From kevyn@KSUVM.KSU.EDUMon Jul 17 00:54:31 1995 Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 19:54:41 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevyn Jacobs To: "Kansas Queer News [KQN]" Subject: Network for Unity & Tolerance Summit Report ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 17:27:19 -0400 From: Azcandra2%aol.com@KSUVM.KSU.EDU Subject: Summit Report The Network for Unity and Tolerance held its second full summit meeting yesterday at the Plaza Library. We had a very different group of people this time vis a vis the April 1st meeting, but that was good as we were able to network and train with new people this time. We had an incredible wealth of literature and info available on the side tables on all sorts of issues. We began with a panel of speakers representing various organizations that are opposing the radical right in Missouri and Kansas. We had scheduled Tobie Matavah, Dave Weeda's successor at the helm of Human Rights Project (Kansas City's GLBT rights organization) but unfortunately she was unable to attend at the last minute. Perhaps next time. We had Missouri State Rep. Lloyd Daniels speak on affirmative action and how the Supreme Court decision threw out the baby with the bathwater. I was a bit intimidated following such an articulate speaker on the morning panel, but since noone on the MAINstream board had the time (ahem) I did the best I could. I told the group how the MAINstream Coalition got started, some of the publicity that we had garnered (such as the April 10 Wall Street Journal article and the Cronkite Report on cable tv last winter), how we were spreading through Kansas, and what we do. I also detailed the success we had days after the previous Network summit in the April schoolboard elections, working through our new Moderate Majority PAC. Other speakers on the morning panel included a representative of Missouri ProVote, who explained what the group does in Missouri, mostly in state legislature races. He also stayed on for the afternoon workshops, where we brainstormed intensively on how to organize for political action. Another group went to a second room upstairs and addressed rightwing hate radio --how to get past the screeners, and the talking points to use. The workshop organizer mentioned that listening to rightwing radio, you can often obtain temporary 800 numbers that these groups set up to lobby Congress on a particular issue, and use these numbers yourself to oppose the radical right for free! These numbers often change or shut down in a few days, so again the importance of organizing our allies for rapid dissemination of information came up. I attended the workshop on political action. We discussed the different types of lobbying, then moved on to targetted voter registration. In Missouri, the state is complying with motor voter, so every registered voter is also a potential registrar, and can pick up free registration cards at county election board offices. What this means is that you can carry such cards around with you, and when you find a progressive person who isn't registered, sign him or her up --and copy the info on the card to your own database so that you can build a mailing list of your own. This is perfectly legal and simply saves you the time and paperwork of getting the same information from the election boards. The ProVote representative told us that it was important to pressure states like Kansas to comply with Motor Voter. Led by extremist legislators like Darlene Cornfield, Kansas is resisting Motor Voter as an "unfunded mandate" -- even tho the legal costs of fighting the Justice Department in a likely losing battle will exceed the costs of implementation! I brought up what turned out to be a very good point --that the recent use (abuse?) of the ballot initiative process, in those states that have the option, is being used by the radical right not so much to repeal gay rights protections or reproductive freedom for women, as to create formidable mailing lists that these groups sell to rightwing candidates for office for fundraising and to whip up the rightwing turnout in some GOP primaries and on election day. We mentioned an attempt pending in the U.S. House to repeal the 1993 Motor Voter law making registration easier for citizens. This attempt is led by Arizona Congressman Stump and has 170 cosponsors. We passed out postcards for all those living in Jan Meyers' district urging her to oppose the repeal. Jan was one of a few Republicans who supported motor voter two years ago. Of course, even in this Congress the right wing would not have the votes to override a Clinton veto, and Clinton will, because his reelection depends on it). Still, it is important to build opposition to this. If a Republican becomes president next year, Motor Voter repeal would be first on his list of prioirites just as passing it was for President Clinton. I was supposed to lead a workshop on organizing and sending alerts by Email, but with the scheduling I ended up handing out my materials to the whole group and standing in the middle of a large circle, answering questions. Faced with the sudden change of venue I decided to pass around a sign up sheet for those interested in getting hooked up to Email services and tutoring by yours truly, for a workshop to be held in two weeks or so, perhaps at Sharon Lockhart's home (hope I didn't scare you Sharon!). It was also great to meet Linda, whom I met on AOL in the Fred Phelps message board. Linda is a former resident of Topeka who along with Sharon Lockhart and others has engaged in peaceful resistance to Mr. Phelps' activity, such as parking cars sideways across the sole road to the county D.A.'s home. D.A. Hamilton is a fierce opponent of Fred Phelps and lives outside Topeka city limits, so Mr. Phelps is able to picket and harass her at home legally. Mr. Phelps and some of his followers, such as Charles Hockenbarger and grandson Ben, go on trial in Emporia starting tomorrow for battery, defamation, and other charges...according to the KC star today, special security measures have been put in place. The trial was moved to Emporia even though the alleged actions took place in Topeka, because the whole town despises him and judges ruled that they could not guarantee impartial jurors. Last on the agenda was brainstorming for a new name. Some people had said that a name that spells "NUT" makes some people fail to take us seriously. Sharon Lockhart defended the name, saying that "nut" can also mean a tough problem, and that the meaning "crazy person" was only fifth in the dictionary definitions. We brainstormed for new names and will continue to work on that. Some people from Wichita expressed curiosity about who is leading the nascent Sedgewick County MAINstream chapter and I could not answer the question. Nancy? Matt? Folowing the end of the summit, a lot of us were so excited that we stayed around talking for a while. I showed them the CQ almanacs from the reference section and explained how to use them. I explained that it is important to learn who sits on committees hearing dangerous legislation, who are the swing votes on that issue, and that it is important to try to block such bills in committee. We would like to create a user friendly lobbying guide in the future with input from state legislators like Lloyd Daniels, and perhaps some former ones like Carol Sader and Nancy Brown, about what works and what doesn't. We also discussed putting together workshops to train concerned citizens to participate in politics, since the Christian Coalition has been successfully partly because it does that. The Christian Coalition held such a workshop recently in Topeka. I have volunteered along with Ellen Brown of Greater KC Planned Parenthood and a few others, to work on the planning committee for next meeting. We agreed that we did not want to wait another three months for the next summit, so we have tentatively scheduled the next one for Sept 30, with Oct 7 as an alternative date.