Thursday, August 05, 2004

Should We Blame Labor: Or Did We Do It to Ourselves?

Have we only have ourselves to blame for the loss over Howard’s gay marriage amendment – a look at US gay organisations has some valuable lessons for the future? Why are US GLBT organisations so large and successful, while ours struggle for impact?

Political Clout

The US Democratic Party has now wrapped up it’s conference, and although the word gay wasn’t actually mentioned by candidate John Kerry, he made some inclusive sounding noises. His wife, Teresa Heinz-Kerry, of the baked-bean and sauce fortune, was less restrained, telling members of the Democrat LBGT caucus, “You will have a Mom in the White House,” adding, “You can call me Momma T.”

And despite all the nervousness around gay issues, Cheryl Jacques, head of the Human Rights Commission, got to address the full convention, speaking out strongly on marriage equality, health care, rising HIV rates, hate crimes and job discrimination, although without calling for any specific legislation.

Compare that with Nicola Roxon jumping into bed with John Howard at Bill “Toxic” Muhlenberg’s Australian Fundamentalist Family Forum in Canberra this week – after warning Tasmanian gay rights activist to stay away!

How on earth did American gay organisations get so powerful (and how far have we still to go here in Australia to match them): just take a look at this, from a press release received last month.

HRC – World’s Largest GLBT organisation

WASHINGTON, July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the nation's largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization, with 600,000 members, a 110-person staff, three governing boards, a national headquarters building in downtown Washington, D.C., and a US$30 million annual budget.

Pretty impressive numbers. But then the US population is kind of huge: latest best estimate is 293 million, which makes our little gang of around 19m look pretty puny – just enough for one big city and it’s suburbs. We’re about 6.5% of the size of the US – is it any wonder the free-trade agreement looks a tad lop-sided?

Big numbers mean big bucks

HRC’s 600,000 members may seem huge, but as a percentage of the giant US population, that’s only 0.2%.

If 0.2% of Australians joined a national GLBT organisation, it would have around 38,000 members. You need only charge a membership of $25 a year and there’s almost a million dollars to work with, before you even start tapping business for the corporate dollars.

And don’t forget – HRC is only the biggest national GLBT organisation in the States: there are ten more with annual revenues of between US$1m – 8m, and another ten or so worth between a quarter and three quarters of a million dollars apiece.

LARGEST US GLBT NATIONAL ORGANISATIONS –

(last year for which figures are available)

REVENUE P.A. 2002

Human Rights Commission

$20.5m

Lambda Legal Defence Fund

$7.6m

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

$4.4m

Gay-Lesbian-Straight Education Network

(gay-straight alliances in schools)

$3.1m

National Gay & Lesbian Task Force

$3m

Latino/a Gay & Lesbian Organisation

$2.8m

Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays

$2.6m

Servicemembers Legal Defence Network

$2.2m

TOTAL

$46.2m

Take into account all the smaller national organisations such as the Log Cabin Republicans and Stonewall Democrats and the total revenue of national GLBT organisations easily hits US$50m a year – around $70m Australian at current rates.

And don’t forget, these are just the national organisations: below them are all the state and city organisations, many of whom are also quite well-resourced.

The gravy train

It’s pretty good for the activists at the top of these organisations, too: Cheryl Jacques salary is undisclosed, but her predecessor Elizabeth Birch had a combined salary and benefit package of over US$200k – that’s around A$285k per year Australian.

All the leaders of the top five are each on a salary in the US$150-200k range – on average somewhat below their peers in other non-profit organisations or similar size, with the exception of GLAAD and Lambda Legal, who paid significantly more.

Money talks

Of course, the bulk of the money doesn’t go on salaries, it goes on campaigns, which is why Cheryl Jacques was up on the podium in Boston. HRC has committed US$10 million towards this year’s presidential election, for example, and has already spent several million lobbying against President Bush’s attempt to amend the US Constitution to ban gay marriage. The Democrats owed her that spot!

The other thing these organisations offer politicians is votes. George Bush’s friendly overtures to the Republican gay group were reckoned to be worth a at least a million votes last time: chickenfeed in a normal election but the kind of numbers that can make a difference when the race is tight. In a normal year it’s reckoned the gay vote is reckoned to be worth about the same as the Jewish vote – around 4-5% of all those Americans who can be bothered to vote.

We've got to Get Together

Do we have anything to learn from the US model? I’d say yes. If we’d had anything like the strength of the US organisations, there would have been 100,000 pro-gay submissions to the Senate enquiry on gay marriage, not a pathetic one hundred.

First and foremost, we need to get serious about building and protecting our community. We now have children to consider, and a future that stretches further than the next dance party, into future generations.

At the same time, we don’t have the advantages of numbers that makes the US organisations so rich and effective. We need to employ amplification strategies to make our voice as loud as possible, to get the maximum effect. What do they do that we don’t?

1) Shout in one voice and close to the government’s ears – not in lots of little ones scattered around the country. We need a national GLBT organisation with a permanent head office and staff in Canberra. HRC is effective because it’s right on Congress’s doorstep in Washington, and it’s people are in and out of the Capitol all the time. We need to do the same.

2) Court big business. And because business is mainly headquartered in Sydney, we need a big voice there, too, shouting in the corporate ear. Major corporates – particularly the banks and the airlines – employ lots of us and we all use their goods and services. They owe something back if they want to keep our business. We need regular reliable sponsorship income from them – and we’ll only get that by squatting on their doorstep – in Sydney.

3) Bounce the echo off the mountains. Because we’re such a small country with a tiny population, we need the economic and political clout of other GLBT people around the world to help us lever the government and the corporates into action. That means close ties, maybe even affiliation, with US and European gay organisations to amplify our voice. Boycotting a US manufacturer whose products are sold in Oz because they pull ads during the L-word is nothing: organizing a worldwide GLBT boycott against them would have them throwing money at us.

4) One reed breaks easily: a bundle of reeds is strong as a tree. Pool talent, resources and ideas. Local and state organisations need to be part of and tithe a proportion of their income to the national organisation(s). And the national organisation(s) needs to manage national campaigns and raise national money for local facilities, such as a community centre in each major city.

The tyranny of distance that gave rise to the fragmented population and conflicting loyalties of Australians – who so often tend to be Melburnians or Sydneysiders first and Australians only a distant second – is gone, banished by modern transport and communications, especially the Internet.

It’s time to change and consolidate our institutions to reflect the new reality, and bake ourselves a nice big Australian Pie. Otherwise we’ll continue to be sidelined whenever it suits the larger political agenda.

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