With the major setbacks with Prop H8, other 2008 state propositions, and Rick Warrengate, I think the best long term strategy over the next 8-12 years would be to focus on building a stronger coalition between the GLBT community and minority communities and activists. I feel like this strategy has not been seriously attempted, and we are all suffering for it.
I think there are several reasons why long term significant outreach would be beneficial.
- Gay rights issues underperform in minority communities. We don't need to have the millionth dkos diary on whether minority voters could have turned the tide in California or not, but what is clear is that the support for many important gay issues trails other communities. So there is room for improvement. More time and resources spent can improve the overall numbers.
- There is conflict, and you see it crop up on dkos all the time, about is gay rights a comparable civil rights struggle to the 60s battles, or who has had it worse in recent decades, minorities or gays, etc. These arguments not only foster a divide where there is an either/or aspect to gay issues and minority civil rights issues, but also wastes valuable time and energy. While there were inevitable frictions between minority and women's rights issues, the two groups of activists have worked productively together and I think this was an underlying reason why the democratic party and the progressive movement was able to come back together so effectively after the historic primary candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
- The demographic shifts in this country point to larger long term gains made through outreach in the Latino and black community. It's already evident that the younger you are, the more likely you are to support gay rights issues. If effective outreach is made in minority communities, especially the young, the payoffs could be huge down the line.
- The doorway to reaching Christians is through minority communities. What is most likely a cause of why minority communities do lag in support for gay issues is the subpopulation of church attendees in those communities. There was some analysis on Prop 8/Obama voters on OpenLeft a couple weeks ago. Church issues may make outreach and coalition building more challenging, but I think they can be overcome because of the deep respect for struggles for equality, tolerance, etc in those communities. And I think that foothold into the Christian community will be invaluable down the line because minority Christian leaders can be effective to communicating issues to non-minority Christian leaders.
- Obama has renewed political interest in the minority community. There are millions of minorities who are now more interested in political issues and changing the country than they have been in their lives or if they are older they haven't been this excited in several decades. Obama's candidacy has involved a lot of rhetoric about us all being in things together, etc. The time is ripe for coalition building.
So I think gay rights leaders should really sit down and map out major outreach pushes in the minority community. Minority faces speaking for the GLBT community need to be on TV more, etc. What strategies do people think would be effective in getting this done?