From: [email-masked] (Paradise Cowgirl x5930)
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 17:13:50 -0700

Fight the Right Action Kit
Grassroots Coalition Building -- lessons from North Carolina

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by Mab Segrest, Urban/Rural Missions, World Council of Churches

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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.

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To request the complete Fight the Right Action Kit, call NGLTF at
202-332-6483, TTY 202-332-6219.