David Mariner, Executive Director of the DC Center for the LGBT Community, shares a guest post on The Billerico Project, which is worth your time to read. I’m not sure I agree with him entirely, but isn’t that the point of excellent posts– to spur thought and dialogue? I think his ideas deserve lots of discussion and follow through to action. He writes:

And even as consensus built around Senator Jeff Merkley’s plans to introduce a comprehensive LGBT non-discrimination bill, the realities of the current political climate on the Hill makes everyone wonder if passing anything on the federal level will be possible.

Mara Keisling was quoted in TIME as saying there is “no clear path” to moving the legislation forward. GetEQUAL reported that some LGBT insiders believed passing such a bill would take at least another decade.

Even with the vast resources we have at the federal level, what we can expect to accomplish this year, or for that matter, the next five years, is hazy at best.

On the other hand, investments of time and resources at the state level have much stronger potential for payout in the short term. Here are some of the state strategies that have already begun to improve the lives of LGBT individuals in some states, and have great potential to be replicated in states across the country.

We are coming off of a sky rocket ride towards full marriage equality that may or may not begin to slow, yet if we allow ourselves to look beyond the marriage rings we are going to find that the amount of benefits the recent efforts have produced don’t in and of themselves make life better for all gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and queer persons. And I’ll be more direct than Keisling or GetEqual. We aren’t about to see any Federal actions that will affect the LGBTQ community at large in the next 5 or 6 years, and here’s why.

Because progressive voters did not turn out in November 2014, we have now handed over the Senate as well as the House to ultraconservative Far Right control. Even with a supportive President, we will see no efforts that benefit progressive ideas and policies enacted. We will however, see a chilling in Washington and efforts at the Federal level to roll back protections for Women, minorities and unions, just as we saw across States over the past four years. In other words, it will become bleaker and more partisan instead of less. This inability to see progress will turn off even more progressive voters, ad we could very likely see a conservative win in 2016. Even if a progressive wins, it will be another 2 or 4 years before we will see the Congress reshaped enough to get anything progressive going again. So, there you have it– about 2020 before we see much happen in LGBTQ Rights on a Federal level.

Mariner lays out a plan for action at the State level in 5 areas. These are areas which will dramatically impact the every day lives of members of the LGBTQ community, and in that regard, I thin he has it right. Where I think he is missing things is this– he fails to note how unsuccessful the whole of the community has been at the State level for the past decade or so. Some states have seen progress but many have not, and this gap can widen creating different issues. So in my mind, the solution isn’t, as he puts it:

It Starts With Your State LGBT Organization. If these campaigns have piqued your curiosity, or if you’re ready to take action, the place to start is your statewide LGBT advocacy group, and the Equality Federation is a great way to get connected.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of the Equality Federation and state groups. But exchanging throwing our money at them instead of at the federal-level groups like HRC will still be money thrown away if the state organizations don’t have effective leaders, field efforts, and valid roadmaps for progress.

Unfortunately, the single most state-centered LGBTQ issue is marriage equality as all marriage licenses are provided via state government. No other LGBTQ issue “fits” so well with the base role of the state. But with 35+ states already having marriage equality, it may be too late for anyone to really push that at the state level much longer. Yet Mariner finds some issues and some especially important ones upon which states can focus in ways that fit easily within the confines of state government.

Before saying more, here are the five issues Mariner cites, in the order he lists them:

1. End new HIV infections
2. End conversion therapy
3. End healthcare discrimination
4. Pass state-wide anti-bullying measures
5. Pass anti-discrimination laws in the South

All of these are a stretch for state-wide organizations, although the last two fit closest to where most state-wide organizations are already working. I will be posting my own list of top issues for the LGTBTQ movement in 2015 later this week, so I will not say much about the individual initiatives themselves here, except to say they align with a number of the issues I list as top priorities as well, but I think there are several top issues he doesn’t include which are tremendous oversights in my opinion. Watch for my later post.

But for these to happen at the state level, here are some challenges as I see it:

1. State boundaries are such for a variety of purposes, but for so many issues impacting LGBTQ persons, they are fairly arbitrary, and there already exists great disparity between some states and others. It would be ludicrous to expect to see progress on these issues uniformly across all states, so the end result will inevitably lead to ongoing disparity. Efforts at the state level is best targeted to places where state legislation can be the most effective and flexible enough to be tailored to the needs of each state, rather than to try and duplicate the same legislative efforts 50 times. Some of Mariner’s list fit this well.
2. State organizations do not always have any better engagement with individuals across the state than national groups have. This leads some state-wide groups as seen as only asking for money, similar to the way national level groups do. Theoretically, state level legislative change happens because grass roots organizing can be achieved and state level representatives and senators are more likely to meet with and listen to their constituents. This theoretical approach however, is reliant upon the ease with which these messages can be formulated into a form that lends itself to this grass roots approach. Even if this is the case, success depends upon how well those grass roots efforts stack up against lobbying efforts by conservative groups and entities. For example, here in my state of Pennsylvania, the Catholic Conference has the highest number of paid lobbyists compared to out state-wide LGBT group which has basically one staff for that role. A few of Mariner’s list may fit this grass roots strategy but most do not.
3. A state level strategy require efforts, expertise and resources where it may least likely exist. As well intentioned as the Equality Federation may be, their approach till now has been to find a few states to devote efforts and resources. Will there be enough to make progress across enough of the country?

One place to start is for you to look towards your own state-level LGBTQ organization. How does Mariner’s list stack up against what that organization’s materials put forward as their priorities? What are the matches and mismatches?

In my opinion, Mariner’s list suggests a DC/National list of agenda items projected onto the states because we will see so little effort at the federal level, rather than a thought out list of meaningful agenda items that are best served by a state-driven approach, and an attempt to find something for each “portion” of the rainbow coalition. It is a great starting point, but more dialogue and work is needed before there is a clear path forward. That said, Mariner has for all of these issues, except ending conversion therapy, identified successful state-level initiatives that demonstrate how progress can be achieved. These are excellent starting points.

via 5 State Strategies to Move LGBT Equality Forward | The Bilerico Project.