conservative Columbia County is a community that doesn't seek to be on the front lines of any issue. Our newspapers chronicle the local sports teams and the next citywide cleanup day. People tend to take notice only when their immediate world of job or family is threatened. But Columbia County is like all of our communities in that it is made up of real people struggling with real issues. In 1992, chaos and uncertainty seem to reign. The value of our organizing to date is that we have given a community hope and belief in the power of our collective strength. For now we fight the bigotry being advanced by the OCA, but our real purpose is to assert the vision of inclusion that we have for our community in a time of challenge. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . From: dlc@gasco.com (Paradise Cowgirl x5930) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 17:13:50 -0700 Reply-To: dlc@gasco.com X-Mailer: Z-Mail (2.1.0 10/27/92) To: Fight the Right Action Kit Grassroots Coalition Building -- lessons from North Carolina ----- by Mab Segrest, Urban/Rural Missions, World Council of Churches ----- It is inevitable that gay and lesbian responses to right wing attacks begin in crisis mode. Nobody wants to have to give up one weekend of their life, much less a year, to respond to right wing ballot initiatives. Facing grassroots anti-gay campaigns can be terrifying. The dangers are real. But so are the opportunities. While the religious right is genuinely homophobic, they are also targeting us because they think they can build their constituency and power base in the process. We can use their attacks to build our own base and forward our own agendas. Coalition building is one of the chief processes as well as a chief payoff for us if we can turn crisis to opportunity. Coalitions help extend our networks of friends and allies and empower our own people in a time of danger by showing us that we are not alone. I learned this the hard way. In 1986, a group of lesbians and gay men in Durham set out to organize a Pride march and celebration, only the second such event at that time in North Carolina history. When Wib Gulley, the recently elected progressive mayor, signed an "Anti-Discrimination Week" proclamation that spoke highly of Durham's gay citizens, fundamentalist churches (encouraged by Jesse Helms' Congressional Club) organized a recall campaign. If they could get 14,000 signatures of registered voters in s ix weeks, they could get a recall election. The Recall organizers soon had a massive grassroots campaign going: tables at shopping malls, on street corners, folks going door-to-door in public housing projects. It took "our side" a while to realize that we needed to mobilize. There was a tendency, which I think is not atypical, to minimize the potential effect of such a populist campaign with the rationale that "giving them publicity" would only fuel the fire. It is generally the nature of such campaigns, h owever, that they have plenty of fuel already and the longer folks stand around, the bigger the flames they eventually have to confront. In a dry forest, there is no such thing as a safe little blaze. I was working for North Carolinians Against Racist and Religious Violence at the time, and NCARRV called together a meeting of community organizations and concerned individuals to forge a response. Much of my work at NCARRV had been to counter the "Far Right," a whole range of Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups with racism at their ideological core, rather than the "religious right," usually organized (on the surface, anyway) around issues of gender and sexuality. Even though one organization usually convenes an initial meeting of organizations, it is very important to quickly establish a sense of joint ownership. For us, that meant being sure that all parties with any interest in the Recall (progressive electoral organizations in the black and white communities, gay/lesbian groups, liberal and moderate religious groups, for example,) should be at the first meeting. It also meant convening a steering committee out of the first meeting that allowed for representation of diverse viewpoints and interests. It was also important to continue to hold public meetings to which interested individuals could come to find out what was going on and how they could participate. We eventually had participation from unions, Central America solidarity organizations, the ACLU and similar civil liberty organizations, and churches and sytnagogues. Coalitions depend on bridge-builders who have worked in multiple communities and can bring those prior relationships of trust to seed the process. Coalitions who do not have these kinds of people in them from the start are much more likely to fail. Gay and lesbian people of color and Jews were particularly valuable in our coalition because they understood and interpreted these constituencies' concerns and had connections that would prove valuable when endorsements were sought. Coalitions (and communities) that give only token voices to their bridge-builders rob themselves of the opportunity for broadened alliances. We learned fast that we had to fight fire with fire. We had a tendency at first to use the tactics that the electoral organizations use in their election campaigns: for example, big advertisements in the city's daily newspaper. It soon became clear, however, that our opponents were getting to people other ways, and to people who didn't necessarily read the newspaper. So we also developed radio ads, which we ran on gospel and country stations. And we organized volunteers to set up tables next to the Recall tables to facilitate open discussion of both sides of the issue. We quickly moved to isolate the opposition by painting them as extremists. The first element of our coalition to engage in this strategy was clergy, as a group of moderate ministers began denouncing the opposition's tactics to the media. We also worked up four more radio spots, our spokespeople carefully chosen to show a cross-section of the community and to undercut the various currents of homophobia: a pediatrician, a teacher, a civil rights activist, and a well-known local artist. Fortunately, the Recal l folks inadvertantly cooperated with our strategy. On television and in public meetings, their spokespeople often foamed at the mouth. They were our best illustration of the dangers of homophobia. Extremist opponents make a clearer target. When possible, flush them out. Our campaign quickly became a laboratory to test out the effectiveness of various responses. Heterosexuals who had never had to confront homophobia before found themselves engaged in dialogue and arguments on the way to the post office or with their colleagues at work. They compared notes, and there was an ongoing discussion about which arguments were persuasive, and which were not. Don't write anybody off. Many people who were not part of the original group of convening interests came forward out of a sense of outrage and common decency. We must never assume that "certain types" of people will not be on our side. The people with money are usually not the people with organizing skills and they should not be allowed to control the campaign. Many of the more affluent gay people in the community who had never before been involved in gay causes came forward with money, but did not yet have the skills or experience to shape the arguments or strategies. Whenever possible, try to find ways to accomodate various interests within the coalition without compromising the principles on which it was founded. Within our campaign, the white electoral faction favored a campaign based on the idea of tolerance; African-American organizers more often wanted a campaign against discrimination; many white gay organizers wanted the focus to be on homophobia. The arguments inside the steering committee were at times bitter, but they resulted in a range of public responses reflecting some elements of each position. The combination made the whole effort stronger and broadened the base of our support. Realize that there will be a strong tendency for the gay and lesbian community to fragment over differences. Some of this will be on issues of genuine principle and will be unavoidable. But much of it will result from the pressure of internalized homophobia. Make community building a major emphasis, and without ever giving up, develop a direct response (a legal challenge, town meeting, organizing strategy) if the coalition loses. In the event of a loss at the polls, help people articulate the gains in orde r to regain strength and carry on the battle. The last day of the Recall campaign, the fundamentalist leaders called a press conference at City Hall to announce that they had received 13,000 signatures -- about 1000 short. They promised to be back in future elections. But they had failed, and the coalition that assembled to defeat their Recall campaign helped to generate a far greater climate of acceptance for lesbians and gay men in Durham than the original Pride march, by itself, ever would have. Wib Gulley went on to win a second term by a landslide, and homophobia was blunted as a strategy in local elections. As activists, we had gained a clearer strategy, more educated allies, an increased funding base, an expanded sense of possibility, and a claim to the public sphere. The Pride march and anti-Recall campaign proved to be a training ground for local leadership, and several members of the steering committee went on to become full-time organizers. There was commitment from many lesbians and gay men to do our part when other communities came under attack. When Harry Gantt, an African American, ran against Jesse Helms for the US Senate, lesbians and gay men in North Carolina poured money and energy into his campaign and helped generate national support. Gantt lost by 5% of the vote, a hard defeat by any measure, but the level of queer organization in the state had taken another quantum leap. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. Fight the Right Action Kit Breaking the Isolation -- Keeping Leadership Vibrant ----- by Marcy Westerling, Oregon Rural Organizing Project ----- Isolation poses a primary challenge to lead organizers, particularly in traditionally under-represented communities (people of color, gay/lesbian, rural, women, low-income). It is crucial, therefore, that intentional support be a part of any model for effective rural organizing. The Rural Organizing Project sponsored by the Oregon Democracy Project in response to the anti-gay ballot measures in 1992 represents one such model. The initial goal of the Rural Organizing Project was to support the analysis and forward movement of local activists as they countered the growth of the Christian Right in their communities. The article, "Rally Against the Right," chronicles a typical and highly effective example of the way one rural community came together to face an immediate electoral crisis by creating a long term vehicle for advancing social justice: a broad-based human dignity group. The Rural Organizing Project grew out of this community's leadership, and soon began assisting other communities in their developmental process. Other rural areas developed their own models in isolation, then joined the Rural Organizing Project's network. As the network evolved, the Rural Organizing Project found its most pivotal role was breaking down the isolation of local leadership. The project found rural leaders facing tremendous barriers in identifying and connecting with allies in their own and other areas. These obstacles range from geographic isolation to a historic silencing of progressive voices and values in more conservative communities. It is difficult to create a liberation movement without the presence of viable local groups, and isolated, unsupported leaders rarely keep a group alive. The Project saw that every community group had a need for an infrastructure that not only shared informational resources, but more importantly, allowed those in primary leadership roles to feel supported. As the Christian Right creates a frantic pace for our social change work by setting brush fires for us to rush around and extinguish, local leaders desperately need to remain connected to the bigger picture. Establishing a true democracy that includes the participation of all is a daunting goal. It is often easier to see why liberation cannot happen than to feel it within our grasp. In the face of constant challenges that appear to require an organizational response, we become reactive and worn and are too exhausted to contemplated the additional work of being proactive. Intentional support allows our vision to remain clear and feel obtainable. An outside perspective can offer a reality check, a useful critique, and reveal new possibilities within the context of acknowledging all of the positive movement that is already taking place. Support can provide the objectivity that allows clear strategizing on what it would look like to set the agenda ourselves. When we set the agenda, we feel much more powerful while remaining equally effective in countering strategies of the Christian Right, and our movement gains ground. The support provided by the Rural Organizing Project varied along the continuum from moment to moment and from community to community, but inevitably our organizing included putting forth an obtainable vision of the world we were organizing to create. This meant checking in on a frequent basis with lead activists to monitor their mood. Often a negative mood reflected a concrete obstacle that, once problem-solved for solutions, returned the lead activists to a position of hope crucial to their ability to inspire others. Check in calls should follow a basic leadership support model using standard discussion points. By starting with an inventory of five things that are going well, leadership must identify what is working within the group. Then asking leaders to inventory what five things they value in their current leadership, they are encouraged to chronicle what they are doing well as leaders. The check-in call has now established a positive framework to explore obstacles the group and leadership face. As 3-5 key obstacles are listed, the discussion should focus on the immediate next steps to overcome each obstacle and the barriers that stand in the way of these next steps. Through this discussion format, obstacles fast become manageable and a plan of action becomes clear. It is important for the support to happen in a goal-oriented manner. An unstructured support process can too easily deteriorate into an overwhelming morass of negativity that just confirms the impossibility of our work. While structured questions may appear trite, they allow us to see the true progress of our work and the viability of moving beyond current obstacles. Creation of a formal Rural Organizing Project is just one model for delivering such support, but establishing some kind of vehicle to break down isolation appears crucial. Another model might be a buddy system in which the buddies are responsible for helping each other see progress in their work and to problem-solve obstacles as they emerge. A broader regional support system, or use of an existing structure such as a formal campaign, could also allow a similar support process to happen. Any structure would require frequent check-ins that are designed to insure leaders feel hope about their long-term work and their immediate next steps. An advantage of a centralized structure is its greater ability to share concrete models from other communities. The key to a viable rural strategy for fighting the Christian right is to make such support an intentional part of any system. Support cannot be left to chance. Modeling an intentional support method allows leadership to start integrating this method into local strategizing. The more that strategizing gets placed in a workable model, the more hope we maintain. Nothing builds community and viable organizations that can effect change more quickly than hope. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Civil Rights, Special Rights; and Our Rights ----- by Suzanne Goldberg, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund The following is the edited text of a speech given by Suzanne Goldberg of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund at a Fight the Right Regional Conference organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute in conjunction with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Equality Colorado, and Ground Zero in Denver, Colorado in March, 1993. Don't be fooled by the "special rights" rhetoric of the religious right wing. There is something legally wrong with initiatives seeking to limit civil rights protections to exclude sexual orientation-based discrimination or create a situation in which gay and lesbian citizens have lesser rights compared with other citizens. The religious right wing's campaign of misinformation has very effectively manipulated public understanding of civil rights and anti-discrimination law. Right wing initiatives and referenda are both an attack against civil rights and attempts to further manipulate public understanding of civil rights. This makes a thorough knowledge of the constitutional issues raised by anti-gay initiatives especially important. Knowledge about civil rights is a key tool for building successful organizing and educational campaigns to defeat right wing attacks. Although right wing initiatives are often promoted through vicious anti-lesbian and gay rhetoric, the ballot question presented to voters on election day doesn't ask whether voters like gays and lesbians. Rather, the question is: Do you want to amend your constitution or city charter and restructure the legal foundation of government and its promise of civil rights for all people? In organizing anti-initiative campaigns and in responding to right-wing rhetoric, it is critical to keep focused on this point. Remember, this is not a lesbian and gay popularity contest, it is a vote on restructuring the government. As we organize our campaigns against right-wing ballot initiatives and formulate responses to their rhetoric, it is critical that we review the basic issues at the root of the debate. For our purposes, civil rights are the rights guaranteed by law. These rights are guaranteed to U.S. citizens and in many cases also cover non-citizens who live or work in the US. What is often referred to as the Civil Rights Movement actually focused on one aspect of civil rights, protection against race-based discrimination. Different governmental bodies provide varying degrees of protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation: >> The U.S. Constitution guarantees "fundamental" rights to all. These include, for example, freedom of speech, association and religion as well as a guarantee of the separation between church and state. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution sets these guidelines: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. >> A state constitution guarantees fundamental rights for the citizens and residents of each state. State constitutions are generally similar to the U.S. constitution. Sometimes they provide more protection for citizens. They cannot provide less or violate the U.S. constitution. >> Federal civil rights laws provide specific protections against discrimination in a wide range of areas including employment, housing and public accommodations. These laws prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, and some other characteristics. There is a bill in Congress to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, but it has not yet passed. A federal civil rights law that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation would stop most of these initiatives in their tracks, our collective attention and effort to push for passage of this legislation is critical. >> State civil rights laws are similar to federal civil rights laws and often protect against other forms of discrimination as well (e.g. marital status). Eight states and Washington, D.C. have laws that prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in a variety of areas, including housing, employment, and public accommodations. Several other state legislatures are considering similar legislation in 1993. >> Local civil rights ordinances (sometimes called human rights ordinances) are similar to state and federal civil rights laws and often protect against an even wider range of discrimination (e.g. political beliefs, etc.) With all this information in hand, it is also important to know what civil rights are not about. You do not have a right to have a job or housing. You do have the right not to be discriminated against for an illegal reason (a reason prohibited by law or the constitution). So what are "special rights?" Actually, no such "rights" exist. In their initiatives, the religious right defines special rights to include: minority status, affirmative action, quotas, and special class status. However, these terms do not have a legal meaning in the way the religious right uses them. Minority status and special class status are not legal rights. Affirmative action (sometimes misdescribed as "quotas" for hiring people who fit certain demographic categories) is a remedy, not a right. Affirmative action is a remedy for a historical pattern of discrimination. Where an affirmative action plan is in place, it is not supposed to be permanent; the goal is to remove the vestiges of discrimination, not to give some sort of "special right" to certain people. If "special rights" don't really exist, what then is wrong with the initiatives that seek to prohibit states from banning discrimination based on sexual orientation? The U.S. constitution guarantees all people equal protection of the law. This means that a state cannot single out one group of people and treat them differently without a compelling reason for doing so. The initiatives would require a state or local government not to respond to the complaints of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals about discrimination against them because of their sexual orientation. Any other group could bring its complaints to the government and try to obtain protection. Because the initiative would bar the government from responding to lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals only, the initiative changes the entire political process and burdens the political participation of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. It requires the government to treat gay and lesbian people differently from all other people. Even if an initiative prohibited a state from protecting anyone from sexual orientation-based discrimination (including heterosexuals), the burden of that prohibition would fall on the people with a minority sexual orientation (lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals) and would therefore violate the constitution's guarantee of equal protection. Finally, it is important to remember that these initiatives target identity, not conduct. Even when an initiative focuses on lesbian and gay conduct or behavior, its effect is to prohibit protection against discrimination. When someone is fired for being lesbian or evicted for being gay, the firing or eviction is almost never tied directly to that person's conduct. Rather, we are targeted for discrimination and sometimes violence because of who we are, lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and what others assume we will do on that basis. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Activists' Legal Pointers -- Challenging Anti-Gay and Lesbian Initiatives ----- by Suzanne Goldburg, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund ----- The United States Constitution entitles all people to equal protection of the laws under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Generally speaking, this means that a law cannot single out a particular person or group of people for discriminatory treatment. IF a state law or constitutional amendment does target one set of people for differential treatment Ñ say, for example, lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals as in Colorado's Amendment 2Ñthe state must demonstrate a good reason for doing so. Without a showing that the law or amendment has a legitimate purpose and serves some interest of the state, the law or amendment should be found unconstitutional. In Colorado, this theory played out as follows: Amendment 2 would amend Colorado's constitution to bar all branches of Colorado's government (legislative, executive, and judicial) from prohibiting sexual orientation-based discrimination against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. In other words, the amendment would foreclose all avenues for advocacy of lesbian and gay civil rights (except for efforts to repeal Amendment 2). It would also leave in place all state and city policies that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation for heterosexuals but repeal those protections as they would apply to lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. We argued to the state district court that since the amendment cuts gay people out of the political process, it infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right of an identifiable group of people. We also argued that by cutting off meaningful access to all branches of government, the state, through Amendment 2, raised the risks associated with speech and advocacy efforts by lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. We then argued that the state has neither a rational nor a compelling interest in limiting political participation or free speech rights of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals and that the amendment should be struck down as unconstitutional. After hearing our arguments and testimony from many witnesses, the court granted a preliminary injunction that will stop Amendment 2 from taking effect while the legal challenge to its constitutionality continues. Of course, if a federal civil rights bill that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation becomes law, states would have a nearly impossible time defending laws, policies, or constitutional amendments that discriminate against lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. What activists should know about the law related to initiatives & referenda Initiatives and referenda are a so-called democratic piece of the legislative process where citizens, rather than the legislature, vote on proposed laws, policy initiatives and constitutional amendments. Each state has its own laws that govern what subjects are proper for popular vote as well as the particular process for citizens to place a proposal on the ballot. Typically, the process requires that when individual citizens want to put a measure on the ballot, they must obtain a certain number of signatures and attend a public meeting with the local or state legislative council to review the ballot measure's wording and meaning. Once a measure is certified for inclusion on the ballot at the next election, it is up to the groups for and against the measure to wage the public relations battle and attempt to influence voter response. In some states, proposed initiatives may be challenged as unconstitutional before they are put on the ballot. Lambda Legal Defense and the ACLU have successfully kept anti-gay initiatives off of the ballot in Riverside and Concord, CA, for example. Sometimes it is also possible to keep an initiative off the ballot if the petition signatures are challenged and found to be invalid. In other states, such as Colorado, once a group has obtained enough legitimate signatures, the measure must be put on the ballot and legal challenges may take place only after the election. What activists can do If an anti-gay initiative makes it onto a city, county, or state ballot, voter education is crucial. Colorado's Amendment 2 was sold to voters as the end to "Special Rights" for lesbians and gay men. In fact, Amendment 2 actually would insure lesser rights for lesbian and gay Coloradans. It is critical, therefore, that activists who are fighting these efforts by the right wing understand the legal implications of proposed initiatives and then translate that information into the simplest of soundbites for consumption by the general public. Since "special rights" has proven effective, it is most likely that we will see this theme in other states. It is important to stress in educational efforts that all people have the right to participate in government through voting and political advocacy. The government does not have to respond favorably to all requests, as we know, but by the same token, all groups must have a meaningful, or at least equal, opportunity to be heard. By preventing the government from providing protections to lesbians and gay men, initiatives such as Amendment 2 short-circuit the political participation of a particular group of people while leaving the government free to respond to the needs of all other people if it so chooses. We have to remind both the public and the court that the constitution does not allocate fundamental civil rights according to one's sexual orientation. Finally, even before an initiative is placed on the ballot, please contact Lambda Legal Defense or any of the other lesbian and gay legal groups. We can win this fight, and the earlier we start, the better off we are. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Media Advocacy Tips ----- by Robert Bray, Fight the Right Media Trainer, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force ----- This section presents tips on developing and executing an effective strategy for attaining non-paid media coverage to complement your efforts to move campaign messages through paid advertisements, voter identification polling, canvassing, and direct mail. Remember that the purpose of developing and executing a non-paid media program during a campaign is to re-enforce campaign messages. The ability of the right wing to win in elections is based on a strategy of deception and stealth. Our job is to expose voters to the truth so that they can make informed decisions when they answer ballot questions. Good research into the groups we are fighting, voter attitudes regarding the issues, and well informed analysis of the groups of persuadable voters we want to reach are critically important. WHAT IS THE NEWS? Identify newsworthy events, initiatives, or announcements >> Release area hate crimes reports >> Announce campaign to fight anti-gay initiatives >> Opinion makers support gay and lesbian rights >> Right wing uses deceptive tactics >> Legal experts examine impact of anti-gay initiatives >> Religious leaders initiate campaign to end discrimination >> Business group releases study of economic impact of discrimination >> Labor opposes anti-gay and lesbian discrimination >> Gay and lesbian families become more visible WHAT ARE THE MESSAGES? Shape your news into one key message, with one or two supporting messages. Refine and distill the overarching news themes or events into concise, essential messages that must be picked up by the press. Return to and emphasize the key messages over and over during interviews and in press releases. Make a point of briefly and concisely refuting the "special rights" arguments we perpetually face. We do not seek any rights other than the civil rights and freedom from institutionalized discrimination that all citizens desire. Our opponents are seeking special rights: the right to discriminate and create a second-class group of citizens, and the right to violate separation of church and state by legislating their form of Christian morality. For example, a news story about an anti-gay referendum attempting to amend a constitution to exclude gay men and lesbians from civil rights protection might have the following key messages: A. Measure # 5 is an amendment to the bill of rights of the constitution to unfairly promote discrimination for the first time in history. The measure, which will appear on the May ballot, legalizes discrimination in employment, housing, restaurants and public accommodations for reasons not relevant to job performance or ability to pay. B. The sponsor of the measure is a fringe religious extremist group which hopes to impose discriminatory and unfair laws limiting citizens rights based on perceived sexual orientation. (Be prepared to prove it or don't say it!) C. Reasonable and fair minded people are in opposition to this discriminatory measure. D. Please Vote No On Discrimination. Vote No On # 5. Remember that you are reinforcing messages that will appear in advertisements, on brochures, and in the scripted pitches of telephone and door-to-door canvassers. Keep the message short, make it easily understandable, repeatable, and very simple. WHO IS THE MESSENGER? A. When attempting to communicate the idea that your opposition is a fringe religious extremist group, it is always best to use Christian clergy and other religious leaders to convey that message. Religious leaders who are opinion leaders in the broader community will be seen as authorities on who is and is not "fringe" or "extreme" within the religious community. Additionally, the involvement of religious leaders will inoculate you from one of the right's traditional tactics, which is to say that you are discriminating against or bashing Christians. B. Don't hide. The community will know that the issue before them concerns gay and lesbian people. There is no reason to pretend otherwise. However, it is important to demonstrate that gays and lesbians are not alone, and that discrimination is an issue for the whole community, no matter who is most directly affected. The right will try to create the impression that only gays and lesbians are affected by their discriminatory campaigns. We must prove them wrong, and give heterosexual people role models who can help create the social space for them to "come out" in support of our rights. C. You must appear more reasonable than your opposition if you hope to convey what undecided and persuadable people will accept as truth. Remember that homophobia is based in fear Ñthe right wing is relying on us to provoke fear in order to reinforce their message. Don't be scary! THE PRESS KIT Contents: >> Press Release including who, what, where, when, and why, (the five W's), background on the issue, and pithy quotes >> Fact Sheets on the referendum, including legal/economic impact statement on issue with gee-whiz numbers to establish credibility >> Fact Sheet on your organization and its purpose/programs >> Background Sheet on who your opposition is with documentation >> Contact names and numbers of your spokespeople >> Press clips from previous newspaper stories, editorials >> Statements of Support, list of endorsements from other groups or officials Mail or hand deliver the press kits to reporters, producers, editors, assignment desks, wire service managers, "daybooks" (media calendars) for local Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI), and other media sources. Media Advisory: If you are doing a press conference or visibility event (e.g., demonstration, candlelight vigil), send a media advisory out at least one week before to invite reporters. The short advisory should inform reporters and assignment editors of the time, place and purpose of the event (the Five W's). THE MEDIA >> Identify key reporters, editors, producers, assignment editors, beat reporters, editorial writers, etc. in your area. >> Make a list and update it frequently. Keep a computerized database with mailing label printout capability. List should include name, phone number, fax, address, interest area. >> Don't Forget: - Major daily newspapers (local, state, metro, lifestyle, national sections) - Television network affiliates (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS) - Cable television programming - Radio news programs and interview shows - Gay and lesbian press, including cable - Campus media (university radio and newspaper) - "Neighborhood" mini-papers; alternative press - Specialty media (Black, Women, health, legal, unions, religious, etc.) >> "FLAK" the media; i.e., call them, fax them, visit them, meet with key reporters for one-on-one backgrounders, schmooze them, cajole them to cover your news. >> Place spokespersons on radio and TV talk shows. Try to get "advance" articles to appear before the actual event. If it's a public event or demonstration, don't forget the newspaper calendar sections. Arrange for meetings with editorial boards of newspapers and other media. Place editorials or opinion pieces. Often these are the most read items in the newspaper. THE PRESS CONFERENCE >> Schedule your press conference for around 10 or 11 a.m. Schedule press conferences early or mid-week (Tuesday/Wednesday). Avoid Monday, Friday, or on a weekend. >> Location should be large enough to accommodate reporters, microphones and TV cameras, as well as speakers' table. Set up speakers' podium at front with rows of chairs for reporters. Leave space in back for cameras. >> Have media sign-in table and log at front door; hand out press kits. >> Have representatives of other supportive organizations back you up. Just make sure you stay in control of the message. THE SPEAKERS PANEL >> Remember diversity. Feature speakers that represent the diversity of your group and the community honestly. >> Pick articulate, "telegenic," media-savvy spokespersons best qualified to speak on the issue. >> Include non-gay authorities from other communities (religious, civil rights, academic, law enforcement). >> If you invite a politician, she or he must be given an opportunity to speak, usually near the beginning. Remember to demonstrate bi-partisan support in election campaigns. >> To enhance human interest in the story, include a survivor of an anti-gay/lesbian attack, or a victim of discrimination, or a PWA, to either speak or be on hand for reporters questions. Manage this so it doesn't become an exploitative sideshow. Reporters are usually sensitive and responsible around victims. Remember, don't present a survivor of an anti-gay/lesbian attack to speak as an expert on discrimination unless he or she happens to be an expert, especially in a campaign situation. An election is a contest in which you and your opponent will be using free media to send out contradictory messages. In order to win, you must be clearer, simpler, and more direct than your opposition. >> Ask reporters to hold questions for the end. >> Opening speaker should present news and key messages. >> Identify speakers; include list ("bio sheet") of speakers and their titles in the press kit. >> Keep statements very brief Ñfive minutes maximum. Give lots of pithy, quotable "soundbites." Deliver your key messages over and over. >> Decorate the press conference with your banner behind the speakers' table, or a "podium logo" in front of the lectern. Use visual aids such as charts, maps, video clips, etc., but don't let them dominate the press conference. Every statement you make to the media can either bring your campaign closer to people who can be persuaded to oppose right wing campaigns, or distance you from them. Be careful! Remember who you want to persuade and then target your messages so they understand you. >> Keep to the truth! False information will destroy your credibility with the news media, which is the basis of your relationship. >> Don't talk in paragraphs! On radio and TV, time is the big factor; in newspapers its space. This means you must be brief and to the point. >> Let the news report the news. If you're initiating a story, give all the news media a chance to report on it before you do so yourself. News is only news when they get to report on it. >> Everything is for the record. A reporter is always working, even in social situations. In other words: don't say anything you don't want to read in the paper. If you wish to speak "off the record" it must be made clear from the start. >> Plain talk for plain people. Persuadable people come from all walks of life. Many people don't understand partisan or culturally based rhetoric. Plain talk is always best. >> If you don't know, just say so. Don't guess. Say you don't know and offer to get an answer by a specified time - THEN DO IT! >> Talk to the reporter. You look goofy if you look directly into the camera! >> Know deadlines. All news media operate on deadlines. Your news won't get out if you miss deadlines. >> Keep to one story. Don't go off on issues not directly related to your major points. You confuse reporters and destroy your credibility by being unfocused or soap boxing too much. >> Think about your answers. Don't allow yourself to ramble about things the media finds uninteresting or unrelated. >> "No comment" is the worst comment. It implies you're hiding something. Instead, use those times when you cannot comment further as opportunities to restate your most important points. >> Respond to reporters' questions, don't simply answer them. Take the question as an opportunity to restate your key messages and fold in a critical point or soundbite. >> Be prepared. Don't be set up! Don't be misled by false smiles. Be on guard. You never know what the next question will be. For self-confidence, try to rehearse a list of likely questions, and be ready to answer every one. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit The Message & the Media ----- by Pacy Markman, Zimmerman & Markman Political Consulting, Communications, & Advocacy ----- Rules of Engagement: 1. Avoid meetings. They can become a shelter for people terrified of making decisions. Choose a leader. Set realistic goals. Task people. Hold them accountable. 2. Speak in one voice. Whatever the message is, everyone should know and adhere to it. Be creative in how you express the message, but don't create a new message. This is especially true during an electoral campaign. 3. Offense, offense, offense. Never get defensive. Never get caught up in the arithmetic of how many child molesters there are or are not. Talk about how terrible child molestation is. How many strong laws we have to protect children. But never, ever get defensive. 4. Talk about them, not us. If the campaign is about them, we stand a good chance of winning. If it is about us, we will probably lose. You can't undo in thirty seconds fears that have taken 30 years to build up. 5. Never talk to the other side. The other side believes that it is right. Period. The Bible tells them so. You cannot change people like this. Don't even try. Avoid one-on-one meetings. They will only frustrate you and ruin your dinner. In forums, where there is an audience open to argument, talk to the audience. Talk ABOUT the other side. But don't talk TO them. ----- Whether you are facing an electoral campaign today or just casting a wary eye toward your legislature and local religious right groups, right now is the time to plan and create foundations for a successful media strategy. Whether you use paid advertising or not, four basic questions need to be answered for message development and delivery. >> What are you trying to accomplish? >> Whom do you have to convince to accomplish your goals? >> What do you have to tell the people you want to convince, to move them to your side? >> What is the best way, given your resources, to get the message to the people you need to convince? If you can answer these rather basic questions with good solutions, you win. So these are the questions you need to ask yourself--and answer--over and over. If you're not yet in an electoral situation, you have one advantage--the luxury of time--and one probable disadvantage--very little money. Money is raised in direct proportion to the immediacy and the perceived danger of an issue. When you have time on your side, you have the chance to educate people on the issue. You can be proactive. You can promote the visibility of gays and lesbians. When we're educating, research shows we have no better tool than our visibility. Everything we do to diminish the arguments of the Right lessens their strength and may inhibit them from placing initiatives on the ballot. Even if they put an initiative on the ballot, a well- thought out, well-run period of education in the time preceding an initiativ e campaign may insure victory in the actual campaign. This indeed is the challenge most of the articles in the Fight the Right Action Kit are tackling. During non-electoral times, we may also choose to discredit the opponent in a variety of ways. We have found it useful, for example, to point out that homosexuality is just their latest organizing tool, replacing communism and abortion rights. Without the urgency of an election, you will most likely be delivering your message through free media - the press - and in speaker forums. Even so, you will want to develop your message in the same way you would develop advertisements during a campaign. In order to answer those four basic questions, you'll want as much information as possible. It's called research, and a good deal of information can come from polling and focus groups. In a non-electoral campaign, you probably won't have the money to do your own polling. Polling information can be obtained from gay and other organizations (Democratic Party, candidate polls, etc.). Find and work with someone who can help evaluate the polls, screening out the lousy data that some polls produce (there are goo d polls and lousy polls). Whatever message you develop, you'll want to make sure everyone on your side who speaks to the public or the press knows it and can articulate it. Think of it as "Many Voices. One Message." And until you get a different answer to the four basic questions, you'll want to hammer that message home, time after time after time. A classic mistake is to get bored with your message. You may have heard it a thousand times. The reporter you're talking to, the group you're speaking in front of, may be hearing it for the first time. You may not have the money to run paid advertising. You may, however, find a cooperative TV or radio station which will run a proactive message as a public service announcement or PSA. (The less controversial the message, the more likely they are to run it." You don't want to stake your life on PSA's - they tend to run at 2:00 in the morning. But if the opportunity comes up to do one, make sure it's in keeping with your message. And make sure it's created and produced by someone who does advertising for a living. Think of creating advertising as doing brain surgery - you might get it right doing it yourself, but why take the risk? Initiative Campaigns When you're facing an electoral decision on a given date, you need a very focused message to move people to your side. You will also need to be well-organized to develop and deliver the message. You'll need a campaign manager who has real power. You'll need a professional pollster, preferably one with experience in polling on gay issues, and you'll need a professional to create your advertising, a media consultant. The campaign manager is tasked with keeping the campaign on track. One of his or her toughest goals will be to fend off the well-meant suggestions for media (advertising) that everyone will offer. Though organizing, fundraising, "get out the vote "(GOTV), and canvassing are important, message development and delivery command, on average, more than 50% of the campaign funds. In statewide races, that figure can be as much as 80%. Television is the most effective way to reach people, and despite its seemingly high cost, the cheapest on a per person basis. There are some basic realities about these campaigns. You have a limited amount of time, limited personnel and limited financial resources. You have a limited ability to deliver your message. Your audience has a limited attention span and often will be inundated with messages on a slew of other issues and candidates. Most importantly, on gay issues, you have a limited pool of favorable public opinion. Stated as a "gay" issue, you start with about 40% against you and 10-15% for you. The fight is for the 45% in the middle. In Oregon during the No on 9 Campaign for a Hate Free Oregon, in order to find the message to reach the "middle," the campaign did a poll in early 1992. Then we used focus groups to test a variety of messages against undecided voters. In my two previous anti-gay initiative campaigns, I created advertising that broadened the issue so that people were not voting on homosexuality itself. That is not a vote we want people to make. In our research in Oregon, we discovered that, again, we could not persuade undecided people to vote for homosexuals. What we did unearth was a relatively high negative response to the Oregon Citizens' Alliance itself. Our best message, therefore, was to frame the initiative as an assault by extremists that posed a threat to everyone. Our campaign line was "It's a danger to us all." We created two television commercials that attacked the OCA, and started running them early on in the campaign so we could frame the debate on our terms. We trained speakers to make every discussion a discussion about them - the OCA - and not about us, gays and lesbians. We worked hard to keep up the offense and avoid being defensive. There was considerable carping within our community that we weren't educating the public about gays and lesbians. Our goal was to win an election that was in doubt. When an election is in doubt, it is irresponsible to divert resources away from the prime objective - winning. Besides, our research showed what you would expect - that no thirty-second commercial could undo thirty or more years of learned homophobia. We were alsotrying to get people to vote "no." This is easier than persuading them to vote "Yes." The "Yes" side has to defend itself against every possible attack. To get people to vote "No," we only have to raise a legitimate question in people's minds. (Think of it as the defense raising reasonable doubt in jurors' minds.) We did polling on almost a daily basis for most of the last weeks of the campaign. This allowed us to measure the overall effectiveness of the campaign. It also allowed us to measure the effectiveness of individual commercials in various areas of the state. Early on, we saw that our campaign lines, and hence, key messages were working: "Vote NO on 9," "Vote NO on discrimination," and "It's a danger to us all," were working. A caution: Polling on gay issues, like polling on racial issues, gives less than perfect results. You have to read your numbers carefully. People are not always honest, especially if their answer to a question could result in their being labeled a bigot or lumped with an unpopular organization. Your numbers will always look better than they really are. Because the Oregon campaign was well-funded, we were able to augment our basic message with commercials against discrimination. Our research showed this was a major reason people supported us. We did ads that mirrored the broad coalition the campaign had put together, to give people the sense that everyone was voting "No on 9." Near the end of the campaign, we did a commercial to specifically blunt the other side's best message of "special rights." But everything - television, radio and print ads, canvassi ng brochures - summed up our line - "It's a danger to us all." We won 57% to 43%. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Soundbites -- Articulate responses to homophobic lies and rhetoric ----- by Robin Kane, Public Information Manager, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force ----- Right-wing opponents to civil rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual people use similar arguments and rhetoric around the country, whether they're in Prineville, Oregon; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Knoxville, Tennessee; or Anchorage, Alaska. These pages are tools for action. They include responses, ideas, and themes you may use to counter their erroneous allegations. Each topic begins with the rhetoric used by the conservative right, followed by some ideas on how to respond. 1) "Homosexuals are already covered under the Constitution just like the rest of us. What they want are SPECIAL RIGHTS. We oppose SPECIAL RIGHTS for homosexuals." RESPONSE: The right wing rhetoric of "SPECIAL RIGHTS" skews the issue. The right to get and keep a job based on merit is not a special right. Equal access to housing is not a special right. Renting a hotel room and being served food in a restaurant are not special rights. The right to have and raise children without the state seizing them is not a special right. The right to walk down a street and not get attacked because of who you are and whom you love is not a special right. Gay and lesbian people want the same rights guaranteed to all American citizens. However, without civil rights laws which specifically ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, gay people can lose their jobs, their homes, and their families and be refused service at public accommodations simply because they are gay Ñ with no legal recourse. Right wing zealots who speak of special rights want the very special right to discriminate against those they hate. They want "special righteousness." 2) "Local ordinances for gay men and lesbians force the rest of us to live against our religious beliefs. We're entitled to our rights too." RESPONSE: Extending civil rights to one sector of society does not withdraw rights from another. Most civil rights ordinances provide exemptions for religious institutions. In addition, many gay and lesbian members of various religious denominations are organizing within their faith so that religious institutions may become more accepting of the diversity of their following. 3) "They want to be treated like a minority, like an ethnic minority. The Supreme Court says they're not. And we know they're not because they never rode in the back of the bus and they are not economically deprived. Studies show that gay men have more disposable income than the rest of Americans." RESPONSE: Gay men and lesbians are a numerical minority in American society. Like ethnic minorities, we do face job loss, eviction, non-service at public accommodations, and the loss of our children simply because of who we are. And like other minorities, gay people face harassment, physical assault, and murder based on an assailant's hatred against us as a group. A Department of Justice study reported that "homosexuals are the most frequent victims" of hate crime. "Minority status" affords no benefits to anyone; rather it provides guidelines to attempt to redress the inequalities that impair the exercise of constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms, including equal protection under the law. Our constitution says that all people are created equalÑthat must include gay and lesbian people as well. 4) "Homosexuals lead an abominable lifestyle. People who care about traditional family values must not encourage the open expression of this sexual depravity." RESPONSE: Discrimination is the abomination, not gay and lesbian people. The family values we uphold are support, love, understanding and respect between family members. Discrimination and bigotry are not traditional family values. 5) "You can't let gays be near children; since they can't reproduce, they recruit. And they are all pedophiles." RESPONSE: Statistics show that the vast majority of sexual abuse is committed by men against women, usually within the heterosexual family structure. Pedophiles are criminals who derive illicit pleasure from sexual abuse of children, and whose adult sexual attractions are almost always to members of the opposite sex. Most sexual abuse of children occurs at the hands of parents or relatives. Lies perpetuate stereotypes that are then used to deny gay people our rights. It is wrong to deny us our rights based on these myths. 6) "Gay people want to force their lifestyle on us and take away our rights. RESPONSE: Civil rights laws that include lesbian and gay people do not limit the rights of others. Instead, they extend to gays and lesbians the same rights already enjoyed by most AmericansÑthe right to obtain and keep employment based on ability to do the job; the right to equal access to housing; the right to raise their children; and the right to live free of violence. There is no so-called "gay lifestyle." Gay men and lesbians are members of every social class; religious faith; ethnic group; occupation; and political affiliation. Gay people are not interested in forcing anything on anyone, just the opposite. We demand the freedom to live our lives with the same freedoms and rights that are accorded to all citizens, without fear that our liberty will be usurped by far right bigots and religious intolerance. 7) "What this is really leading to are marriage licenses for gay men and lesbians, joint benefits, child adoptions, formalized domestic relationships, and the destruction of the American family. This is wrong." RESPONSE: Civil rights laws including gays and lesbians do not automatically grant us the right to marry. While the Christian Right perpetuates the stereotype of all gay people as sexually promiscuous individuals, society denies us recognition of our committed unions. Gay people are struggling to gain basic employment benefits for spouses equivalent to our heterosexual co-workers in their committed relationships. 8) "What about bisexuals? They sometimes pretend to be normal heterosexual people, but they engage in the same abnormal, unhealthy sexual practices as homosexuals. Bisexuals are getting AIDS from homosexual sex and then spreading it throughout the heterosexual community." RESPONSE: Bisexual men and women live, work, and organize within the gay and lesbian community and in the larger human rights community. Lesbians, gay men, and bi people are all targets of the same oppression, excused on the basis that we value sexual and affectional relationships with members of the same gender. The US Department of Defense "ban against gays in the military" also includes those acting or identifying as bisexual. Many right-wing initiatives, including Colorado's Amendment 2, target bisexuals along with gay men and lesbians in their petition language and in the effects of their discriminatory legislation. Lesbians, gay men, and bi people work together to oppose these attempts to legislate against our civil rights. AIDS is the cumulative effect of immunosuppression exacerbated by the presence of a virus (HIV) that critically impairs the ability of the body to keep itself well. Viruses do not target specific people or discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or identity. The prevention of HIV/AIDS ultimately rests with each individual person's responsibility for his or her own actions, regardless of sexual orientation, class, race, gender, or sexual identity. 9) "It's within our First Amendment rights to say what we think of homosexuals." RESPONSE: Right wing organizations hide their homophobia behind the First Amendment. While the right wing demands the right to speak out against homosexuality, they are simultaneously running well-financed campaigns to censor and squelch positive images of gay and lesbian people on television, in schools, and in the arts. The hatred and lies that right wing organizations spew create a hostile environment for gay and lesbian people. Their rhetoric bolsters the hatred expressed by the bigots who physically attack gay men and lesbians. A national study conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute documented 1898 anti-gay incidents in just five U.S. cities in 1992, a 172 percent increase over the number of incidents in 1990. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Effective Fundraising Against the Right Part 1 of 2 ----- by Linda Lee Welch, Fundraising Director, Campaign for a Hate-Free Oregon ----- The Religious Right has used oppression against gay men and lesbians very effectively as a fundraising tool. This article is intended to give you some insight on how to turn the tables and raise the large sums of money needed to counter their distortions and lies. Effective fundraising accomplishes several objectives: >> It raises the money needed to wage a campaign >> It broadens your base of support by building a variety of constituencies >> It helps organize and focus your community's opposition >> It promotes visibility for your issue It is essential to have high expectations for your fundraising goals and realistic means of attaining those goals. In the sections that follow we'll look at major donor development, direct mail, events and foundation/organization support. The most important factor in fundraising is having a plan. Many organizations and campaigns spend little time developing a concrete, realistic, attainable plan. When there is no plan or when goals are unrealistic, it's easy for those responsible for fundraising to get sidetracked on other issues or to feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the job. In developing a plan, consider the following: GET ORGANIZED! Gather together a small committee to brainstorm in preparation for developing the fundraising plan. This committee needs to be informed on the campaign plan, especially the campaign message. Members should be people who know how to access money for your community. These are not necessarily the people who will carry out the plan, but they will provide access to people and ideas that will be invaluable. Include people from the following communities: gay and lesbian; business; religious; labor; arts; chamber s of commerce; people of color; etc. Invite large business owners, development directors, philanthropists, etc. Remember that you are building a broad-based constituency as well as raising money. Too often we try to raise all the money and votes we need from within the gay and lesbian community. Ten percent of the population just can't provide the financial support or the 50%-plus-one vote needed to win the election! Business and community leaders have a vested interest in defeating the religious right. Being against bigotry is good for business. Not all of them will accept your invitation to participate, but asking begins to raise their position on the issue. When people in these communities commit their time and financial resources, you are helping build a coalition of support which will insure defeat of your opponents. Before your first meeting, know the following: How much money will the campaign need? What will you do if you raise all the money you want and what will you do if your fundraising efforts are not successful? Know the priorities. The people on this committee will want to know that YOU know what you are doing and the money they help raise will go to a campaign they will feel positive about supporting. Ask people for their advice and opinions. This is a brainstorming session. Don't be afraid to ask how they can help. Maybe they can provide a mailing list, a generous contribution, or will lend their name to a mailing or an event invitation. MAKE A PLAN! Develop a first draft of your fundraising plan using the information provided in the brainstorming meeting. From that meeting you will know what kind of support to count on from various constituencies and how to best access their financial contributions. Decide which sub-committees you will need to carry out your plan. Some effective ones are: House Parties, Business, Major Donor, Organizations/Foundations, Special Events, Direct Mail. Each sub-committee may choose to break down even further, i.e. Business having an Attorneys Group and a Physicians Group. The sub-committee may consist of one person or more depending on the quantity of work. When you find a capable chair, let them decide how many other people they need to carry out their task. Next set a fundraising goal with each subcommittee. BE CONSERVATIVE! The most empowering feeling for a fundraising committee is to feel successful. Not reaching the goal can be very disheartening and make people uneasy about making further commitments. Set up a budget for each committee and estimate how much money will be needed to make your goal. Do a cash flow time-line. The expenses for House Parties, Major Donor Solicitation, and securing funding from Foundations and Organizations are minimal and can be taken care of early on in the campaign, while big events and direct mail often require large sums of money to generate cash coming in. WHERE'S THE EASY MONEY? Who will give the first dollars, or will make loans to the campaign to get started? Are there organizations who can make sizable gifts quickly? Brainstorm a list of potential donors (preferably people who will influence others to give) who will give their contributions at the beginning of the campaign. The hardest time to raise money in a campaign is at the beginning. While your opponent is busy gathering signatures and building a campaign base, our supporters usually take a "wait and see" attitude and don't want to put out money until the campaign "heats up." Take this into account in developing your fundraising plan. Create opportunities for people to give to the campaign early on - monthly pledges, rallies, events, house parties, button and bumper sticker sales are all good ways to raise money and involve people in the early development of the campaign. Donors will often want to become further involved in your efforts. They may be great fundraisers, community organizers, or have just the right contact to get an important endorsement. Treat people like they matter whether they give to your campaign or not. Return phone calls. Often large donations are the result of taking just a few minutes of your time to talk with someone who thinks they want to contribute but needs to be reassured about something. Create opportunities for giving at all levels for every constituency you can imagine. Remember that the Religious Right built their empire with $5 and $10 contributions sent in response to religious radio and TV programs. Be honest. If your state requires you to report names and addresses of donors, don't tell a potential contributor he/she can give anonymously. Sometimes you can make arrangements with a large foundation to accept these gifts. A donor can designate a large gift to the foundation anonymously, with the money to go to the campaign. The foundation, often taking a small processing percentage, acts as an intermediary and channels the money to your campaign. HAVE FUN! Now that you have your fundraising plan and a few early dollars to generate more moneyÉhave fun! It is likely that the campaign will be stressful, difficult, perhaps frightening and probably depressing at times. Find ways to have fun with the work you do. Thank people. Let them know they're appreciated. Find ways to take care of yourself. The work you are doing makes a difference for all of us. Major Donor Development The definition of a "major donor" varies among organizations and campaigns. For some $50 is considered a major gift while others consider $5000 the minimum amount required to be listed as a major donor. In setting your own standard, consider what amounts people have given for similar projects or campaigns in your community. If there is a list of donors from a prior campaign, start with that and analyze what percentage of people gave gifts above $100, $500, $1000, etc. This will give you a start in setting goals for your major donor campaign. Setting up an effective major donor committee is the most critical piece of your major donor campaign. While it is possible for people to make successful "cold calls" on prospective donors, it is more effective to have donors solicited by someone they know. Peer to peer fundraising is the most effective, so it's important to invite people onto your committee who know people with money. It is also very effective to have people with sales experience on your committee, whether or not they have wealthy contact s. The work to be done by your major donor committee includes: >> Setting a realistic, attainable goal and timeline >> Developing a major donor prospect list >> Production of the presentation packet >> Establishing the "pitch" >> Making the calls GOAL SETTING Many major donor committees make the mistake of setting unattainable goals and then become overwhelmed. It's much more empowering for your committee to set a goal they can realistically meet and exceed than to perceive that they have had a huge failure. In addition to a dollar goal, it's important to recognize the value of building supportive constituencies both within and outside of the gay and lesbian community. Securing a financial contribution may only be part of your solicitation. An additional goal may be to have donors commit to securing contributions from five other people or funds to match their gift. Or, a call to a major donor prospect may not result in a financial gift, but in a phone banking location to be used by your field staff. Be alert for other possibilities from your prospects. THE PROSPECT LIST The chair or staff for this committee should bring to the first meeting a list of all prospective donors known to the campaign. This list can be compiled from past campaign contributions on similar issues, major donors from progressive organizations, table sponsors from dinners for progressive organizations and candidates, and others suggested by the staff and steering committee. Ask each member of the committee to send you their list of prospective donors prior to the meeting so that you can merge all the names into one list. One way to organize this is to create a computer database including fields for prospective donors' names, addresses, telephone number, giving history (codes for other campaigns, candidates, etc.) , target donation requested for this campaign, name of solicitor and result of call. (You can do all of this with an index card system, but if you have access to a computer it's much easier!) At your first meeting, provide a printout listing the following columns: >> Names of the prospects >> Giving history code >> Target donation >> Solicitor Make enough copies for each of your committee members. Give the committee 15-20 minutes to review the list and put their names by the people they feel comfortable soliciting and the amount to ask, if they know. Then review the list name by name and have people indicate if they have signed up for that prospect and the target amount. Record this on a master list. When a prospect has more than one potential solicitor quickly determine who has the better connection or if this should be a joint call. If a prospect has no potential solicitors, mark the name and return to that individual later. At the end of this process have committee members count how many prospects they have taken. Have each person prioritize five calls to be made within a specific period of time (the shorter the better!) and commit to making five more calls by a second deadline. When people take too many prospects they often end up doing few, if any, of the calls because they feel overwhelmed by the task. Again, help people set attainable goals so they will feel successful. Take the information back to your computer or card system and add the solicitors' names and target amounts. Give each solicitor a list of their prospects with all the information you have compiled: name, address, telephone number, giving history, etc. Make follow up calls to each of your solicitors midway to their first deadline. This phone call will often be the reminder they need to get their calls done! THE PRESENTATION PACKET Major donor fundraising is sales in its highest form! You do a presentation, noting the Features, Benefits, and Advantages of contributing to your cause, overcome their Objections and Close the Sale! You are presenting a product to a consumer Ñ an opportunity to be a part of a social change movement. It's your responsibility to show how the donor will be affected by participation in your campaign. By the end of your presentation the donor should see this as his/her campaign and be fully invested in ensuring its success. Your presentation packet should contain: >> Information on your organization: how it was formed, who is on the >> board or steering committee, mission statement or goal, one page >> presentation sheets highlighting the need for contributions and how the >> money will be spent. >> Campaign literature, buttons, bumper stickers >> A sheet describing giving levels and what can be accomplished with each >> gift >> A PLEDGE ENVELOPE! Make it easy for the prospective donor to find out: >> Who you are >> Why you want their money >> Why they should give their money to you rather than some other cause >> What you'll do with the money >> Who to write the check to and where to mail it! THE PITCH Have your committee participate in a brainstorming session on why a prospective donor should contribute to your campaign. Establish the key selling points, identify possible objections and persuasive responses, how to actually ask for the contribution and how to thank the prospect regardless of the outcome. Do role plays so that people get used to hearing "NO!" Encourage committee members to be as outrageous as possible in both their requests and their responses so that they can experience a full range of potential scenarios. MAKING THE CALLS The most effective way to solicit most donors is in a face to face meeting. Most people do not respond to a mail request and it's much easier for people to say no on the telephone than in person. When it is not possible to secure a meeting with a prospective donor, call and ask to set up a time for a telephone meeting indicating that you would like to talk about his/her potential contribution to the campaign. This respects the donor's time and allows time for the donor to consider how he/she would like to be involved. It is most important to set a strict timeline for yourself. Make your calls for appointments, follow up on phone calls that are not returned, go prepared to your appointment (knowing what amount you would like the donor to contribute to your campaign), and follow up with a thank you note regardless of the outcome of your meeting. Remember that a donor seldom gives everything possible in the first contribution. On the other hand, it's most annoying for a major donor to receive weekly requests for additional contributions. Choose your timing of requests judiciously. Be sure that you have followed up the first request with a personal thank you note and wherever possible some "inside" information about what's happening on the campaign that was made possible or enhanced because of your donor's contribution. (You were able to purchase time on a particular radio station, printed door hangers, etc.) More than an any other kind of fundraising, developing and nurturing a relationship with your donors is necessary. These are the people who will be able to assist the campaign if, in its final stages, additional funds are urgently needed. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Effective Fundraising Against the Right Part 2 of 2 ----- by Linda Lee Welch, Fundraising Director, Campaign for a Hate-Free Oregon ----- Direct Mail Direct Mail is a multi-purpose fundraising tool. Done well it not only raises money for your cause, but raises awareness of your issue. One of the most expensive forms of fundraising, it must be approached with some caution and realistic expectations about the results. Successful direct mail solicitations often yield at best a 3% return rate with varying sizes of contributions. With careful list selection and well written letters you will probably see the return rate rise and contributions come in at a fairly substantial rate. In developing your direct mail plan, consider the costs involved. The bulk of the expense comes in printing and postage. If it's possible to get printing donated, direct mail becomes more attractive early in the campaign than if you have to pay all the up-front costs. Next consider how the printed material will be assembled and stuffed in envelopes. If you have a large enough space to accommodate volunteers, this is a task suitable for large numbers of people who don't need any particular skill. Mailing parties are often the first access for a campaign volunteer. Many volunteers choose to become further involved in the campaign after an initial positive exposure folding and stuffing. LISTS There are many brokers who will sell lists of names to your campaign. Always check references on these companies. Some will provide you with wonderfully accurate lists and others with less desirable ones. Purchase lists only when absolutely necessary. Many organizations, candidates, and businesses will gladly negotiate a one-time use of their list for a one-time use of the campaign list at the conclusion of the campaign. Present list exchange proposals as early as possible in the campaign. Many organizations require board decisions on mailing list usage and waiting for a board meeting can take more than a month. Get your agreement in writing to protect both parties. Have both organizations articulate when the lists may be used and for what purposes, when the campaign will receive the list, and when the campaign will produce its list for the other organization's use. If the list you acquire is large, test a portion of the list before sending out the complete mailing so that you have some idea of how the list will perform. If you're getting a 1% response rate with your test section, you'll have to decide if the size of the gifts is large enough to warrant a full mailing. The decision to use in-state lists as opposed to national ones depends on how much visibility your issue is getting on a national basis. If you have a statewide initiative that is attracting national media attention, national lists will do much better for you than if you have a local ballot measure that is not receiving much coverage. In any case, it's usually better to use the best in-state lists you have first. You will almost always have a higher rate of return than with national lists. Experiment with national lists and see what the crossover issues are. Women's rights and pro-choice organizations often have lists that perform well for gay and lesbian civil rights causes. Other civil rights organizations may perform well on your issue. When using a national list, mail to prospects in your state first, then to adjacent states who will feel a vested interest in keeping your ballot measure out of their back yard. It's also a good idea to develop a sample letter for people to mail to their own lists. Many people have large personal or professional lists that will produce good results with a well-written letter. Encourage people to mail to their own lists. It's a good contribution and helps people feel more involved in the campaign as well. THE LETTER There are scores of books and consultants to assist you in writing your letter. There are just as many philosophies regarding the number of pages, the variety and number of ink colors, placement of bold and underlined passages, etc. The key issue is to make the reader feel emotionally connected to your campaign. You may be able to do that in two, four, or six pages and in one, two, or three colors of ink. Communicate your passion for the issue in language the recipient of your letter will understand. The letter you send to your state's gay and lesbian community should be different than the letter you send to a pro-choice list. Don't miss the opportunity to build bridges between constituencies. For example, illustrate how gay and lesbian civil rights and choice issues are integrally connected and why supporting lesbian and gay issues ultimately results in advances for the reproductive rights movement. A cover letter or quote from the spokesperson or candidate whose list you're using gives your letter added credibility. Find a way to illustrate the broad-based coalition supporting your campaign. One way is to list the board, steering committee or community council on the letterhead. Another would be to have quotations from people whose support of your campaign will be meaningful to the recipients of your letter. THE ENVELOPE Think about the direct mail you receive in your home or office. What gets some opened while others go directly to the trash? Often a compelling statement, question, or image makes the difference. Take time in designing your envelope so that it gets opened! THE RESPONSE DEVICE A fancy name for the return envelope you'll include to make sure that contributions come rolling back in! It's easiest to use an envelope with all the information printed under the large flap. Be sure it's designed so that you won't lose any information required by your state- - name, address, occupation or employer if needed, amount of contribution, method of payment (give VISA and MASTERCARD options whenever possible), and terms of payment (one time, monthly, etc.). Be creative with this envelope as well. Sometimes people scan the response envelope before they read the letter. If you're in the media phase of your campaign, list the amounts requested next to the television or radio shows on which ads bought by that contribution will run. If the pressing need is development of door hangers or hiring of community organizers, use those as illustrations of what their gift will purchase for the campaign. People will often stretch a little more to help purchase the piece of the campaign they think will make the biggest difference. TRACKING RESPONSES Remember to code response envelopes so you can tell how the lists are performing. If a list produces exceptional results in the beginning of the campaign, you may want to mail to that list again during the final stretch. Color coding the response envelopes is an easy way to track lists. One way to do this is to take a stack of envelopes and a thick marker and draw across the bottom. Keep a master list of the color codes for your bookkeeper and for the people coordinating the folding and stuffing. CASH FLOW Once you are able to produce and send out your first direct mail piece, you will begin to see a consistent flow of cash into your campaign. Large direct mail campaigns usually produce many contributors who you can then approach for additional gifts, but it's essential to be sure that direct mail gives you the best rate of return for your investment. Ask people for money more than once. Few people give as much as they can the first time they are asked. Constantly evaluate the rate of return, size of gifts, profit margin, and the educational benefits of your mailings. A well-run direct mail campaign is a big asset and a poorly managed one is a drain on valuable resources. TELEPHONE FOLLOW-UP You'll greatly increase your rate of return if you are able to follow up your mailing with telephone calls. You can do this with your own phone banking volunteers or by hiring a firm that specializes in telephone solicitation. You won't have this option with all of your lists but try it whenever possible. THE ESSENCE Use a good list. Write a passionate letter designed for your audience. Include a response device which gives people a variety of payment options and articulates how their contribution helps the campaign. Include the letter and color coded response device in a creatively designed, compelling envelope that is sure to be opened by most recipients. Wait for the cash to roll in. Do follow-up phone calls to the people who let this opportunity to participate in contributing to your campaign get by them! Organizations and Foundations Part of your campaign fundraising plan may include soliciting organizations and submitting proposals to foundations. This kind of fundraising is very cost-effective as there is little overhead involved in writing letters of request and meeting with staff and boards! Make your requests early in the campaign so that you're sure to meet deadlines! ORGANIZATIONS Approach local, state, and national progressive organizations that share a similar agenda first. Keep in mind several things you might ask for in addition to a financial contribution. Office space, use of a computer, copier or fax machine, a mailing list, technical assistance, the loan of a staff person or key volunteer are just a few of the ways an organization can assist you in addition to a cash contribution. As you build a broad-based constituency you will become aware of other organizations who have an interest in your campaign. As you develop a good working relationship with representatives of local organizations, find out how they can assist you in approaching their national affiliate if they have one. A request for financial or technical assistance from a local organization often carries more weight than a request from your campaign. It's important to keep organizations informed about the progress of the campaign and to suggest ways for them to continue their involvement. Co-sponsoring fundraising events is sometimes a good way to lend credibility to your campaign and gives an organization a focused way to give additional financial support. They can promote the event through their usual outlets, giving you faster access to people who will be interested in the event. Nurture your relationship with organizations. Too often we forget about an organization after we've received its financial contribution. There's much more that an organization and its membership can provide to a campaign. Find out what each organization can best contribute. Ask your media committee to regularly submit updates for organizational newsletters to keep their members informed on the campaign. People need to know what's going on and how to get involved. Newsletters of organizations are a great way to spread the word. FOUNDATIONS: Profit & Non-profit Developing proposals to submit to foundations can be time consuming, so it's best to work on this at your earliest opportunity. Determining deadlines and gathering the material for a proposal can be done by volunteers. Write a core piece that can be modified according to the requirements of the foundation. Include a description of the political climate and the issue (ballot measure, initiative, recall, etc.), an analysis of what needs to happen to effect change, and a list of the steering committee and the participating coalition groups. The foundation will request other information and you can tailor your proposal to meet their needs. Because many foundations are unable to contribute to organizations participating in the electoral process, some campaigns find it useful to form a non-profit entity to carry out educational activities. The political organization creates and implements the campaign while the non-profit focuses on short and long term educational goals. Separate organizations meet several needs. One is that donors have an option of supporting social change and getting a full tax deduction. Having an educational and political component also gives people the option of participating, both financially and with volunteer hours, in the kind of work that most appeals to them. It's important to separate the short-term goals of winning elections and the long-term goals of educating people about gay men and lesbians. Both can be done concurrently, but there are different strategies that achieve each set of goals. Check with other campaigns to find out which foundations have given money to political organizations. By doing a little networking you'll probably find untapped resources that no one ever had time to get to in the heat of their campaigns. If you don't get the proposals ready in the beginning of the campaign, it's not likely that you'll find time and energy to write a thoughtful, articulate proposal, gather all the supporting documents and submit it by the deadline. If you have all the pieces ready as suggested above, you have a better chance of being able to get a proposal off to a foundation when you find one willing to fund political activities. Event Fundraising In a political campaign, fundraising through special events can be fun and profitable. It can also be your worst nightmare and a drain on your financial resources. Special events usually require an up-front financial investment that is sometimes difficult to obtain at various stages of the campaign. Events require careful planning and detailed follow-through to insure the best results. One of your goals should be to have fun creating the event. If your committee loves what they're doing, this will translate to the people in the community you hope to attract to your event. Your budget will give you an indication of what size fundraising events you need to hold. If you have a small budget you'll want to produce smaller events than if you're trying to fund a $2 million campaign. Because events are so time consuming and volunteer intensive, many organizations put their energy into just a few large events a year. The key is to choose carefully and appropriately for your needs. If you are in the middle of a time-limited campaign, you don't have the opportunity to make many costly mistakes. There are people who love producing special events. Find them! Form a small committee to brainstorm the kinds of events that will be successful for you. Invite people with event production experience and anyone else who loves "details" to serve on this committee. Develop realistic budgets for the events that are most appealing to your committee and determine how many you need to hold to meet your financial goal. Do a cash flow time-line so you know when you will have expenses and when you expect to receive income. You'll need advance money for things like printing, advertising, and postage. If you have a large donor or a business who can afford to loan you the up-front production expenses, you may want to consider this option. Other organizations can occasionally help with this as well. You may consider co-sponsoring a few of your early events, giving the campaign added credibility and the co-sponsoring organization recognition for supporting your campaign. You could also solicit contributions from underwriters for your event. Typically an underwriter provides a large contribution and, in exchange, you promote their business on all of your advertising material. Events do more for your campaign than raise money. Many people feel like they want to "do something." Participating in a rally, a house party, or a walk-a-thon are ways to give people the opportunity to meet that need. Just writing a check is not satisfying enough for some donors. They want something in return for their money Ñan auction where they can purchase something, a fun party, a way to be more involved in the campaign. For others, an event is a way to "check you out" before making a larger contribution. If you do the event well and deliver an effective message, you'll have many more prospective donors available. Some of the people who turn out for events will be people whose names won't appear on any lists. They may not belong to any other organization but felt a strong need to participate in this campaign. Your event can be the point of access for many people new to your issue or to the political process. In your brainstorming session, make sure you know what you want from your event in addition to money. Do you want maximum media coverage? Are you looking for volunteers? Do you need to boost the spirits of your supporters? You can craft an event to meet all of these needs and more, but only if you know what you want. Don't be afraid to articulate what you want to accomplish. It doesn't matter whether you want people to be emotionally moved or to just have fun...your planning will create the response. Be su re you know which one you want! Keep a clear focus on creating your event. Set conservative, attainable goals, plan carefully, and you'll succeed in creating an event that meets all of your expectations. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Fundraising That's Fun -- Party Now to Fight the Right ----- by D-J, Hans Brinker Productions, Portland, OR ----- House and dinner parties are not merely fundraising tools for your campaign. They are social gatherings of your supporters where you can recruit support, volunteers, goodwill, and money. Money is only one asset the guests will bring with them. They also carry their own stories and histories, ideas and skills, anger and frustrations. They have contacts with other groups of people, at home and at work, that could support the campaign. And they carry a lot of energy with them that you can channel toward the benefit of your campaign. Using house parties as part of a well-rounded campaign strategy will strengthen your base of support as well as your finances, and can be a fun, social way to help you win an election. Your first task as House Party Coordinator is to find the hosts - people who have a natural talent for hospitality and who enjoy having guests over for dinner. The fundraising staff of your campaign will have developed lists of donors; start with these lists to find the pioneers of your support. Augment your list with names gleaned from the address books of fellow campaign workers. Send these people an inspiring appeal to consider organizing a house party, where they will provide the guests and the campaign will provide materials and perhaps a speaker for the evening. You and volunteers should make follow-up calls a few days after your list has received the mailing. Provide options for your contacts; if they don't want to throw a party, might they like to attend one? Or might they be able to provide names of friends and associates who might attend a party? Be prepared to make lots of phone calls, to talk to many answering machines and voice mail services, to call people back again and again. Depending on the sense of urgency and involvement in your community, your sign-up ratio will range between 1 out of 10, to 1 out of 25 calls. When you talk to potential hosts, help them brainstorm guest possibilities from groups they might already be involved with. Ask them to consider: co-workers; pool-shooting buddies; neighbors; gym members; church groups; community groups; etc. If they would prefer to host something other than a full dinner, they can gather around a potluck, barbecue, picnic, cocktail party, dessert, or brunch. Make sure the hosts and their guests realize the party is also a fundraising party (ergo: don't forget your checkbooks). How much money can the host ask from the guests? A golden rule in fundraising is that you do not under-ask. People tend to give less than you ask for. However, there is a very fine line between over-pricing and creating an embarrassing situation for your hosts and their guests. Remind your hosts that having the house party and sharing information about the campaign is a successful event in and of itself, regardless of the amount of money raised. The money raised can only make the event MORE successful. It is likely that many of your hosts will never have thrown a house party for a political campaign. Boost their confidence and level of preparedness by sending them a house/dinner party package containing: >> Information on your campaign (flyers, brochures, stickers) >> Invitation design >> List of how money raised will be spent >> Volunteer sign-up sheet >> Photocopies of favorable news articles >> Examples of opponents' propaganda. Depending on the size of your campaign and the number of parties planned, it may be possible to arrange for a campaign staff member, a senior volunteer, or a well-known supporter of your efforts to appear on behalf of your campaign. They should be able to make a short speech about where campaign efforts stand, answer several of the most frequently asked questions about the issue, and give clear and practical examples of how campaign funds are being spent. If your speaker is not a campaign staffer, try to match the speaker to the crowd - a teacher's union official to a group of educators, a minister or rabbi to a group of fellow congregants, etc. This person will also be responsible for making the pitch for funds following the brief presentation, and should confer with the hosts prior to the evening to settle on a reasonable amount of money to ask each attendee to donate. If an outside speaker is not available, you, as the house party coordinator, are responsible for meeting with the hosts to answer their questions and prepare them to briefly present current information about the campaign and ask for donations. Make sure to provide them with sufficient information to do this, as well as handouts to distribute to the guests. During the week prior to the party, check in with the hosts to answer any last-minute questions and get a sense for the number of people they expect to attend and a rough approximation of the amount of money they hope to raise. House parties affirm your supporters, help develop a pool of volunteers, raises your campaign's visibility in the community, and can raise anywhere from fifty to thousands of dollars. With enough advance planning, you can use the house party strategy to create a citywide, countywide, or even a statewide momentum of support. Select a target date and ask your hosts to schedule all parties on that specific date. Doing so creates the impression that on that particular evening, hundreds, even thousands of like-minded people in the area are sharing an experience for the benefit of the campaign. Develop a catchy motto (during Oregon's Measure 9 campaign, we used "Dine against 9") and advertise the evening. You may very well have potential hosts calling you asking how they may be involved. If you decide to do a multiple party evening, you may take it a step further by contacting supportive local restaurants in your area and asking them to donate a portion of the proceeds from their business that night to the campaign. This provides an opportunity for those who can't or don't wish to host or attend a house party to be involved as well. When approaching restaurant owners, be prepared to answer the following questions: How will you advertise their commitment? What other restaurants are you contacting? Will the event be publicized broadly enough to bring in a significant number of customers there because of the link to the campaign? On the night of "Dine Against 9" in Oregon, several restaurants were filled over capacity with our supporters. To thoroughly fill out the evening and bring everyone together on the special house party day, organize an after dinner dance party! Create an opportunity for ALL of the house party guests, ALL of the diners at selected restaurants, ALL of your volunteers and staff, and ALL of your supporters who didn't attend a house party or restaurant benefit to come together and celebrate. Arrange for a local dance club or other social space to donate their facilities for the evening (or charge a nominal user fee). Hire a DJ to play a broad spectrum of popular music. Form a "host committee" of a few local celebrities, known for their work or their "hipness." Word of mouth will be your most cost-effective advertising. Charge a minimal amount at the door (sliding scale). Each host should make a brief speech during the event, and someone - either a campaign staffer or one of the hosts - should make a brief pitch for donations. Not everyone attending this party will have given earlier in the evening. Keep the party cheap, simple, but fabulous. You can build on the good mood and excitement most of your partygoers will be into already. A good DJ, a no-host bar, and a popular party space will create a good time - and successful event - for all. Budgeting your event Revenues to expect: >> Projected ticket sales >> Sponsorships (bookstores, breweries, restaurants, caterers, etc.) >> Bar revenue >> Merchandise sales: T-shirts buttons, bumper stickers Expenses you will encounter: >> Graphic design and printing >> Advertising costs >> Postage >> Space rental, decorations, and props >> Signage ("pledge central," etc.) >> Rental of tables, chairs, etc. >> Sound, staging, lighting rental >> Liability insurance >> Talent (try to get it donated!) >> Catering (again, can be donated!) >> Security (professional/volunteers) Allow yourself a contingency/petty cash fund for small supplies and last-minute details. Don't forget to bring checks to the event. Most professional suppliers need to be paid upon delivery. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Voter Contact -- Tools to Get the Votes ----- Excerpted from training materials from No on 9: the Campaign for a Hate-Free Oregon ----- Voter contact is an organized system of planned campaign programs that identifies the voting preference of individual voters and delivers a persuasive message to targeted voters in a timely, repetitive, and reinforcing way. The more often we can reach our voters with our message, the more effective our campaign will be, and the greater our chances of victory at the polls. Voter contact involves quantifying the number of voters to be contacted and the amount of resources (time, money, and volunteers) available to reach these voters. You need to know the geography of the district, the types of messages to deliver, when you want to deliver them and the goals you need to accomplish, each time you deliver a message. STEP ONE: Develop a Message A campaign's message tells the voters what the issue is, and what the arguments are for the "correctness" of our side's perspective. Deliver the message with every voter contact tool you have. You need to repeat and reinforce the same basic message in order to persuade voters to vote the way you want them to vote. STEP TWO: Target Voters Select targets by using poll data, precinct targeting, voter history, demographic information, and other research information. Concentrate your valuable resources on persuading swing voters and building and reinforcing identified voters on our side. STEP THREE: Obtain a Voter List Obtain one centralized registered voter list for targeted precints. Update the list with all information gathered by the voter contact program and any other information, such as new registrants, pertinent to the campaign plan. STEP FOUR: Assess Your Resources The estimated number of volunteers, amount of money, and time you have will determine the kind of voter contact program you can design. If your plans require more volunteers and money than you think you will have, you will need to design programs to raise more money and find more volunteers. STEP FIVE: Put the Tools in Action There are two categories of voter contact tools: direct contact and indirect contact. Both have positive and negative aspects. Your campaign needs to decide what combination of the two will deliver your message the greatest number of times to the greatest number of persuadable voters. Campaigns with a great number of volunteers but a small amount of money should concentrate on direct contact tools. Conversely, campaigns with a great amount of money and a small amount of volunteers should concentrate on indirect contact. The key word, however, is concentrate. A campaign with many volunteers can raise money to fund indirect contact such as direct mail and a campaign with much money can afford to find volunteers to carry out direct contact, such as canvassing. Direct Contact Direct contact includes the following: TELEPHONE A basic telephone program should identify voter preferences while delivering a brief message about your candidate. The information gathered during each telephone call should be recorded on the campaign's central voter file, either computerized or on paper. A detailed outline on phone/mail programs follows this voter contact plan. DOOR-TO-DOOR CANVASSING The face-to-face contact established in canvassing generally has the most impact of all other voter contact tools. However, a door-to-door program requires a substantial commitment of volunteer time and money. A canvass must be well planned and managed to deliver the impression you want. There are two types of door-to-door canvass: the volunteer canvass and the paid canvass. Before deciding to start either a paid or volunteer canvass, you must assess the feasibility of implementation in your district. Questions to ask yourself include: >> Are persuadable precincts canvassable? >> Do you have enough volunteers to execute a canvass or will too many resources be tied up in too few precincts? >> Do you have the expertise to run a paid fundraising canvass or can you find someone who has the expertise? >> Would a paid fundraising canvass work in the district? Once you have decided to implement a canvass you should have the following goals in mind: >> Identify voter preferences >> Deliver a persuasive message >> Identify voter issue interests >> Recruit volunteers >> Solicit contributions >> Establish visibility Note that voter preference information is usually not as accurate as that gathered by a phone program. Undecided voters are much more likely to say they support your position, and unfavorable voters are much more likely to say they are undecided in a one-on-one conversation with a canvasser than over the phone. If your canvass is going to identify voter preferences, make sure canvassers are warned about this and are prepared to probe for voter preference. Volunteers should be trained and given a script about the initiative. It is extremely important that they make a good impression. They should be given literature to hand to voters and should leave a handwritten note, prepared before canvassing begins, with a piece of literature at homes where no one answers the door. Follow-up mail should be sent to each home that is canvassed. All voter preference information should be added to the central voter file. This information should be used to direct other voter contact programs such as lawn signs and home parties. The following material should be prepared before canvassing: >> Sign-in sheet >> Instruction sheets for canvassers >> Maps of precincts >> Registered voter lists sorted by precinct and address >> Canvass script >> Campaign buttons to identify volunteers Once you have a core group of canvassers trained, you can begin the canvass. Each day before canvassing begins, the canvass coordinator should choose the precints to work from the campaign's list of swing precincts. All canvassers should come to the headquarters for a quick briefing before beginning to canvass. The goals of this briefing are to tell canvassers new information they need to know, assess which canvassers are following through on their commitments and get the canvassers excited about the campaign and the important role they are playing in it. After the briefing, canvassers should be grouped into teams, pairing new canvassers with old hands, and sent out to work. Make sure canvassers check in and check out each time they volunteer. When canvassers return from their assigned precincts, they should always return extra material and the list they used to identify voters. Final tips on canvassing: >> One person should be assigned to manage the canvass. >> The more organized you are, the better impression you will leave with your canvassers and the better impression they will leave with voters. Also, if your canvassers feel good about the canvass, they will probably keep coming back for more. >> Train canvassers to avoid lengthy discussions with voters. You want canvass contacts to be as personal as possible, but at the same time, the campaign needs to cover a lot of ground. >> Carefully evaluate each canvasser. Weed out those you think will cause problems and put them to work in a job that is closely supervised. If you think a canvasser is exaggerating how many voters she or he talked to, check the information by using the canvasser's list on a phone bank for a few calls. Indirect Contact Indirect contact includes the following: DIRECT MAIL Persuasive direct mail addresses a selected voter audience with a message or messages geared specifically to their interests. Selecting target audiences, determining what you will say to persuade your audience and then writing your message are the keys to a successful direct mail program. A sophisticated and effective direct mail program would target specific voters within precincts using one or more of the following types of information: >> Voter preference information gathered from phone bank and canvassing >> Issues information gathered from phonebank/canvass >> Demographic information about voters contained on registered voter file >> Voter party affiliation >> Other information added by the campaign or others about voters (for example, a list of ACLU members who are registered voters.) If you use all the information described above, you will be able to deliver a very targeted and persuasive message to a wide variety of audiences. Every effort should be made to make your mail message and all your voter contact messages as personal and targeted to an audience as possible. Direct mail should be used to accomplish the following goals: >> Deliver a positive message about your campaign >> Deliver a negative message about the opponent >> Deliver a message that contradicts the opponent's "no special rights" rhetoric >> Follow up mail for canvass or phone bank >> Present prominent individuals who support our fight >> Ask for money. Numerous types of mail packages have been designed to deliver messages to voters to meet these goals. Some of the most common forms include letters, brochures, tabloids, and leaflets. Direct mail letters can be produced in several ways. Generally, they are offset, computerized, or photocopied. If you offset or photocopy your letter, you will not be able to personalize the salutation or vary the text. Using a computer, either in-house or a commercial vendor, will allow you to personalize your mail. It will cost the campaign more in most cases. Brochures are usually either stuffed into an envelope with a letter or sent as self-mailers to voters. Tabloids are usually printed on newsprint and contain lots of pictures and little copy. They can be mailed to voters or dropped door-to-door. Leaflets/postcards usually deal with one specific argument or issue. While leaflets are generally inexpensive to produce, they can be very effective mail pieces if they are good-looking and well-designed. No matter what form your direct mail takes, remember your message must be clear and the package must be interesting. The clearer your message and the better your mail looks, the more likely it is that voters will read it. Before planning and budgeting your direct mail program, make sure you understand the different direct mail production options available and all the costs of each option. The appearance of your mail is very important. Poorly designed mail will not be read. Make your mail interesting so that voters will want to read it. Give others a way to respond to your mail by either including a business reply envelope, a fundraising card, a volunteer card, or a card that asks for more information. You can also list the address and telephone number of the campaign. Stamped mail attracts more readers than metered mail. If you can work out the logistics, it's better to use a live stamp. Have several people proofread your letter before it is reproduced! If you can't afford to hire a direct mail shop to produce your mailings, check with the post office to find out all the rules and regulations well in advance of the first mail drop. LITERATURE DROP The door-to-door distribution of literature is a cheap but time-consuming way to get campaign brochures or tabloids to voters. The following steps are necessary. >> Identify areas that can realistically be covered by volunteers. Calculate the number of doors in each area. >> Appoint a literature distribution coordinator. >> Recruit volunteers to distribute literature. Get volunteers to commit themselves to distribute to a certain number of doors. >> Prepare literature (including maps) for distribution and volunteers' instruction packets. >> Send volunteers out to distribute literature. Send literature in the mail to those areas that will not receive literature door-to-door, depending on the cost of mailing and the importance of the district. Other things to consider when doing a literature drop include: >> Try to avoid having your literature dropped along with other initiatives' literature or candidate literature (unless that candidate's literature specifically supports our vote on the initiative, and states so clearly). >> Never place literature in a mailbox -- it's against the law. >> Make sure each volunteer returns surplus literature and reports which streets were covered. >> Emphasize to volunteers the importance of tightly securing each piece of literature. Campaign material strewn across lawns and streets does not leave a good impression with voters. LAWN AND WINDOW SIGNS Lawn and window signs serve two functions. First, they establish familiarity with the position (i.e., "NO ON 9"). Second, they show that home owners or businesses in a particular area support our position. Compile a list of the names of all people who want lawn signs until you have a large number. Then call up the list and schedule one day for a massive distribution and putting up of signs. During the course of an emotional campaign, signs are inevitably vandalized or removed altogether. In most places, such vandalism is a violation of local laws. Report the vandalism or theft to the police and campaign, and ask for replacement signs. Phone/Mail Program An effective phone and mail program is one of a campaign's most powerful tools. Through a phone and mail program, voters supportive of civil rights protections for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people can be identified, volunteers recruited, and funds raised. A phone/mail program can also educate voters about the issue, its relevance, and the stakes involved. It can build a crowd for events and rallies and get the vote out on election day. If done properly, an effective phone/mail program will generate new donors. The money it raises can support your campaign. Phone and mail programs complement each other. With the phone, a caller can do a quick I.D. and probe on the issue. Mail follow-up further educates and recruits support. What a volunteer learns on the phone about a voter's views determines what kind of mailing is sent to that voter. The following outline explains how to set up a successful phone bank and follow-up mail program. The outline is preceded by a quick checklist of the steps involved in your successful phone/mail program. >> Appoint a phone bank supervisor. >> Obtain phone lists. >> Find a location. >> Determine how many volunteers are needed to staff as many phones as can be made available >> Write a phone script and devise a coding system to record responses. >> Set a date to start. >> Follow a regular phoning routine. >> Design and send follow-up mail. STEP ONE: Appoint a Supervisor Appoint a phone bank supervisor in the first weeks of the campaign. This person will work closely with the mail program and should have a thorough understanding of campaign strategy. The supervisor must do the following: >> Write a phone bank plan and calendar appropriate to your particular campaign and its idiosyncricies, with follow-up mail in mind. >> Recruit and train phone bank coordinators who take responsibility for overseeing nightly phone banks. >> Recruit and train volunteers. Hire paid staff only if there is a shortage of available volunteers. >> Determine resources for targeting and computerized lists and results. >> Oversee the operation. STEP TWO: Obtain Phone Lists Evaluate polling and targeting research to define target groups and precincts. Voter history records are kept by almost every elections board and enable a campaign to target voters based on how they have voted in the past. Contact gay and lesbian, human rights, and other social justice activist organizations in your area to request membership lists. Because the challenges we face, while targeted only at gays and lesbians on the surface, really concern civil liberties for all, support from other progressive groups often comes easily. Determine availability of phone list from all these sources and take steps to obtain them and merge them into one list. STEP THREE: Find a Location Phone banks can be organized from one large centralized location, from several smaller sites, or from volunteers' homes. A centralized phone bank, if possible, is the best option. It is the easiest to manage because it allows close supervision to ensure quality and quantity of calls. If a centralized location is impossible, appoint captains to each site to report to the supervisor and maintain uniformity in phoning practices. Possible sources of large numbers of already existing phones are law offices, large civil rights organization offices (such as the ACLU), buildings that house several smaller activist organizations (we tend to cluster offices together), real estate firms, unions, and local campaign offices. Encourage supporters employed at such places to lobby for use of their phones. If no existing site can be found, place an installation order with the phone company and determine the time involved to install the phones . Phone installation should only be ordered as a very last resort in order to save valuable campaign funds. STEP FOUR: Determine How Many Volunteers and Phones are Needed Calculate the number of phones needed in relation to how many volunteers are available for how long and how many names are on the calling list. Base figures on an average of 12 calls per hour per volunteer. Recruit new volunteers by identifying favorable voters and asking them to participate in your phone banks. If they can't come to your location, you have the option of sending them a list of undecided voters, identified by the phone bank, to call from their homes. Use this option carefully since you will not be able to supervise these phoners. Never limit the number of volunteers needed. A well organized campaign will always have responsibilities for trained volunteers. STEP FIVE: Write a Phone Script and Devise a Coding System Write a script to be used by the volunteers. Make it brief and to the point. A script provides security when a volunteer is just starting out. Avoid lengthy conversations. (A sample script follows in this section.) Provide volunteers with a brief fact sheet on the initiative and the campaign. If someone wants extensive information, the phoner may inform them that a member of the campaign staff will call them back and material will be sent promptly. Devise a uniform coding system for volunteer phoners to record information obtained from voters. (Y=yes, N=no, U=undecided, V=wants to volunteer; etc.). STEP SIX: Set a Date to Start Calculate a starting date by how many names are on the phone list, how many phones are available, how many volunteers are committed to phoning, and how many hours/evenings each volunteer can work. Overbook the number of needed volunteers; there are always "no-shows". STEP SEVEN: Follow a Daily Routine >> Call volunteers a day in advance to remind them of their scheduled phoning shift. >> Prepare calling lists and other phone material. >> Welcome volunteers when they arrive and have them sign in. >> Listen in on a few calls to catch any inaccuracies. Praise excellent work! >> Schedule break times and provide refreshments. >> Thank volunteers at the end of their shift, check their work, and encourage them to sign up for another shift. >> Make sure voter information is updated on the central voter file. STEP EIGHT: Design/Send Follow-up Mail Quantify the size of the different audiences you want to reach through your mail program. The size of these audiences will shrink during the campaign as you identify favorable voters via the phone and other voter contact tools. Define the tasks you want to accomplish using direct mail. Quantify the costs of producing different mail packages and develop a budget based on the size of each mailing and the package costs. You also need to assess how many volunteers are needed to conduct the mailing. Final tips on phone/mail: >> Create the following forms: - Sign-in sheets for volunteers - Tally sheets (sample follows) - Daily report forms >> Make sure volunteers hang up after six rings. >> The best times to phone are generally 4-9pm on weekdays and 11am to 6pm on weekends. >> For maximum productivity, schedule your phone shifts for two to three hour periods. >> Voter preferences, especially in swing precints, shift over the course of a campaign. Because of this, double-check the favorable I.D.s from early in the campaign before you put them into a Get Out The Vote drive. >> Make sure volunteers avoid lengthy conversations with voters. Basic supplies needed to run a phone bank include: work tables, chairs, calculator, pencils, pens, scratch paper, rulers, staplers, paper clips, scotch tape, and REFRESHMENTS. The three constantly changing variables are: volunteers, lists, and telephones. Constantly seek to expand each of the three variables in order to operate a successful telephone system. Keep recruiting phone banks, lists, and volunteers right up to Election Day. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Walking the Talk -- Successful Canvass Strategies ----- by Leah Campbell ----- The primary goals of the canvass process are to reinforce media messages, persuade undecided voters, and identify voters' positions who haven't already been contacted by phone. In doing so, we accomplish a secondary goal; the human interaction of the door-to-door contact breaks down false perceptions based on ignorance and the misleading messages of our opposition. The canvass is the highest quality contact a campaign can have with voters, and is most effective in swinging undecided voters in our favor. For these reasons, canvassing operations must be tightly organized and carefully targeted. However, it is important not to forget that for many volunteers, the campaign may mean a great deal more. For people who have struggled long and hard in under-funded organizations that are frequently under attack, the campaign may become a vehicle for achieving personal goals. The fear and anger and the many aspirations of your volunteers must be dealt with in a manner which demonstrates respect and appreciation for your base of support. Volunteers are not just resources and tools of a campaign management team, they are people. In campaigns that intend to put the humanity of many of these people up to a vote, this is especially important to remember. No campaign wins alone Ñ victory relies on cooperation and commitment on the part of many people, and will be built on the foundation that has been established by everyone in the community who has struggled against discrimination. Let them know they count! This section offers a few tips on effective canvassing techniques to maximize voter contact while using volunteers in a way that encourages continued involvement in the struggle. Training canvassers The purpose of canvass training is to prepare volunteers to make direct voter contact by building their confidence, informing their actions, and helping them feel like an integral, in fact, fundamental part of the campaign. The training is also a good time to give volunteers an update on the campaign and thank them for their support. Everyone should feel some ownership of the campaign. Give them a brief overview of where the canvass fits into other campaign operations. People like to have something to read along with as they are being trained, so prepare a short script for them as well as a few important training points and responses to commonly asked questions. Rally the troops Before you begin the training, explain the importance of the canvass in the campaign. Give them an update on the campaign, and pump up their enthusiasm. The canvass is the closest we get to having frontlines in election campaigns and you need to encourage your volunteers to keep working toward your goal. Get down to basics There are two basic persuasion skills that should be emphasized when training canvassers: eye contact and keeping the conversation and message as short as possible. Eye contact conveys trustworthiness and confidence. A short, simple message is best because the basic ideas we want to communicate get lost when we over-explain ourselves. There's an old saying in canvassing that the more information the canvasser gives, the more questions the person at the door will have. Finally, a short, simple message is polite. You are interrupting people when you go to their homes. It's far less likely that undecided voters will experience an attitudinal revolution in the middle of Saturday morning football than become annoyed over being disturbed. Role plays Do a couple of role plays using the script for your canvass. Make these role plays interesting and fun by doing parodies of different kinds of canvassing experiences. Demonstrate ways to control the interaction with short, clear messages to questions that arise. Make sure these responses are consistent with the message of your campaign. Explain to canvassers that undecided voters are unlikely to come down on one side or another on your issue while you are at the door. What is important to the campaign is that you have some idea how the person stands on your issue. Have canvassers ask one or two qualifying questions in order to determine how the person stands. A good example of such a qualifying question is, "so can we count on you to vote no on 11 on November 2?" Make sure that if the person at the door says yes, that they know when to vote and encourage them as strongly as possible to get out to vote. Remind canvassers to practice the rap a few times before starting rather than reading the script at the door. Here's a sample canvass script: "Hello, I'm Leah and this is Scot. We are with the No On 11 Campaign, and we are encouraging your neighbors to vote No on ballot question 11. Are you familiar with question 11" "Question 11 is a constitutional amendment that wants to mandate discrimination against gay and lesbian citizens of Tillamook County. We believe most people in our state would vote no on discrimination. That's why we are asking you and your neighbors to vote no on ballot question 11. Can we count on you to vote No?" "Thanks for your time. Be sure to vote No on 11 on November 2nd." Safety Guidelines Civil rights campaigns can be dangerous. Be sure to consider the safety of your volunteers before you send them out on the canvass. >> Volunteers should work in pairs rather than alone. >> Coordinators should have the names of every volunteer on the canvass and know where they have been assigned to walk. >> Assign a return time by which volunteers must report back to the canvass staging site, and hold them to it. >> Record all incidents of harassment or assault, and be prepared to contact the police and to deal with trauma. >> Canvassers should never enter the home of any person on the canvass route. >> Canvassers should have a phone number to call in case they get lost or an emergency arises. Make sure the phone is staffed. >> Canvassers should be able to recognize signs of danger such as neo-Nazi paraphernalia, etc., in areas where it is likely they may encounter such opposition. >> Canvassers should beware of dogs. Create goodwill ambassadors Remind canvassers that just as voters in candidate campaigns often vote on style rather than substance, in issues campaigns, voters frequently determine their votes based on presentation rather than content. For this reason, all volunteers who become associated with the campaign are goodwill ambassadors for your position. For this reason, the following tips should be considered: >> Be polite and respectful Ñ remember that many voters will have concerns of their own, and our issue may not be the most important to them. Deliver the message, but don't be coercive or demanding. >> People you meet at the door may have many questions. Be prepared to answer them with short, simple answers. Don't fall into a debate or over-personalize the issue. >> Remember that voters need to know why voting your way helps them. They may not be interested in knowing about you. Be respectful and keep interactions short. >> The religious right wing are irrational fanatics. We are reasonable people trying to deliver the truth. Be a voice of reason. >> Remember that our opposition uses fear as a tactic to win votes and support. When you go out on the canvass, don't be scary! Creating new leaders As with all organizing training projects, the canvass training should develop confidence and encourage new leadership. Be sure to create opportunities for those who would like to take leadership to become involved on that level. These potential leaders should be involved in training sessions designed for trainers that will give them the opportunity to look over the entire campaign field operation, and become familiar with techniques of volunteer recruitment and training, and logistical coordination of phoners, canvassers, and voter lists. Allow potential new leaders to shadow canvassers and phone bank coordinators as they train and supervise volunteers, and manage lists and other logistical information. After the canvass Log the precincts and the progress of the canvassing operation on a progress chart. Offer the canvassers some food and beverages after they return. Ask them a few questions about their experience so you can get a feel for how voters are responding. Be prepared for critics and supporters of your efforts. This keeps volunteers coming back and it builds respect for your campaign in the community. Moreover, volunteers often have very worthwhile suggestions for running the canvass. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit NO ON 9 CAMPAIGN FIELD STRATEGY ----- by Thalia Zepatos, Campaign for a Hate-Free Oregon ----- VOTER IDENTIFICATION In September 1992, we set a goal of identifying 100,000 Oregon voters' positions on Measure 9 through Voter Identification (Voter ID) phone banks. At a statewide training organized by OUTPAC in Eugene, we presented a plan and methodology that was adopted by many local campaigns around the state (although not all had the resources to take on the phone ID program). We tested several phone scripts - we called high support areas of Portland and solicited contributions and volunteers from among our supporters; we also tested a persuasion script. After several trials, we adopted a simple three question ID script that did not identify the caller as being from the No on 9 campaign because our tests showed that skewed the results. Voters were coded "1" - voting No on 9; "2" - Undecided; "3" voting Yes on 9. By election day, more than 138,000 total voters (including approximately 50,000 "1's") were identified in Clackamas, Washington, Multnomah, Marion, Jackson, Tillamook, Hood River, Deschutes, Lane, Benton and Coos counties. PERSUASION Canvassing The next step of our program was to re-contact the "2's", the undecided voters. We felt the best strategy to counter the anonymous literature drops by the OCA was making personal contact between our supporters and undecided voters. We organized a door-to-door canvass operation. In the Tri-county metropolitan area, volunteers from Portland were sent to augment local volunteer efforts to visit undecided voters in Washington and Clackamas Counties (both counties are largely suburban, and are the second and third most populous counties in Oregon). Volunteers carried voter lists with the names of "2's" and uncontacted voters highlighted. Voter lists were ordered in "walking order," used first on the phone bank, and then photocopied for volunteers to take door-to-door. More than 1100 volunteers working in pairs canvassed in the metropolitan area during the final four weekends; they carried a persuasion piece of literature that reinforced media messages currently showing on TV. Literature was provided to regional campaigns for their canvass programs. We encouraged local activists unable to canvass rural districts to re-call the "2's" with a persuasion script. Persuasion Mail As money became available, we decided to send some late mailings to targeted groups of swing voters ( identified in our polls). >> A postcard to more than 100,000 Republican women aged 25-50 in 15 swing counties featured a photo and message from former Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer. >> A postcard to District 18 Democrats in Portland was targeted to the African American community and featured a photo and message from the Reverend Jesse Jackson.(District 18 is mostly Democratic and voted 90% for Jackson in '88.) Get Out The Vote We made a strategic decision to continue persuading voters until the Sunday before election day, delaying most Get Out The Vote activities until Monday, for the following reasons: >> The Presidential election was very high profile and a record high turnout of 82% was predicted for Oregon voters in November. >> Measure 9 was equally high profile; virtually every voter in the state knew what Measure 9 was and planned to vote on it. Regional GOTV strategies included: >> A memo and follow-up phone calls to all regional campaigns that presented three options for GOTV activities (see attached). >> Assignment of key staff and volunteers to Jackson and Marion counties to help with GOTV efforts. Tri-County GOTV strategies included: >> Blind pulling (blanketing with a GOTV drive) of key precincts in Multnomah County Districts 12 and 14, where most of our base of support resided. (We coordinated with the Clinton campaign in this effort). >> More than 175 volunteers placed 5:30 a.m. door hangers on all doors in blind pull precincts. >> Poll watching of voter turnout in blind pull precincts, with check of names of all Democrat and Independent voters. >> Five Sound vans circulated from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Equipped with cellular phones, we dispatched the vans into precincts that were turning out lower than our expectations. Volunteers got out of the vans and door-knocked all doors in those precincts. In Washington and Clackamas counties, poll checking activities during the day allowed us to cross names of "1's" off of lists before sending the lists to our 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. phone banks. (Note that alphabetical lists were ordered and names of "1's" manually highlighted by volunteers in order to facilitate the matching of alphabetical lists with poll books, which are organized in alphabetical order.) In key precincts, we were able to track specific results of our efforts: overall turnout of voters was 67% by 1:00 pm in one sample precinct, in which 78% were No on 9 voters. GOTV efforts were augmented by 20,000 free GOTV phone calls which were donated by Telemark Services. Calls were made into targeted precincts in Multnomah and Lane Counties. (Lane County is the 5th most populous county in Oregon.) Lawn Signs: 25,000 No on 9 lawn signs were printed and distributed during the campaign. Signs were sold for $3.00 in high support areas (Portland) in order to subsidize low-cost or free distribution of signs to other areas of the state. Signs were given out for free in targeted swing areas. RECOMMENDATIONSÊFOR FUTURE CAMPAIGNS:; >> Given that most activists in the No on 9 Campaign had little or no electoral campaign experience, I would recommend that future campaigns provide much more training and back-up support to regional organizations. Three separate trainings would be ideal: one focused on Voter ID, a second on canvassing, the third on GOTV. >> The educational components of the campaign - speakers bureaus, forums and debates - should use the persuasive messages of campaign speakers by tying their work in with Voter ID programs. A critical role that speakers bureaus can play is recruiting activists. >> Good planning from the central office should maintain consistency of messages and presentations of those messages by carefully planning deliveries of literature, materials, etc., on time. A timeline shared with local campaign field operations for print ads, deliveries, coordinated canvassing dates, etc. is critically important. >> In future campaigns, where money allows, absentee voters should receive mailings from the campaign. We did nothing with absentees and eventually lost Jackson County (where many absentee voters live) as a result. >> Better budgetary oversight would have allowed us to plan for more direct mail; I would target more groups of persuadable voters with mail in the future. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Discrimination Costs -- The Boycott Strategy ----- by Terry Schleder, Director, Boycott Colorado, Inc. ----- The Colorado Boycott is a powerful grassroots movement that is working to fight the religious right and stop the spread of anti-gay & lesbian ballot initiatives across the United States. On November 3, 1992, Colorado became the first state to legalize discrimination against gays, lesbians & bisexuals at the ballot box. Colorado's Amendment 2 is part of a nationwide attack by the religious right on civil rights everywhere. At least ten states will face petition drives in fall 1993 which, if sufficient signatures are gathered, will thrust those states into the divisive and expensive struggles that cost Colorado and Oregon millions of dollars and great political divisions in 1992. Since the passage of Amendment 2, hate crimes against gay men and lesbians have jumped by more than 400%. Five gay men have been stabbed. Lesbians wearing "No on 2" buttons have been physically attacked. Colorado Springs is headquarters to more than 55 religious right organizations. Many gay activists have left the state. There has even been an Amendment 2-related suicide. In the seven months since Amendment 2's passage, the Colorado Boycott has garnered national attention and support. As of June 1993, more than 60 companies have canceled conventions or meetings in Colorado, and more than 110 groups have called for a boycott of Colorado to protest Amendment 2. Some 20 U.S. municipalities have severed ties with Colorado because of the anti-gay initiative. New York City has divested its stock holdings in any Colorado companies, and canceled a contract for new municipal buses. Ziff-Davis Publishing had planned to relocate their operations to Colorado; in the wake of Amendment 2, they reconsidered, costing the state $1 billion dollars in revenue over a five-year period had they chosen to operate in the state. Good snow and papal visits notwithstanding, the Colorado Boycott is resulting in long-term fiscal consequences for the state that voted against civil rights. What does this mean for other states, particularly those targeted for initiatives by the religious right? The Colorado example serves as a warning to voters, businesses, and political leaders in the other 49 states, attesting to the strength of the determination of activists and citizens to oppose discrimination and "ballot-box bigotry." Conservative Governor John Engler of Michigan has stated for the record, "I believe a Colorado-type amendment would have a negative impact if adopted in Michigan. Such an Amendment could lead to tourists and convention planners boycotting our state, which would obviously have an adverse effect on our economy. Michigan does not need an amendment of this nature" (letter to a constituent dated 2/16/93). Boycott Colorado, Inc. stands prepared to fight the battle over Amendment 2 until its eventual repeal. We are unwilling to support a state that sees fit to deny civil rights and protections to any of its citizens. We are dedicated to promoting the effectiveness of the boycott nationally to prevent the spread of any "Amendment 2-style" initiatives that may be attempted in other states. The following page lists boycott endorsers as of 6/7/93. In addition to this list, more than 62 businesses report conventions or business cancelled in Colorado, andmore than 100 New York City restaurants will not serve products from the state. Updates on the boycott, or information that activists can use to discuss the economic impact of anti-gay and lesbian legislation may be obtained through Boycott Colorado's toll-free line, 1-800-4-BOYCOTT. ----- Official Boycott Colorado Endorsements "I believe a colorado-type amendment would have a negative impact if adopted in michigan. such an amendment could lead to tourists and convention planners boycotting our state, which would obviously have an adverse effect on our economy. Michigan does not need an amendment of this nature." -- Governor John Engler, State of Michigan >> National Gay & Lesbian Task Force >> United Methodist Church (11 states) >> American Friends Service Committee >> NAACP of Albuquerque, NM >> American Jewish Congress >> The New York Times >> Western NC AIDS Project >> Ken's Travel Bureau >> David Nelson Design >> Rainbow Grocery (San Francisco) >> Minnesota Coalition Against Domestic Violence >> DFL Feminist Caucus >> Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party >> Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault >> Democratic Club, Hayward, CA >> Arriba! Ski Club >> Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays >> National Network of Gay & Lesbian Officials >> National Association of Community Health Centers >> American Civil Liberties Union (national) >> ACLU of Southern Californiia >> ACLU of North Carolina >> ACLU of New York State >> ACLU of Washington State >> Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts >> National Organization for Women (NOW) >> American Public Health Association >> Americans for Democratic Action >> The Greens/Green Party USA >> Ground Zero (Colorado Springs) >> The Village Voice >> The Knowledge Bowl >> American Sociological Association >> Dorothy M. Lewis, Assistant Dean, Harvard University >> Columbia University Student Association of International and Public Affairs >> New York University Law School >> County of Santa Clara, CA >> County of Broward, FL >> County of Multnomah, OR (Portland) >> County of Montgomery, MD >> City of San Francisco >> City of Minneapolis >> City of Berkeley, CA >> City of Baltimore, MD >> City of Atlanta >> City of Chicago >> City of Detroit >> City of Medford, OR >> City of New York >> City of Los Angeles >> City of Austin, TX >> City of Seattle >> City of Boston >> City of Philadelphia >> City of Laguna Beach, CA >> City of Madison, WI >> City of San Jose, CA >> City of Ann Arbor, MI >> City of Providence, RI >> City of Newton, MA >> City of Ypsilanti, MI >> National League of Cities >> Robin Tyler Productions >> Barbra Streisand >> Whoopie Goldberg >> Jonathan Demme >> Joan Rivers >> Armistead Maupin >> Liza Minnelli >> The Kennedy Family >> Ed Saxon >> John Landis >> Nora Ephron >> Michael Tolken >> Sally Kirkland >> Madonna >> Angie Dickinson >> Dee Long >> Julie Harris >> Kathy Najimy >> Anna Quindlen >> Delbert McClinton >> La Gente Unida >> Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination/USA/LA/San Fran. Bay >> Gay & Lesbian Community Center (CO) >> Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund >> The Gay Games IV >> ACT UP >> Triangle Foundation, Inc. >> Human Rights Campaign Fund >> AIDS, Medicine, & Miracles >> Mountain AIDS Coalition >> The Advocate >> Lesbian News >> Lesbians in Colorado >> The March on Washington >> Rev. Troy Perry, MCC >> California Association of Pride >> Military & Police Club, International >> New Mexico Association of Persons Living with AIDS >> Gala Choruses >> Law & Society Association >> Southern Christian Leadership Conference ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Bigot Busting ----- by Bob Ralphs ----- Before 1992's widely-publicized Measure 9 in Oregon, right wing Christians attempted to place similar initiatives on municipal ballots in Portland, Corvallis, and Springfield, Or.. Corvallis defeated the measure by a 30% margin, and we lost in Springfield, 55%-45%. In Portland, however, the backers didn't manage to gather enough signatures to put their discriminatory proposal up for a vote. Why did Portland pose such a problem for the Oregon Citizens' Alliance petitioners? Because, in part, wherever they went, the Bigot Busters would follow. Bigot busting has two primary objectives: preventing petition signatures, and providing a gay-positive experience to as many people as possible. An individual who might have signed a petition earlier can become an ally when confronted with the truth. Our presence and effective presentation of the reality behind the rhetoric of the Christian right can result in the inability of our opponents to gather enough signatures to put their measures to a vote. Especially in urban communities where extreme homophobia is unpopular, potential signers are often too embarrassed to add their names to petitions. Very often, the rhetoric used by the religious right to encourage people to sign their petitions succeeds by presenting us as a menace, as evil, unlawful, distasteful people whose special rights agenda must be stopped. By participating in bigot busting, our mere presence deflates many of those arguments. People approaching the petitioners can see some real living, breathing, walking and talking homosexuals calmly explaining the impact of right wing initiatives. What follows is a brief outline of a structure for bigot busting, and some do's and don'ts. Soundbite answers to common questions and popular deceptions used by anti-gay campaigns can be found in this Action Kit. We encourage their use and reproduction. How to Start Ideally, one person or organization can devote a phone line and answering machine to the task of mobilization. This will be the Bigot Busters Dispatch Line. Messages must be checked frequently (several times a day AT MIMIMUM). Spread the word that bigotry busting will take place, and solicit volunteers. Run ads in friendly media with the Bigot Busters Hotline number featured, and ask individuals to call immediately to report any sightings of anti-gay petitioners. As volunteers accumulate, develop bigot buster training. It is critical that everyone participating understand the importance of following the Do's and Don'ts, and feels comfortable working within those guidelines. Become familiar with the areas where petitioners frequently gather. Churches, being tax-exempt, are almost always off-limits for signature gathering, so investigate other likely places. Calling the opponents' campaign and asking where you might find a petition to sign is a quick and efficient way to track them down. Large grocery stores, malls, professional sports events, and large outdoor gatherings are likely petition hot spots. Teams At each site, have one trained, cool-headed Bigot Buster serve as the site coordinator. Key points are: >> Rapid response: able to gather supplies and people and transport spontaneously to a petitioning site. (Someone attending a Portland Trailblazers game saw two OCA petitioners, called the hotline, and three Busters arrived within minutes to counteract the signature gatherers.) >> Identify several teams of volunteers who will go to preplanned sites (malls, grocery stores) on evenings or weekends when it is known that petitioners are out. No one should go alone. It is CRITICAL that everyone be prepared to deal with right wing rhetoric and be able to discuss our viewpoint calmly. Don't engage in lengthy discussions about the issues, and don't argue with belligerent petitioners or signers. All Busters should be trained to give short, effective answers to the questions that are likely to be asked (see soundbite list). All bigot busters should be trained in non-violent de-escalation tactics or other methods of avoiding unnecessary violence and messy confrontations. A list of materials you may need are listed below: >> informational flyers, impact statements, favorable editorials,etc. >> banners or placards work better than picket signs >> first aid kit(someone may stub a toe) >> volunteer sign-up sheets/signature waiver forms for advertisements >> copies of the text of the initiative you are fighting The site coordinator has additional responsibilities: >> pick up literature and signs from the bigot busters headquarters, transport to site >> as team members arrive at site, sign them in and go over bigot busting guidelines with each >> monitor the action; be prepared to intervene, if necessary, to avoid angry confrontations >> observe the progress the petitioers seem to be making; checking approximate numbers of signatures at the beginning and end of a session helps assess the effectiveness of the action >> get names and phone numbers of people who express interest in helping out with our campaign >> in the event no petitioners are at the site, contact dispatch for another site or suggestions >> return leftover literature and signs to bigot busters headquarters for future use, notifying the coordinator if more supplies are needed >> make sure everyone has returned safely from their missions >> be available by phone in case of emergencies >> have more than one legal consultant to contact >> lead debriefing sessions After a day of bigot busting, it is important to debrief. Bigot busters should come back together at a designated time and place to return leftover materials and to debrief. At this point, the coordinator should count heads; those who chose not to attend debriefing sessions should be accounted for. Allow people to talk about good and bad experiences they had during the day. Take suggestions for how things could be done better, and take the time to answer questions that came up during the day. It is important to maintaining unity and enthusiasm that people be given the chance to give feedback. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . They Fight the Right ----- Compiled by Political Research Associates ----- AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department Richard Womack 815 16th Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20009 202-637-5000 ----- American Civil Liberties Union Lynn Decker 132 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036 212-944-9800 212-869-9061 (fax) Membership organization, many local chapters. Setting up task force to look at the threat to civil liberties posed by the religious right. Series of books on Constitutional rights. Some available in bookstores. Write for full list. Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men. $7.95 + $1.50 postage. ACLU, Dept. L., P.O. Box 794, Medford, NY, 11763. ----- American Jewish Committee Institute of Human Relations Kenneth S. Stern 165 East 56th Street New York, NY 10022-2746 212-751-4000 Thirty local and regional offices. Gearing up for multi-department effort examining rise of the religious right. No special focus on homophobia, but some references in general material. Future booklets planned: Beth Rickey on local campaigns; Naomi Cohen on history of religious right 1970Õs-1980Õs. Call for availability. Politics & Bigotry. Kenneth S. Stern. $3.00. Section on religious right. Bigotry on Campus: A Planned Response. Kenneth S. Stern. $3.50. ----- American Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee Judith Krug 50 E. Huron Chicago, IL 60611 312-944-6780 Censorship, school curricula, library protests, legal decisions. Coverage frequently involves local campaigns by religious and political right. Newsletter: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom. Bi-monthly, $30. ----- Americans for Religious Liberty Albert J. Menendez Ed Doerr P.O. Box 6656 Silver Spring, MD 20916 301-598-2447 Several books and pamphlets available, write for list. Newsletter: Voice of Reason. Quarterly, $20. Visions of Reality: What Fundamentalist Schools Teach. Albert J. Menendez. $14.95. Religious Liberty and the Secular State. John M. Swomley. $14.95 ----- Americans United for Separation of Church and State Joe Conn Rob Boston 8210 Fenton Street Silver Spring, MD 20910 301-589-3707 Membership organization. Newsletter: Church and State. Monthly, $18. ----- Anti-Defamation League of BÕNai BÕRith Gail L. Gans 823 UN Plaza New York, NY 10017 212-490-2525 Many regional offices. Largest and most frequently cited resource on anti-Jewish bigotry and prejudice. Has recently begun adding homophobia to a few of its tolerance materials. Print and electronic resources are extensive. Special reports on Skinheads, the Ku Klux Klan, Identity Churches, Liberty Lobby, Lyndon LaRouche, etc.. Call for availability and pricing. Newsletter: ADL on the Frontline. Monthly, free with membership, or $5 per year. Newsletter: Law Enforcement Bulletin. Periodic, 2-4 times yearly, call for information. Human Relations Materials for the School. An extensive 48-page catalog of print, film, and video materials for combatting prejudiceÑno special entries on homophobia. Write for a free copy. Extremism on the Right: A Handbook. Profiles of organizations and individuals involved in far-right racist and anti-Jewish activity. $10. ----- Arts Censorship Project American Civil Liberties Union Marjorie Heins 132 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036 212-944-9800, x704 Newsletter: ACP Newsletter. Send request to be on list. ----- Center for Constitutional Rights Joan Gibbs Susanne Shende 666 Broadway New York, NY 10012 212-614-6420 MSN Hotline....212-614-6422 Progressive legal advocacy group. Coordinates Movement Support Network (MSN) which collects data on harassment of activists by government agents. If an Agent Knocks: Federal Investigators and Your Rights. English or Spanish. $1.50 ----- Center for Democratic Renewal Loretta Ross P.O. Box 50469 Atlanta, Georgia 30302 404-221-0025 ----- Center for Democratic Renewal - Midwest Leonard Zeskind POB 413767 Kansas City, MO 64141 Largest community-based coalition fighting hate-group activity. Formerly National Anti-Klan Network. Has numerous local affiliates. Every civil rights office should have a copy of the handbook, When Hate Groups Come to Town to respond to incidents of hate-motivated violence or intimidations. Newsletter: Monitor. Bimonthly, $15/individual, $25/institutions. When Hate Groups Come To Town: A Handbook of Effective Community Responses. $18.95 Quarantines and Death: The Far RightÕs Homophobic Agenda. Examines Klan, neo-Nazi, and far-right homophobia. $5. They DonÕt All Wear Sheets: A Chronology of Racist and Far Right ViolenceÑ1980-1986. $6. ----- Center for Women Policy Studies 2002 P Street, NW, Suite 508 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-872-1770 ----- Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence Break the Silence P.O. Box 2165 San Francisco, CA 94126 415-982-2959 ----- Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence 191 East 3rd Street New York, NY 10009 212-473-6485 Newsletter: CAAAV Voice. $15/individual; $25/institution; $7/low income/student. ----- Coalition for Human Dignity Steven Gardiner P.O. Box 40344 Portland, OR 97240 503-281-5823 The Coalition for Human Dignity, an affiliate of the Center for Democratic Renewal, studies, analyzes and organizes around the Christian Right and its growing prominence. CHD traces the links between conservative Christian churches; "family values" political organizations (the Oregon Citizens' Alliance); nationwide Christian Right organizations (Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America, the Christian Coalition); and white supremacist Christian organizations (Christian Identity, White Aryan Resistance). Rolling Back Civil Rights: The Oregon Citizens' Alliance at Religious War. $8.50 (includes postage). ----- CovertAction -- Louis Wolf, research CovertAction Quarterly -- Terry Allen, editor 1500 Massachusetts Ave., NW, #732 Washington, D.C. 20005 202-331-9763 fax 202-331-9751 Newsletter: CovertAction Quarterly. $19, +5 for institutions Back issues with articles on religious/political right. $6. Winter 92-93: Covert Tactics and Overt Agenda of the New Christian Right. Spring 1987: Special Issue on the Religious Right. ----- Cult Awareness Network 2421 West Pratt Blvd., #1173 Chicago, IL 60645 312-267-7777 Monitors cults through research and information from chapters in many states. Has very good information on MoonÕs Unification movement. Sometimes works with religious right on cult issues. Very useful publications list with material from several publishers. ----- Data Center Bill Berkowitz 464 19th Street Oakland, CA 94612 510-835-4692 Research on contract into a variety of topics with special expertise in corporations and current political issues. Large collection of clippings and specialized computer skills for searching electronic databases. Discounts for eligible non-profit groups. Write for complete resource list. ----- Facing History and Ourselves Margaret Stern Strom 16 Hurd Road Brookline, MA 02146 617-232-1595 High school curriculum on the Holocaust, slavery, Armenian genocide, and theory of prejudice and violence. ----- Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) 175 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2245 New York, NY 10010 212-633-7600 Newsletter: Extra! Bi-monthly, call for pricing. ----- Federation for Industrial Retention and Renewal 3411 West Diversey Blvd., Suite 10 Chicago, IL 60647 312-252-7676 Assists in dealing with prejudice in the workplace or worksite. ----- Fundamentalists Anonymous Richard Yao P.O. Box 20324 Greeley Square Station New York, NY 10001 212-696-0420 Helps individuals trying to leave aggressively domineering fundamentalist churches. Preparing report on TV evangelists, write for availability. Provides speakers. ----- Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders Mary Bonauto, atty/civil rights dir. Box 218 Boston, MA 02112 617-426-1350 Public interest legal advocacy. Newsletter: Brief. Spring & Fall, sent to contributers. ----- Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD) New York Donald Suggs, Dir. Public Affairs 150 West 26th Street, Suite 503 New York, NY 10001 212-807-1700 Primarily monitors coverage by news organizations. Newsletter: GLAAD Bulletin. ----- Group Research Wes McCune Gladys Segal 2000 M Street NW, Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-347-6626 Has extensive file collection dating back almost thirty years. Photocopies documentation for a fee. Excellent newsletter. Newsletter: Group Research Report. Monthly, $45/year ----- Institute for First Amendment Studies Skipp Porteous, Freedom Writer Barbara Simon, atty. P.O. Box 589 Great Barrington, MA 01230 413-274-3786 413-274-0245 (fax) Tracks religious right and covers separation of Church & State issues. Reliable expertise on religious right and reconstructionism. Provides speakers, available for talk shows & interviews. Newsletter: Freedom Writer. 6 per year, $30. $25 yearly membership includes subscription. Challenging the Christian Right: The ActivistÕs Handbook. $20. 3-ring binder (revised edition). ----- Klanwatch Project Southern Poverty Law Center P.O. Box 548 Montgomery, AL 36195-5101 205-254-0286 Has developed Teaching Tolerance curriculum. Write for details. Newsletter: Klanwatch Intelligence Report. Primarily by request to law enforcement agencies. The Ku Klux Klan: A History of Racism and Violence. 4th ed. $1.75 (bulk pricing available). ----- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Lambda-New York Suzanne Goldberg 666 Broadway New York, NY 10012 212-995-8585 212-995-2306 (fax) Lambda-Los Angeles Mary Newcombe 606 Olive Street, Suite 580 Los Angeles, CA 90014 213-629-2728 213-629-9022 (fax) Lambda is tracking initiatives and referenda. Provides legal research to eligible groups. Notify immediately if petitions are circulated or legislation filed or placed on ballot. Copies of all legislation referenda should be sent to both addresses. ----- Latino Rights Project Poryecto Pro-Derechos Latinos 666 Broadway, Suite 625 New York, NY 10012 212-722-1645 ----- National Abortion Rights Action League NARAL Foundation Bob Bingaman 1156 15th Street, NW, 7th Floor Washington, D.C. 20005 202-973-3000 202-973-3097 (fax) Membership organization fighting to preserve abortion right. Plans focus on religious right and state legislatures. Has special materials for campus organizing. Checks to NARAL Foundation. Newsletter: NARAL News. Available to members. Who Decides? A Reproductive Rights Issues Manual. $5 Who Decides? A State By State Review of Abortion Rights. $10 ----- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 4805 Mt. Hope Drive Baltimore, MD 410-358-8900 Newsletter: Crisis. ----- National Campaign for Freedom of Expression Bernadette Rodriguez 918 F Street, #506 Washington, D.C. 20004 202-393-2787 1402 Third Ave., Room 421 Seattle, WA 98101 206-340-9301 Focuses on art censorship with special attention to attacks by the religious right. ----- National Coalition Against Censorship ; 275 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10001 212-807-6222 Coalition of over 40 participating organizations. Write for long list of topical resource materials. Newsletter: Censorship News. 5 issues/year, $30. A full set of National Coalition Against Censorship, continued back issues beginning with March 1975 is available for $30. Freedom is Not a Dirty Word. Leaflet, box of 250. Call for shipping charges. The Religious Right and Freedom of Speech. 1981, $3. Creationism: Information Packet. $1. Feminist Anti-Censorship Packet. $4. Censorship, Black Literature, and Racism. $1. ----- National Coalition Against Domestic Violence P.O. Box 34103 Washington, D.C. 20047 202-638-6388 ----- National Conference of Christians and Jews Stephen Steinlight Maurice Bozarth 71 5th Avenue, Suite 1100 New York, NY 10003 212-206-0006 65 regional offices. Nonprofit relations organization, focus on religious affairs, workplace & community education programs. ----- National Education Association Paul Putnum; 1201 16th Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20036 202-833-4000 Call for resources on combatting curriculum censorship. ----- National Gay and Lesbian Task Force NGLTF Policy Institute Peri Jude Radecic David Smith 1734 14th Street Washington, D.C. 20009-4309 202-322-6483 202-322-0207 (fax) Major national clearinghouse for issues involving homophobia. Anti-Violence project list, Organizations Working Against Violence. Newsletter: Activist Alert. ----- NGLTF Fight the Right Project Scot Nakagawa 522 SW 5th Ave, Suite 1375 Portland, Oregon 97204 503-221-0115 503-228-1965 (fax) Monitoring and organizing aginst religious right and anti-gay legislative initiatives and lobbying efforts. Fax or send information about any religious right organizing or petition circulation to this office. ----- National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence 31 South Greene Street Baltimore, MD 21201 410-328-5170 Study papers and reports on bigotry. Prejudice and Violence: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Materials on Racial, Religious, and Ethnic Violence and Intimidation. $4. Striking Back at Bigotry: Remedies Under Federal and State Law for Violence Motivated by Racial, Religious, and Ethnic Prejucice. $15. ----- National Lawyers Guild 55 6th Avenue, 3rd floor New York, NY 10012 212-966-5000 Membership organization of lawyers and legal workers with local chapters. Especially useful for finding local legal advice and monitors for demonstrations. Call national office for referrals. ----- National Organization for Women 1000 16th St., NW, Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-331-0066 ----- National Urban League 1111 14th Street, NW, 6th floor Washington, D.C. 20036 202-898-1604 ----- People for the American Way Mary Gill Deanna Duby, legal Robin Joynes, sales 2000 M Street, NW Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-467-4999 202-293-2672 (fax) Write for current list of background reports. All orders must be prepaid. Has several recent reports and press releases on homophobic campaigns and rise of the religious right. Newsletter: Right-Wing Watch. 10 issues/year, $15. Videotape: The Religious Right, Then and Now. $25. Attacks on the Freedom to Learn. $8.95. Values, Pluralism, and Public Education: A National Conference. $7.95. The Witch Hunt Against "Secular Humanism." David Bollier, $5.95 Religious Education and the First Amendment: The Appeal to History. R. Freeman Butts. $5.95 Religion, Politics, and the Media. Panel Discussion. $5.95 "How Many Future Generations?" Armageddon Theology and American Politics. Jim Castelli. $4.95. Hate in the Ivory Tower: A Survey of Intolerance on College Campuses and AcademiaÕs Response. Includes guidelines for campuses. $10.95. ----- Planned Parenthood Federation of America Al Ross National Office 810 7th Avenue, 14th Floor New York, NY 10019 212-541-7800 Internal newsletter, no public circulation. Call to request a copy. Brochure on attack on abortion rights. ----- Political Research Associates Dr. Jean Hardisty Chip Berlet Margaret Quigley Francine Davis 678 Massachusetts Avenue Suite 702 Cambridge, MA 02139 617-661-9313 617-661-0059 (fax) Extensive ten-year file and publication archive on right-wing movements ranging from New Right to white supremacist groups. Dr. Hardisty was expert witness on political and religious right in Colorado lawsuit to block Amendment 2. Plans publication of Fred Clarkson manuscript on religious right & Reconstructionism. Has co-published with South End Press two books on political right with Russ Bellant (see South End Press). March 1993 newsletter on history of homophobia and religious right. Newsletter: The Public Eye. Quarterly, $29. ($19 low income/student/retired. $39 profit-making groups.) Constructing Homophobia: How the Right Wing Defines Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals as a Threat to Civilization. #1. Selected newspaper, magazine, and newsletter articles on religious right and homophobia. #2. Examples of publications and direct mail appeals of key religious and political right groups promoting homophobia. #3. Materials from Oregon and Colorado, sample tables-of- contents from homophobic books, assorted homophobic articles. $11 each, any two for $20, full set of three, $26. Theocrats and Anti-choice Organizing Information packet. $6.50 ----- ReportersÕ Committee for Freedom of the Press 1735 Eye Street, NW, Suite 540 Washington, D.C. 20006 202-466-6313 ----- Resource Center Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center Beth Sims P.O. Box 4506 Albuquerque, NM 87196 505-842-8288 General Central America research with special focus on political manipulation by humanitarian groups and missionaries. Covers religious right in Central America. Sells background reports profiling key groups and individuals, write for list. ----- Simon Wiesenthal Center Rick Eaton; 9760 West Pico Los Angeles, CA 90035 310-553-9036 Write for complete resource list. Library open by appointment. Extensive collection on the Holocaust & dynamics of prejudice. ----- Southerners for Economic Justice Box 240 Durham, NC 27702 919-683-1361 State Historical Society of Wisconsin James Danky Periodicals Collection Periodicals Library 816 State Street Madison, Wisconsin 53706 608-264-6531 Has large collection of obscure periodicals, including political and religious right material. Makes photocopies of specific pages for a fee. Some microform materials available through inter-library loan. ----- United Auto Workers Civil Rights Department 8000 East Jefferson Avenue Detroit, MI 48214 313-926-5361 ----- The WomenÕs Project Suzanne Pharr 2224 Main Street Little Rock, AR 72206 501-372-5113 501-372-0009 (fax) Back issues of the WomenÕs Project newsletter, Transformation, contain excellent articles on the religious right. Suzanne Pharr travels around the country to organize against the Christian right, and spent much of 1992 organizing in Oregon against Ballot Measure 9. Transformation is published bi-monthly. Subscriptions are $15/year. Suzanne PharrÕs book, Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism, may be ordered for $9.95 + $2 for postage and handling. The WomenÕs Project also developed a Handbook for Victims of Hate Violence, ($1.50), written specifically for Arkansas, but an excellent model for those wishing to develop their own handbook. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Bibliography -- Know Your Enemy ----- Compiled by NGLTF ----- To effectively counter the Religious Right's anti-gay agenda, it is absolutely necessary for activists to understand the enemy: who they are, why they do what they do, and what their agenda is for the rest of the 90's. The following is a bibliography of critical books by and about the religious right. For a thorough education, we recommend that you read some of both. Additional materials are prepared by research organizations and activist groups; you may find out about these resources in "They Fight the Right" elsewhere in this Fight the Right Action Kit. BOOKS CRITIQUING THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT/NEW RIGHT: Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Faludi, Susan, (New York: Crown, 1991). Bible Believers. Ammerman, Nancy T., (Newark: Rutgers University Press, 1987). The "Christian Identity" Movement: Analyzing Its Theological Rationalization for Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence. Zeskind, Leonard, (Atlanta: Center for Democratic Renewal, 1986). The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism. Bellant, Russ, (Cambridge: Political Research Associates, 1990). God's Bullies: Native Reflections on Preachers and Politics. Young, Perry Deane, (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1982). Handbook for Challenging the Christian Right. Clarkson, Frederick & Porteous, Skipp, (Great Barrington, MA.: Institute for First Amendment Studies, 1993). Heaven on Earth? The Social and Political Agendas of Dominion Theology. Barron, Bruce, (Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan, 1992). Holy War: An Inside Account of the Battle for PTL. Stewart, John, (Enid, OK: Fireside Publications and Communications, Inc., 1987). Jesus Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Porteous, Skipp, (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1991). The New Christian Right. Liebman, Robert C., and Wuthnow, Robert, eds., (New York: Aldine Press, 1983). Old Nazis, The New Right, and the Republican Party: Domestic Fascist Networks and U.S. Cold War. Bellant, Russ, (Boston: South End Press). Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War. Halsell, Grace, (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1986). The Religious Right and Israel: The Politics of Armageddon. Mouly, Ruth W., (Cambridge: Political Research Associates, 1985). Robertson: The Pulpit and the Power. Ide, Arthur Frederick, (Austin, TX: American Athiest Press, 1988). Rolling Back Civil Rights: The Oregon Citizens' Alliance at Religious War. Gardiner, S.L., (Portland, OR: Coalition for Human Dignity, 1992). Salvation for Sale: An Insider's View of Pat Robertson's Ministry. Straub, Girard Thomas, (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1986). Search for the American Right Wing: An Analysis of the Social Science Record, 1955-1987. Hixson, William B., (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right. Diamond, Sara, (Boston: South End Press, 1989). The New Religious Right: Piety, Patriotism, and Politics. Capps, Walter H., (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1990). Thunder on the Right. Crawford, Alan (New York: Pantheon, 1980). To the Right: The Transformation of American Conservatism. Himmelstein, Jerome L., (Berkeley, Los Angeles, & Oxford: University of California Press, 1990). BOOKS BY NEW RIGHT/RELIGIOUS RIGHT AUTHORS: Are Gay Rights Right? Magnuson, Roger J. (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1990) The Battle for the Mind. La Haye, Tim (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1980). Book Burning. Thomas, Cal (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1983). A Christian Manifesto. Schaeffer, Francis A. (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1981). From the Heart of a Woman: Basics of Discipleship from a Woman's Viewpoint Mayhall, Carole (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1976, 1980). Gays, AIDS, and You Rueda, Enrique T. and Schwartz, Michael (Old Greenwich, CT: Devin Adair, 1987) The New Right Papers Whitaker, Robert W., Ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982). The New Right: We're Ready to Lead Viguerie, Richard (Falls Church, VA: Viguerie Company, 1981). The New World Order Robertson, Pat (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1991). The Rise of the Right Rusher, William A. (New York: Morrow, 1984). The Stealing of America Whitehead, John W. (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1983). "Through the Glass Darkly: Is the Christian Right Overconfident It Knows God's Will?" in Policy Review. Atwood, Thomas (Fall 1990, No. 54, pp. 44-52). A Time for Candor: Mainline Churches and Radical Social Witness. Institute on Religion and Democracy, (Washington, DC: Institute of Religion and Democracy, 1983). ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. . Fight the Right Action Kit Biographies of Fight the Right Action Kit Contributors ----- by NGLTF ----- Kevin Berrill, former director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Anti-Violence Project, is now a consultant and trainer to gay and non-gay groups on ending hate crimes. Berrill has authored several publications, including the only annual national survey on homophobic violence. He played a key role in the passage of the Federal Hate Crime Statistics Act. Robert Bray is the Fight the Right Media Trainer for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Prior to July, 1993, Robert was NGLTF's Public Information Director, in which capacity he played a critical role in bringing gay and lesbian issues before a mainstream audience. When not conducting trainings for activists across the country, Robert lives and works in San Francisco. Leah Campbell, a field organizer for the No on 9 Campaign for a Hate-Free Oregon, currently lives in Seattle, Washington. Beckie Capoferri is a professional union organizer employed by the Oregon Public Employees Union. She is a founding member of the No On 9 Labor Coalition, and worked for the No On 9 Campaign as a field organizer and labor liaison. D-J, an emigre from Holland, is an events organizer, owner/manager of the National Gallery of Snapshots in Portland, OR and an "American Gladiators" enthusiast. Steven Gardiner is an anthropologist and political activist who specializes in studying and analyzing social movements. Steve is currently the Co-Research Director of the Coalition for Human Dignity. He is the author of the CHD Publication, Rolling Back Civil Rights. Suzanne Goldberg is a staff attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. She is the leading legal authority on the constitutional issues surrounding the religious right's "No Special Rights" initiatives and rhetoric. Robin Kane, a former staff member of the Washington Blade, is the Public Information Manager for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C.. Gillian Leichtling lives in Portland, Oregon where she is an organizer with the Coalition for Human Dignity, and the Homophobic Violence Documentation Project. Gillian worked with the Rural Organizing Project organizing opposition to Ballot Measure 9 in Oregon's rural communities. Pacy Markman is a partner in the Los Angeles advertising firm Zimmerman Markman. His extensive experience developing media advertisements for organizations fighting anti-gay initiatives includes the California Briggs Amendment Campaign, and the No on 9 Campaign for a Hate-Free Oregon. Jonathan Mozzochi is the Co-Research Director of the Coalition for Human Dignity. A longtime political activist, his research specialty is the study of white supremacist movements and their role in American politics and society. Scot Nakagawa, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Fight the Right Director, is the former Executive Director of the Coalition for Human Dignity. Scot was a field organizer for 1992's No on 9 Campaign for a Hate-Free Oregon. Lynn Nakamoto is a lesbian activist and and attorney who lives in Portland, Oregon. She is a founding member of the Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbians and Gays, and a member of both the Asian-Pacific American Alliance and the Japanese American Citizens League. Suzanne Pharr is a founding member of the staff of the Women's Project of Little Rock, Arkansas, and the author of Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism. Suzanne also worked as a media officer for the No on 9 Campaign for a Hate Free Oregon, and now travels the country supporting the efforts of civil rights activists throughout the United States who are involved in fights against the religious right. Skipp Porteous, a former Christian fundamentalist minister, is president of the Institute for First Amendment Studies, an educational and research organization based in Massachusetts. To subscribe to The Freedom Writer write to IFAS, P.O. Box 589, Great Barrington, Massachusetts 01230. IFAS has also produced an excellent manual on organizing against the right wing. Cecil Prescod is an organizer of the People of Faith Against Bigotry, an Oregon-based political action committee dedicated to resisting right wing bigotry. He is also a leader in the Coalition for Human Dignity, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Bob Ralphs is a founder and organizer of the Portland Metro-based No On Hate Political Action Committee, and the founder and lead organizer of Bigot Busters. Bob is also the Oregon March on Washington Coordinator. Terry Schleder directs Boycott Colorado, Inc. in Denver. Boycott Colorado and Amendment 2 information may be obtained by calling 1-800-4BOYCOTT. (Boycott Colorado, Inc., P.O. Box 300158, Denver, CO 80203-0158.) Mab Segrest works with the World Council of Churches in Durham, North Carolina. As a staff member of the North Carolinians Against Racist and Religious Violence, she helped build strong coalitions against religious right attempts to coordinate anti-gay activities in Durham. Linda Welch was the Fundraising Director for Oregon's No on 9 Campaign in 1992. Prior to the campaign she was the Executive Director of Oregon's Right to Privacy Political Action Committee. Currently she is working as a consultant specializing in fundraising and homophobia education. Marcy Westerling is the former Executive Director of the Columbia County Women's Resource Center, and currently heads the Rural Organizing Project of the Oregon Democracy Project. Over the course of the 1992 election year, and in the months since, Marcy has earned the respect and admiration of Oregonians in every part of the state as the "only out lesbian in Columbia County," and as the organizer of 22 rurally-based "human dignity" political action committees. (Rural Organizing Project, P.O. Box 919, Scappoose, OR 97056.) Thalia Zepatos, an author based in Portland, OR, worked as a campaign strategist and organizer for No on 9: Campaign for a Hate Free Oregon. Prior to this campaign, she served as a campaign leader for Governor Barbara Roberts' 1990 race. ----- To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at 202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219. .