MassEquality supporters still willing to roll up their sleeves

MassEquality unveiled its post-marriage amendment agenda for 2008 to a crowd of about 30 supporters Jan. 29 at St. Paul's Cathedral in Boston. The Boston event was part of a series of organizing forums MassEquality is holding across the state to urge their members who mobilized around the marriage issue to support the organization's broader agenda of advocacy around transgender rights, LGBT youth and elder issues, LGBT domestic violence and HIV/AIDS. MassEquality campaign director Marc Solomon said the organization's efforts to rally its supporters around the diverse issues in its 2008 agenda is an "experiment" to see whether the volunteers who turned out in droves to support marriage will do the same on other issues.

Attendees who spoke with Bay Windows following the forum said they were excited about MassEquality's new agenda and were willing to get involved in at least some capacity. Megan Costello, a Suffolk University student living in the North End, said that during the marriage fight she was very active with MassEquality, calling lawmakers, canvassing, rallying at the State House during the constitutional conventions (ConCons), and working on political campaigns for pro-equality politicians. She said she was excited about MassEquality's decision to widen its focus and hoped that she would be able to get involved in its new campaigns.

"I think it's really great that they've taken on issues around the GLBT community, and I like the collaborations," said Costello.

Clarence Flanders, also a Suffolk student, said that he had been less involved in the marriage campaign, although he attended one of the ConCons and sent pro-equality postcards to his legislators. He said he was interested to see MassEquality's efforts to educate its supporters about the various issues on its new agenda.

Christopher Debella of Cambridge and Rebecca Ober of Somerville were both deeply involved with MassEquality during the marriage campaign, working as canvassers, field organizers, and rallying at the ConCons. They both said they planned to stay involved as MassEquality broadened its agenda and were willing to do phone banking, signature gathering, canvassing, or whatever other work was necessary. Debella said he was particularly excited to work on transgender and youth issues.

"I see myself doing a lot of different things," said Debella.

"I would like to do whatever needs to be done. ... The grassroots campaign is what MassEquality's good at," said Ober.

Marcia Booth of Somerville and Rebecca Booth-Fox of Jamaica Plain said that they had only minor involvement with MassEquality during the marriage campaign, primarily through sending e-mails to lawmakers. Booth-Fox said she would likely have similar involvement in working on MassEquality's new agenda, and she was particularly interested in the campaign to pass House Bill 4107, the MassHealth Equality bill, which would grant same-sex married couples all of the benefits afforded to heterosexual married couples under the federally funded MassHealth program.

Booth praised MassEquality's expanded agenda, particularly its focus on youth issues. Though she plans to be involved in some fashion with the group, she acknowledged that this year the majority of her political focus would be on helping the Democrats win the presidential race. Booth said she hoped MassEquality would work to provide more education to its members on the new issues that it is working on going forward.

"I think what a lot of us need from MassEquality ... is education," said Booth. "I think we need more education to understand the next piece."

Solomon said that while many of the items on MassEquality's agenda are new, the organization's core goal of protecting marriage equality remains unchanged. In this year's election cycle MassEquality will work to reelect the 153 pro-equality lawmakers and attempt to elect additional lawmakers who support same-sex marriage, bringing the pro-equality majority up to 160 lawmakers. MassEquality will also work to repeal the 1913 state law that prevents most out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts and to monitor how state government treats married same-sex couples to ensure that they receive the same treatment as their heterosexual peers.

"There's no question at all that our top priority has been and always will be to protect marriage equality in Massachusetts," said Solomon.

Other priorities include passing H.B. 1722, legislation that would extend the state's non-discrimination and hate crime laws to include transgender people; passing H.B. 4107; passing Senate Bill 275, which would require schools across the Commonwealth to adopt anti-bullying policies; and to convince lawmakers to increase state funding for HIV/AIDS programs and LGBT-related youth, elder and domestic violence programs (see "Looking toward the future," Jan. 24, 2008).

Solomon said that MassEquality would pursue an "inside/outside game" to push for its agenda, as the organization did in its successful campaign to defeat the amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He said MassEquality and the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus would work in the State House lobbying lawmakers, and MassEquality would mobilize its members and affiliate organizations across the state to conduct grassroots lobbying. By way of example Solomon said he spoke with a group of supporters in the Lowell area the previous evening, and they plan to lobby Lowell Sen. Steven Panagiotakos, chair of the Senate Ways and Means committee, to advocate for MassEquality's funding priorities in the fiscal year 2009 budget. (See sidebar, "MassEquality to press for increased LGBT funding,")

Solomon said MassEquality would use the connections it has built with Gov. Deval Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, House Speaker Sal DiMasi, and members of Ways and Means and the Judiciary Committee during the marriage debate to try to move forward on the organization's new agenda items. He also urged attendees to sign postcards of support for MassEquality's agenda, similar to the postcards sent to lawmakers urging the defeat of the marriage amendment.

"Even though we're going to be taking on new issues, we'll still be using some of the same methods," said Solomon.

A large portion of the attendees at the forum were leadership or staff members of MassEquality's coalition partners in its new agenda, including the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project, the LGBT Aging Project, The Network/La Red, the Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth, and the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. Several thanked MassEquality for using its resources on behalf of their organization.

Arthur Lipkin, who represents MassEquality on the GLBT youth commission, asked Solomon how MassEquality plans to educate its members about the broad range of issues on its agenda. Solomon said MassEquality would work with its partners to gather stories of people whose lives have been directly impacted by the issues MassEquality is working to address.

"The challenge is balancing information but not inundating, not overwhelming. ... I think the best way is through personal stories. It's our tried and true method ... and using those stories as ways to get people energized," said Solomon.