GLAA to Council: Resist Last-Minute Dirty Tricks by Supporters of B16-235
GAY AND LESBIAN ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE OF WASHINGTON
Fighting for Equal Rights Since 1971
P.O. Box 75265
Washington, D.C. 20013
December 6, 2005
Dear Councilmembers:
We are frankly appalled by the dirty tricks that leaders of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club and certain other supporters of Bill 16-235 have unleashed at the last minute in a sordid attempt to intimidate the Council into passing a statutory Office of Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Affairs.
Soon-to-be-ex-Stein President David Meadows outdid himself with a grotesque December 5 letter casting “shame” on any Councilmember who dares oppose his will. His intended targets have done far more for our community for far longer than he ever has. He actually pretends that this legislation “is not controversial within the community,” but obviously every one of you knows better.
Mr. Meadows concocted a list of supposed endorsers of B16-235 that is rife with errors. For example, he included the name of ACLU Executive Director Johnny Barnes without his authorization since neither he nor the ACLU has ever taken any position on the bill, and he included the names of several people (such as Lorri Jean and Mirian Saez) who no longer live in town. Mr. Meadows’ list has no more credibility than a Chicago voter registration list.
One thing Mr. Meadows fails to do, not surprisingly, is try to answer the many substantive objections that we have raised in public many times to B16-235. He thereby implicitly concedes the forcefulness of our position, which he expects you to ignore as casually and dishonestly as he has.
Fortunately, after a series of lobbying visits to virtually every Council office, we have reason to believe that Mr. Meadows’ head count for today’s vote is based on wishful thinking and very poor intelligence.
We understand that certain Stein leaders have vowed that the club will never endorse anyone who votes against this bill. They have no way to control what is supposed to be a free and honest vote by their own membership, not a plot hatched out in a smoke-filled room and then rubber-stamped. We do not think so little of Stein’s membership to suppose they would let their disagreement on this one issue outweigh the totality of your record.
We have also learned of threatening e-mails that are presumably being sent to each of you, claiming that our community cares far less about expanding the rights and duties of domestic partners than about creating this superfluous Office. Only a patronage-obsessed hack would ever imagine such a thing.
We hope the Council will once again refuse to let itself be stampeded by such shameful tactics. Please vote against bringing B16-235 back, so you can move on to the real work of helping the District’s GLBT community in meaningful ways.
Sincerely,
Richard J. Rosendall
Vice President for Political Affairs
