GLAA urges Council to leave GLBT Office bill on the table
GAY AND LESBIAN ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE OF WASHINGTON
Fighting for Equal Rights Since 1971
P. O. Box 75265
Washington, D.C. 20013
December 5, 2005
[Sent to all D.C. Councilmembers]
Dear Councilmember:
We urge you to oppose any motion at the December 6 Legislative Meeting to reconsider Bill 16-235, which would establish a statutory Office of Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Affairs.
It’s not just, as Councilmember Catania put it so succinctly at your November 1 Legislative Meeting, that this legislation “is a solution in search of a problem.”
A statutory Office of GLBT Affairs is likely to create more access problems than it solves--as illustrated by the fact that our own access to the D.C. government actually improved this year when the existing Office remained unstaffed.
As evidence that the GLBT community already enjoys strong support across the entire D.C. Council, several bills of interest to us are on the consent calendar for December 6 -- ranging from domestic partnership enhancements to improved protections for transgenders. Having done all this heavy lifting on our community’s behalf, you hardly need to prove your respect for us by passing a pandering and ghettoizing bill like B16-235.
An anonymous charge has recently surfaced that the Council’s tabling of B16-235 last month was somehow a slap at our city’s black GLBT community. This is a red herring. No African American testified for the bill at the public hearing last July. Manufacturing such a concern at this late date throws raw meat into the arena and insults our black GLBT friends, who have shown so ably this year that they do not need the government to do their advocacy for them.
We recognize the value of a liaison to the GLBT community within the Mayor’s Office; indeed, we spearheaded the drive to create such a position in the 1970s. But we also recognize that this position, however useful, is also a patronage job, a cog in the incumbent’s political machine. Every mayor since Marion Barry has wanted and expected their GLBT liaison to be loyal to their own Administration, even when it means defending the indefensible.
During recent years when HAA was so grossly dysfunctional, the liaison failed to address the many problems there. But the victims of HAA’s incompetence did come to us. Our longstanding advocacy on their behalf has only been heeded this year with the creation of the Council’s Committee on Health.
No one can serve two masters, and it’s the Mayor, not the GLBT community, who writes the liaison’s paycheck. Unquestioning loyalty to incumbents is incompatible with effective advocacy. Our community has instead been well served over the years thanks to advocacy from independent groups like GLAA, the ACLU, the NAACP-DC’s Police Task Force, and the Appleseed Center.
So yes, let’s keep a liaison, but let’s not needlessly expand the bureaucracy and the incumbent’s political machine at taxpayers’ expense. Please leave Bill 16-235 on the table where the Council so wisely placed it on November 1.
Thank you for your consideration, and best wishes to each of you.
Sincerely,
Richard J. Rosendall
Vice President for Political Affairs
