Gay Democratic Party activist Jeff Soref resigned from the Democratic National Committee and as chair of the gay caucus because of party leader Howard Dean’s decision to eliminate the gay outreach desk.
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LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, February 03, 2006
Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean has abolished the Democratic Party’s constituent outreach desks, including the post of director of lesbian and gay outreach.
A DNC spokesperson said Dean replaced the outreach director positions with a new program called the American Majority Partnership, which integrates efforts to address the concerns of minorities into all of the DNC’s departments and offices. The little noticed move took place last year.
"It’s an expansion of what we had before," said Damien LaVera, the DNC spokesperson assigned to discuss gay rights issues.
But the former chair of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus doesn’t see it that way. Gay Democratic Party activist and fundraiser Jeff Soref of New York City said he resigned from the DNC and from his position as chair of the gay caucus in August largely because of Dean’s decision to eliminate the gay outreach desk.
"It took us many years to win that position, have it funded and make it effective," Soref said.
Soref said he told Dean "it was not credible" to simply assume that combining all constituent groups into one program without a specific gay coordinator or director would be effective because it would likely result in less attention to the specific concerns of gay Democrats.
"I thought this system could lead to us being re-marginalized by the party," Soref said in an e-mail message to the Blade. "I have seen or heard nothing since that makes me feel that is not happening," he said.
Soref said Dean’s decision to hire gay Democratic activist Donald Hitchcock in September as director of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council, which raises money for the party from gay donors, was not the same as hiring a full-time outreach staffer to address gay issues.
Hitchcock said he could not comment on the DNC changes or his work at the DNC because new DNC rules put in place by Dean prohibit him from speaking to the news media.
Chris Owens, director of the DNC’s American Majority Partnership program, insisted that Hitchcock works with her on gay constituent outreach efforts in addition to his fundraising work.
According to Owens, the revamped constituent outreach program developed by Dean will be more effective than the previous system because it will "bring in a lot more resources" from all of the DNC’s departments and offices.
"I would argue that we have more than one full-time person in place," Owens said. "One of the goals of the American Majority Partnership … is to make sure we are working across constituencies so we can use issues in a way to unify constituencies," she said.
Until last week, when contacted by the Blade, the DNC Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus and the National Stonewall Democrats, a group representing gay Democrats with affiliated chapters throughout the country, had not publicly acknowledged or expressed an opinion on Dean’s decision to eliminate the gay outreach desk position.
In a telephone interview last week, gay Democratic activist Rick Stafford of Minnesota, who replaced Soref as chair of the DNC gay caucus, said he is willing to give the new approach a chance to work before passing judgment.
"Nothing is cast in stone," said Stafford.
Gay caucus member Ray Buckley, vice chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said he shares Soref’s concerns about the changes but remains hopeful that Dean’s new system will be successful.
"We are unsure whether this will work," he said. "I hope and pray that it does."
Bringing out the vote
At stake, according to gay Democratic activists, is whether gay voters will turn out in force in the 2006 congressional elections to help Democrats win back control of the House and Senate. Exit poll data has shown that between 75 percent and 80 percent of the gay vote goes to Democratic candidates in presidential and congressional elections, but that the size of the gay vote varies from election to election.
Eric Stern, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, would not comment on Dean’s changes.
"I see it as a restructuring because that’s the chairman’s prerogative when he or she comes in to take over the DNC," Stern said.
Stern said that while Hitchcock was doing a good job in helping the DNC reach out to gay voters, the NSD believes he needs at least one additional staff assistant to help him.
"Donald needs support in the form of a staff person, and we’ve certainly voiced that opinion," Stern said.
He said the Stonewall Democrats also have asked the DNC to hire more gay field workers to help with Dean’s initiative to more aggressively support all 50 state Democratic Party operations during the 2006 election.
Stern held the DNC gay outreach director’s position from 2004-—-during the presidential campaign-—-until February 2005, when he resigned to take the Stonewall Democrats director’s post.
Gay Democratic activists praised Stern for vigorously promoting the party’s support for gay rights in appearances throughout the country during the 2004 campaign.
When Dean campaigned for the DNC chair post last February, he stated in a questionnaire prepared by the DNC gay caucus that he favored retaining a full-time gay outreach director’s post. He received strong support in his quest to become DNC chair from gay Democrats, many of whom had praised Dean for his support in 2000 for a civil unions law in Vermont during his tenure as Vermont governor.
Dean, who has long supported gay rights, disappointed some gay activists in his unsuccessful campaign for president in the 2004 Democratic primaries when he said he opposed gay marriage because marriage should be remain a union only between a man and a woman. He has rejected criticism on the topic by arguing that civil unions provide gay couples with the same rights as marriage.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who won the Democratic nomination for president in 2004, also expressed opposition to gay marriage and instead said he favored civil unions like Dean.
Dean carried his message of opposition to gay marriage into his role as DNC chair last February, after winning the post at the party’s annual winter meeting in Washington, D.C. At the time, Dean told the Associated Press that the Democratic Party is "not for gay marriage," although it has always and continues to believe "in equal rights under the law for all people."
In appearances before meetings of the DNC gay caucus and the NSD that same week, Dean pledged to continue the party’s support for gay rights. But he said the party lost the 2004 presidential election to George W. Bush because, in part, it failed to communicate its core principles and allowed the Republicans to falsely define the party as being beholden to a litany of constituent groups.
Integrating minorities
A DNC statement describing Dean’s reasons for replacing the constituent desks with the new, "integrated" American Majority Partnership program does not specifically mention the gay outreach post but suggests that Dean believes the gay and other constituent "desks" may have hurt the party.
"To ensure all voters are respected, we no longer act as a series of disconnected silos," the statement says. "We will never be greater than the sum of our parts or as effective as we must be to win if we maintain a series of separate operations unable to achieve integration of effort and unity of purpose. Instead, we must have an integrated, elevated and cohesive approach to working with the communities that comprise the Democratic majority."
"To that end," the statement says, "Governor Dean has insisted that every staff member at every level must be aware of the needs and priorities of all the communities the party represents, must reach out respectfully to those communities, and must build bridges between and among communities based on our shared values and priorities."
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