MassEquality: Moving Foward

The decision by the MassEquality Board of Directors to expand its mission to partner with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) to help bring equal marriage rights to other New England states and to work with local LGBT organizations to pass legislation here at home has been warmly received by advocates who spoke to Bay Windows this week. Not everyone, however, is happy about the board's vote to disband MassEquality's coalition governance, a structure that some say was the very reason for its success in defeating the anti-gay marriage amendments that popped up after the Supreme Judicial Court's 2003 Goodridge ruling. Meanwhile, in a joint interview, Campaign Director Marc Solomon and Board Chair David Wilson said they've yet to determine the specifics of MassEquality's structure, agenda and funding.

"Basically it's what I was hoping for," said Holly Ryan, co-chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC), an organization that has already asked MassEquality for help with passing a transgender nondiscrimination and hate crimes prevention bill that is now pending in the legislature. "I believe we'll get a lot of help from MassEquality, and I'm right in step with their decision."

Lisa Krinsky, director of the LGBT Aging Project, said that her organization is "quite pleased" that MassEquality plans to put its "well-established resources and their network" toward "issues that are broader than just marriage and that impact across the lifespan of LGBT people." Krinsky said she has recently been in contact with the organization to assess the possibility of partnering with MassEquality to work toward passage of its MassHealth Equality bill, which would give married same-sex couples in the state the same access to federal Medicare benefits as straight couples. "We would love to talk with them about how they can help us," said Krinsky.

Rob Henry, co-chair of the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts -- an organization that helped found MassEquality -- applauded the decision. "Marriage ultimately is about equality and there's so many other issues that have taken a back burner while marriage was in the forefront," said Henry. "We need to continue to work and use our capital that we've built up over the years to support those efforts."

Rebecca Haag, the executive director of AIDS Action Committee said that MassEquality's political skill and relationships on Beacon Hill would be welcome to the battle against HIV/AIDS, which she noted remains the biggest health threat to gay men. "I just really look forward, yes, to working with them and all the other GLBT organizations around HIV and AIDS and hope we can get some good results in that arena as well."

None of this is to imply that MassEquality has already mapped out an equality agenda beyond marriage since the board's vote at a contentious Nov. 3 meeting held at a retreat center on the Babson College Campus. Solomon said that now that the board has settled on MassEquality's new mission, he and the organization's staff are going to take some time "over the next couple of weeks" to map out a strategy to help advance a broader LGBT equality agenda.

"It's going to take some real work and ... that's why it's important not to get ahead of ourselves," said Solomon. "I think it would be a mistake to start marching ahead too quickly with a specific issue and then to have the criticism, 'Well nobody talked to me, nobody asked me [or] why did you pick that issue?'" he explained. "We need to do this in a well thought-out way."

Indeed, the organization is about to undergo a significant transition from its original incarnation as a coalition of LGBT and civil rights groups whose sole mission has been focused on marriage equality in Massachusetts. Both Solomon and Wilson emphasized several times during the course of a lengthy interview earlier this week that MassEquality's top priority remains protecting marriage equality in Massachusetts. With no anti-gay marriage amendment s on the horizon, that effectively means ensuring the re-election of all pro-equality legislators in 2008, with a particular focus on helping the 11 legislators who changed from supporting to opposing the anti-gay marriage amendment that was defeated in the legislature back in June.

But having voted to expand its mission after an intense three months of strategic planning lead by Jack Regan of Metis Consulting, the organization now also aims to work in tandem with GLAD to achieve marriage equality in each of the surrounding New England states. GLAD executive director Lee Swislow said she'd like to see that goal accomplished in the next five years. Then, of course, there is the near-endless potential for MassEquality to partner with smaller LGBT organizations -- like the Aging Project and MTPC -- to help them advance their respective agendas.

On top of all that change, the board also voted to create an independent board of directors, a dramatic departure from its current coalition-style of governance. Currently, 12 of MassEquality's board members represent various coalition member organizations and are nominated by their respective organizations; the remaining six are at-large independent members. The coalition governance style brought an array of valuable human and financial resources to the MassEquality table as it lead the high-stakes battle to preserve marriage, as coalition organizations like the ACLU of Massachusetts and the Human Rights Campaign made money and staff available to MassEquality. Now, however, the coalition organizations will no longer keep seats on the board; all will eventually revert to independent at-large slots, and a nomination and election process will be instituted, although Wilson could not give a timetable as to when that would happen.

Some think the change in governance will diminish MassEquality's clout. Board member Ellen Zucker, who represents the National Organization for Women, described the decision to disband MassEquality's coalition structure as "unfortunate" and said it sends the wrong message to the LGBT community. "It is my firm belief that we accomplished what we accomplished because through this coalition campaign we could galvanize the strength that exists across our community and we could all work under a single banner," said Zucker, who added that that ability was "the brilliance of this campaign."

Zucker said she is saddened by the fact that as a separate organization, MassEquality "will have a seat at the table, but cannot provide the table for the whole community. That is a loss to me."

Likewise, Gary Daffin, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus (MGLPC) -- another of the MassEquality coalition organizations with a seat on the board -- said he believes that "the coalition was the strength of MassEquality." Daffin warned that civil rights movements cannot sustain themselves without coalitions. The black civil rights movement, for instance, Daffin contends, "Would not be very strong today were it not for the coalitions it has sustained over the years. That's what works. I think we need to be careful not to give the impression that we've decided we don't need anybody else, we can just create the mega-group that does everything better."

Wilson, however, said he believes that MassEquality's more diverse mission does not require a coalition structure. "The coalition was absolutely the right thing when we had a single issue and it was marriage because all the coalition partners have their own unique agendas, based on the organizations they represent. So in order to bring us all together and be focused on this one single issue of marriage I think was really important for that time."

An independent board, is better suited to MassEquality's current "proactive, creative mode," Wilson added, though he stressed that MassEquality will continue to partner with other organizations on issues. "They just won't be at this table, on this board," he said.

"We really want to look at what kind of board is needed to support the work that we're going to be doing," said Solomon. "Certainly we want people who are able to raise dollars but there are a lot of interests that we want represented on the board."

There was near-unanimous agreement to create an independent board among the LGBT-focused coalition partners that were represented on the board according to a source close to the proceedings who spoke on condition of anonymity. The source said that of the nine LGBT-focused organizations with board seats, just one -- the Caucus -- voted against doing away with the coalition structure. Eight others, the Bisexual Resource Center, the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts, the Freedom to Marry Foundation, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, GLAD, the Human Rights Campaign, the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Bar Association and the Western Mass. LGBT Political Alliance, back the move to disband the coalition.

Solomon and Wilson declined to discuss a proposed budget for the new MassEquality. "We have some ranges but I'm not prepared to share those because they aren't precise enough to share," said Solomon. They also declined to discuss proposed staffing levels, though Solomon did say that he expects to increase the organization's staff to beyond its current level of eight. "I think it could increase slightly but not significantly," said Solomon.

In sum, Wilson said that the strategic planning process resulted in "a big picture" strategy and it was now up to the board and staff to work on implementing it. "We really need to look at all the pieces that come under this strategy," said Wilson.

The two leaders did speak broadly about the new aspects of MassEquality's mission. Wilson characterized the partnership with GLAD "a complementary partnership" which will merge GLAD's legal and education work with MassEquality's expertise in elections, lobbying and grassroots organizing in order to help statewide organizations in the New England states achieve marriage equality. As has been previously reported by Bay Windows, MassEquality has already consulted with Marriage Equality Rhode Island to help build capacity to fortify the Ocean State's marriage movement.

GLAD executive director Swislow said that the amount of time MassEquality would spend working with other states would vary depending on the desire and need of other statewide organizations as well as the amount of funding available to enable them to do the work. She and Solomon have already reached out to organizations in Maine, Vermont and Connecticut and received a good reception. Solomon was scheduled to meet with activists in New Hampshire on Nov. 7.

Swislow emphasized that GLAD and MassEquality were not looking to take over the work of existing statewide organizations. "What we both want to do is provide assistance so that the state organizations can grow and be strong," said Swislow.

Wilson emphasized that MassEquality wouldn't look to take credit for the success of organizations in other states and that their role would be "under the radar" and focused on helping those organizations grow. "What we want to do is help them," he said. "We want to certainly be visible where we need to be, [but] the state organization needs to be able to stand up and say, 'This is what we were able to do.'"

Similarly, Solomon and Wilson stated that here in Massachusetts, MassEquality will only work with those organizations who seek their help. And what they'll offer, said Solomon, is not subject matter expertise, but the benefit of MassEquality's grassroots network, its relationships with legislators and its campaign know-how.

"There are amazing organizations in this state that work on issues of LGBT aging and issues of kids in schools and issues of transgender equality and domestic violence and AIDS and HIV," said Solomon. "We are not seeking in any way, shape for form to become real subject experts in the deep way that all these organization are."

Solomon also said that MassEquality doesn't "want to be the one from on high who are setting some sort of agenda for the gay community." The organization's interest is primarily in using its infrastructure to advance equality and "not dictating exactly what that is."