| I answered: "Diane, it's our caucus and transgender people are part of our community." Joan Hervey of Garden State Equality added, "Diane, as a member of the LGBTI community, I am very offended."
Diane's response? "It's not your event, it's our event." What a telling statement.
She added, "If THAT's going to be inside the room, we're going to boycott your Caucus."
Senator Loretta Weinberg and her staffer Debbie Francica were outraged on behalf of the LGBTI community. They went to Diane and to Chair Joe Cryan and told it like it was: "We can't believe your reaction. You're acting like Republicans. This is supposed to be a Democratic convention where we embrace diversity, not a Republican convention where we're afraid of it. Transgender people are part of this community and they're entitled to be in that room and they include people like Cher."
Friends, we all know Loretta as one of the state's greatest progressive champions. But as those of us who know her and her staff personally can attest -- and as this event proved -- they're also some of the most personally enlightened people you could ever meet in your lifetime.
Also attending our Caucus were Congressman Frank Pallone, Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DiFillippo and Senator Bob Menendez's daughter Alicia. They all loved the event. For those of you who don't know Alicia, she is one of the nicest, most politically savvy and most progressive young leaders in the Democratic Party today. She, too, was in disbelief at the State Democratic Committee's reaction. "Your community was the first to endorse my dad and I know everything you've done since. I can't believe this."
Best of all, the entire Progressive Caucus not only joined us at the LGBTI Caucus, but also expressed passionate solidarity with us on our issues and against the State Committee's behavior. Right on site, the executive board of New Jersey for Democracy voted to protest the State Committee's behavior.
Members of the press, as well as senior members of the Corzine Administration, thought the Cher idea was a blast. We certainly don't blame Diane Legriede's meltdown on Governor Corzine, whose campaigns, Senate staff and gubernatorial Administration have all been more diverse than any we've ever seen in New Jersey. Governor Corzine has appointed an unprecedented number of women, people of color and LGBTI New Jerseyans at the most senior levels of government. He succeeded dramatically in lifting the glass ceiling. God bless him.
But the State Committee continues to be an uptight, insensitive and LGBTI-uncomfortable mess that does not reflect the Democratic electorate in New Jersey, very likely the country's most progressive. At the two previous year's conventions, party officials repeatedly singled out every constituency in their speeches except for the LGBTI community. And they wonder why the LGBTI community wasn't attending the annual Democratic convention in higher numbers -- duh -- in contrast to Garden State Equality's grassroots town meetings that have drawn 10,000 people, straight and LGBTI alike, since 2003.
(Incidentally, the Democratic State Chair in recent years with the best record on diversity has been Tom Giblin. He took several dramatic and courageous steps, a guy who walks the walk rather than just talks the talk.)
Diane Legriede's young operatives said her hallway diatribe reflected Chairman Joe Cryan's sentiments as well. That's surprising -- we've found Joe to be a progressive, inclusive guy.
We're troubled by the "boycott" of our Caucus when the state committee has no problem with our community's money and volunteers. In the past two years, Garden State Equality has raised nearly $400,000, including more than well over $100,000 for political candidates. Like our state's progressive organizations, we at GSE have triaged droves of volunteers to Democratic candidates. We conceived and implemented a huge GOTV operation in 2005 and are about to unveil one for this fall's campaign.
The message Diane Legriede's diatribe sent was this: We will accept you in the LGBTI community so long as you look and act a certain way.
Well, she and her state committee had better embrace the LGBTI community's diversity right now. Our community is a rich and proud mosaic. We range from those identify with genders different from their birth genders... to those who like to cross-dress... to those like me who wear suits, ties and even yarmulkes. No one has the right to tell us who in our community is acceptable and who is not. We are all acceptable and we all deserve respect.
If a state party leader in a comparably progressive state like California, New York or Massachusetts delived a transphobic, anti-LGBTI diatribe like that which Diane Legriede did in the hallway of this convention, that official might well be fired.
Rumor has it that Joe Cryan is going to call me to apologize. I'll tell you what I'll tell him: Words don't matter; action does. The State Democratic Committee has got to take some very quick moves to diversify the party's leadership and number of elected officials. It goes way beyond the party's lack of LGBTI diversity -- New Jersey's Democratic-dominated legislature ranks 44th nationally in the number of women officeholders. Tragically, there's not a single openly LGBTI member of the state legislature or even on the State Democratic Committee. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, New Jersey had merely one openly LGBTI delegate whereas comparably progressive states each had many.
More than a seat at the table, we want action.
It's time for the state Democratic Party to get the transgender equality bill passed this year -- 70 percent of New Jersey favors the bill whereas only 19 percent oppose it. The Democrats have not even posted the bill in committee, stalling for nearly two years.
It's time for the state Democratic Party to endorse marriage equality outright. The state Democratic Parties of California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington State, Iowa, New Mexico and Texas have done so. But it's New Jersey that has the strongest poll numbers for marriage equality in America, where two-thirds of all state Democrats favor marriage equality.
Quite simply, it's time for the State Democratic Committee to leave the Jurassic Era. |
