Thank you, Between the Lines, for publicizing and covering the All American Lobby Day. We truly appreciate all the newspaper has done to help keep LGBT youth in schools safe from bullying.
However, we are concerned about the inaccuracies printed in and the tone of the editorial "Merger is long overdue" on May 21. The editorial starts by calling the All American Lobby Day "a lot of fluff."
Why mock an effort to push for a strong bill that would outlaw bullying in schools, given that already this year six youth in the United States have killed themselves due to bullying? Is it mere "fluff" to stand up and say "no" to this and demand that our elected officials stop bullying in Michigan schools?
The editorial also implies that the All American Lobby Day is one of a series of unsuccessful lobby days. However, the All American Lobby Day is not an effort of the Safe Schools Coalition nor did this May 2009 lobby day push for the un-enumerated version of the anti-bullying bill, which the Safe Schools Coalition has supported for years. Instead, the All American Lobby Day is part of a new effort and Between the Lines might wait at least more than a few days before writing it off as unsuccessful.
While the Safe Schools Coalition had originally planned a 2009 lobby day to support the non-enumerated version of the anti-bullying bill, the Triangle Foundation unilaterally decided to cancel that lobby day. Michigan Equality and the Michigan Democratic Party's LGBT and Allies Caucus then decided to organize a new lobbying effort to specifically push for Sen. Glenn Anderson's S.B. 159, an anti-bullying bill which includes enumeration, naming LGBT youth and others as protected groups. We invited other organizations to join us and 27 did so. Triangle Foundation chose not to endorse.
While Alicia Skillman, the director of Triangle Foundation, did attend the lobbying training on the morning of May 13 and heard, along with everyone else who attended, that the press conference would begin at 1:45 p.m., neither she nor any other Triangle staff attended it. There was a cordial dialogue after the training ended between Skillman and members of Michigan Equality and the LGBT Caucus. Only four people spoke at the lobby training that morning because time was very short and the focus of the day needed to be on lobbying, not on having representatives of the many organizations that attended make a pitch to the participants. Because Michigan Equality and the LGBT Caucus were the ones who organized the event, they were the only organizations to speak that morning.
The other point on which Between the Lines' editorial misses the point is in calling for a merger of LGBT organizations. The Michigan Democratic Party's LGBT and Allies Caucus calls instead for the diversity of the LGBT community to be celebrated, rather than swept aside. Just as not all African Americans think alike, not all LGBT people think alike and no one organization can pretend to represent our diverse views and priorities. Nationally, there is more than one organization representing the LGBT community, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force being the largest. Attend any NGLTF conference and you will see the great diversity of LGBT people, including people with disabilities, people of color, people of every religion, members of the leather community and others. Each group and even each individual has different ideas about where our movement should go. Far from being a negative, this is something to celebrate. The best way to keep the grassroots LGBT community involved in our movement for equality is to keep the organizations responsible to them. One monolithic, merged organization cannot do that.
Therefore, the Michigan Democratic Party's LGBT and Allies Caucus calls for a series of grassroots meetings of all LGBT people, so that the people, not just one person or organization, can decide the direction of our movement. The first meeting will take place on Monday, June 15 from 7-9 p.m. at the Ypsilanti District Library's Whittaker Road Branch, 5577 Whittaker Road, Ypsilanti. This meeting is an opportunity for us, the people, not those in charge of the large organizations, to decide what is best for our community.
{ITAL Phil Volk, Chair
Adam Taylor and Jen Chapin-Smith, Vice Chairs
Michigan Democratic Party's LGBT and Allies Caucus}
I'm not so sure a merger is the best for our Michigan LGBT Population. It seems the Triangle Foundation is more concerned with the people on the east side of the state than the state as a whole. Maybe Michigan Equality should be given the torch and supported throughout the state. Based on this editorial, Triangle was a day late and dollar short at the Lobby Day. My Question is, why was that?
{ITAL Patrick
Grand Rapids, Mich.}
