Friday October 6, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 40 |
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Wednesday, Oct 15, 2008
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Lesbian Notions by Libby Post |
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| Creating new allies | ||
| I love South Beach - it's that art deco strip of Miami Beach where many of the concrete buildings are truly works of art.
I love South Beach for the visuals, for the clear turquoise water that is in such sharp juxtaposition to the cold North Atlantic water that I brave only when the temperature is above 90 degrees at the beach on consecutive days. I love SoBe, as the natives call it, because it's so Gay. We spent eight days there for vacation recently without a hint of homophobia, although we were in a state where Gays are forbidden to adopt despite the thousands of children in need of loving parents and where the radical Christian right has continued to make tremendous inroads because W's brother, Jeb, has laid out the red carpet for them. The trip was lovely, but I knew all we had to do was take a drive along the turnpike to the center and panhandle parts of the Sunshine State and things would be a lot different - but not as bad as one could imagine, thanks to the work of Equality Florida (EQFL) and its leader, Nadine Smith. Forty years old, African American, Lesbian, former Air Force Academy cadet, co-chair of the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights - this just begins to describe Smith, one of the leaders of the regional LGBT community. She has taken on the task of organizing LGBT people and supportive straight folks in the state that brought us Anita Bryant, whose late 1970s vitriol gave us Florida's present adoption laws. "Among Equality Florida's primary goals is repealing that ban," Smith told me in a recent phone interview. "The state is denying children loving homes. It is a daily insult to LGBT people." To reach that and EQFL's other political goals, she is using a strategy of building strong bridges between Gay and straight Floridians. "The primary weapon of the far right is attacking us and our families," said Smith. "This also creates a tremendous opportunity for us to mobilize not only our own community but the allies we haven't fully tapped - family members, friends, co-workers." She contends that the more we share ourselves with straight people, the more likely they are to become allies. "When we share our stories, the people who care about us are willing to do something about the discrimination we face." Smith also sees the 2008 presidential election as "an opportunity for us to do what every successful social justice and civil rights movement has done - engage the conscience of the majority to stand shoulder to shoulder with us." But as any good political organizer will tell you, laying the groundwork to achieve your goals is key to success. She may be looking at 2008, but Smith has been organizing across Florida since 1996, when EQFL was founded. To curtail the radical Christian right's "infiltration of black churches," one of her political strategies is to reach out to Florida's African-American community. "We're producing exciting conversations and exciting possibilities. We're finding allies in places that were unexpected." Her work is also having an impact beyond the African-American community. Smith recently got an e-mail from a conservative Republican who asked what he could do to help. "He told me Florida's adoption ban was immoral, that Gay parents make good parents and that he wanted to be visible in putting the word out." Straight allies, conservative Republicans, African-American clergy and laypeople - Smith is bringing a new diversity to the LGBT rights movement in Florida, a natural extension of her desire to build a movement that truly reflects who we are racially, culturally, ethnically, and religiously. "In this work, diversity can't be an afterthought, and lack of diversity as the visible face of this movement has real implications." The reason why the radical Christian right has made such inroads in black churches and communities of color, she contends, is because the face of the Gay community to them has always been white. Exposing the true diversity of the LGBT movement and giving strength to voices that traditionally go unheard are just two strategies in Smith's political arsenal. Realistically, they should be in the political playbooks of each of our organizations, from our local community centers to our national organizations. Imagine the stories we could tell and the minds we could change. Clearly, Smith has. Libby Post is the founding chair of the Empire State Pride Agenda and a political commentator on public radio, on the Web, and in print media. She can be reached care of this publication or at LesbianNotions@qsyndicate.com. |
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International Readers |
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 It's new! and live from Bumbershoot! |
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working for the freedom to
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copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2006