I'm all for an approach that doesn't focus solely on marriage, and I'm glad that HRC has woken up to the fact that other things matter (though I don't know why they're so damn obsessed with churches). But can you imagine any of the major pro-choice organizations publicy adopting a "more moderate strategy" in the aftermath of this election? Hell no! They're fighting harder than ever! They seem to get it that our lives are at stake in the struggles ahead.
Even the Times reporter (of all people!) noted the irony that HRC is only now waking up to the state ballot measures, which in contrast to NGLTF it barely lifted a finger to fight until the final weeks of the campaign:
The Human Rights Campaign, which is based in Washington, was instrumental in the defeat this year of the federal marriage amendment, which would have defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. The group was not as active in the ballot initiative battles in the states this fall.
The Times also did a good job of representing opposition to HRC's decision (although they did not represent at all queers who are lukewarm about marriage or against it for progressive rather than conservative reasons):
But others involved in the drive for gay and lesbian equality say the Human Rights Campaign's approach smacks of pre-emptive surrender and wrong-headed political calculation.
I liked what NGLTF executive director Matt Foreman had to say:
"A lot of gay people understand the concept of bullies," Mr. Foreman said. "The worst thing you can do with a bully is not fight back because you'll only get hit harder the next day."
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As far as why HRC is so focused on churches... at the risk of being a cliche, the Bible Belt *is* different. I'm from NYC, but lived in the mid-South from 1993 until four months ago, & am now in the Deep South. The only progressive organizing -- on *any* issue -- in this town is carried out by the Unitarian & Quaker fellowships. Expand that to the progressive wings of mainline Protestantism, & that's true even for Atlanta, for the most part. The local campaign against the same-sex marraige ban was conducted mostly by hetero allies in local affirming churches. Back in the Triangle, there were larger pockets of secular organizing, but still, local churches across the political spectrum hold great political sway.
I don't want this to sound like a cliched invocation of Red & Blue State America. I think it's more about shades of hegemony. In a New York, a Chicago, a DC, etc., even religious conservatives have to face the facts of religious, political, & sexual diversity. That's not the case in a large part of this country (one could argue that a recent poll placed that at 51% of this country); here, it's shocking to be Catholic. Jews are barely on the radar. Anything else isn't even a blip on the radar. When I explain to my students that I grew up in Brooklyn, & that until I left for college, Christian = Catholic to me, that's utterly incomprehensible to them.
To me, the cardinal rule of organizing is that you start with where people are, not where you want them to be, which means going to places like churches, and not abandoning them to the right. That's a luxury we utterly don't have.
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