Over 250 LGBT activists and leaders, writers and artists, organizers
and lawyers, allies and celebrities have signed a document, BEYOND
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, which offers a challenge to the current strategies
employed by LGBT organizations that are pursuing marriage equality.
The statement is below, and can also be found at
www.BeyondMarriage.org, where others can sign on, after reading a
short Executive Summary, as well as the full document.
Plans for the document began in April 2006, when a diverse group of
nearly twenty LGBT and queer activists - some organizers, some scholars
and educators, some funders, some writers and cultural workers - came
together to discuss marriage and family politics as they exist in the
United States today.
We met over the course of two days for lively conversations in which
there was often spirited disagreement. However, we do all stand in
agreement with the statement entitled "Beyond Same Sex Marriage".
We offer this statement as a way to challenge ourselves and our allies
working across race, class, gender and issue lines to frame and broaden
community dialogues, to shape alternative policy solutions and to
inform organizing strategies around marriage politics to include the
broadest definitions of relationship and family.
(For a complete listing of the Working Group please refer to the
asterisked names in the signatory section of the statement.)
For more information please contact:
Joseph DeFilippis
212.564.3608
BeyondMarriage@gmail.com
_______________________________________________________________________________
BEYOND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE:
A NEW STRATEGIC VISION FOR ALL OUR
FAMILIES & RELATIONSHIPS
July 1, 2006
We, the undersigned - lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
and allied activists, scholars, educators, writers, artists, lawyers,
journalists, and community organizers - seek to offer friends and
colleagues everywhere a new vision for securing governmental and private
institutional recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships, households,
kinship relationships and families. In so doing, we hope to move beyond the
narrow confines of marriage politics as they exist in the United States
today.
We seek access to a flexible set of economic benefits and options
regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender/gender identity, class, or
citizenship status.
We reflect and honor the diverse ways in which people find and practice
love, form relationships, create communities and networks of caring and
support, establish households, bring families into being, and build
innovative structures to support and sustain community.
In offering this vision, we declare ourselves to be part of an
interdependent, global community. We stand with people of every racial, gender
and sexual identity, in the United States and throughout the world, who
are working day-to-day - often in harsh political and economic
circumstances - to resist the structural violence of poverty, racism, misogyny,
war, and repression, and to build an unshakeable foundation of social
and economic justice for all, from which authentic peace and recognition
of global human rights can at long last emerge.
WHY THE LGBT MOVEMENT NEEDS A NEW STRATEGIC VISION
Household & Family Diversity is Already the Norm
The struggle for same-sex marriage rights is only one part of a larger
effort to strengthen the security and stability of diverse households
and families. LGBT communities have ample reason to recognize that
families and relationships know no borders and will never slot narrowly into
a single existing template.
All families, relationships, and households struggling for stability
and economic security will be helped by separating basic forms of legal
and economic recognition from the requirement of marital and conjugal
relationship.
U.S. Census findings tell us that a majority of people, whatever their
sexual and gender identities, do not live in traditional nuclear
families. Recognizing the diverse households that already are the norm in
this country is simply a matter of expanding upon the various forms of
legal recognition that already are available. The LGBT movement has
played an instrumental role in creating and advocating for domestic
partnerships, second parent adoptions, reciprocal beneficiary arrangements,
joint tenancy/home-ownership contracts, health care proxies, powers of
attorney, and other mechanisms that help provide stability and security
for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual individuals and families.
During the height of the AIDS epidemic, our communities formed support
systems and constructed new kinds of families and partnerships in the
face of devastating crisis and heartbreak. Both our communities and our
HIV organizations recognized, respected, and fought for the rights of
non-traditionally constructed families and non-conventional partnerships.
Moreover, the transgender and bisexual movements, so often historically
left behind or left out by the larger lesbian and gay movement, have
powerfully challenged legal constructions of relationship and fought for
social, legal, and economic recognition of partnerships, households,
and families, which include members who shatter the narrow confines of
gender conformity.
To have our government define as "legitimate families" only those
households with couples in conjugal relationships does a tremendous
disservice to the many other ways in which people actually construct their
families, kinship networks, households, and relationships. For example, who
among us seriously will argue that the following kinds of households
are less socially, economically, and spiritually worthy?
* Senior citizens living together, serving as each other's caregivers,
partners, and/or constructed families
* Adult children living with and caring for their parents
* Grandparents and other family members raising their children's
(and/or a relative's) children
* Committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal
partner
* Blended families
* Single parent households
* Extended families (especially in particular immigrant populations)
living under one roof, whose members care for one another
* Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with
another queer person or couple, in two households
* Close friends and siblings who live together in long-term, committed,
non-conjugal relationships, serving as each other's primary support and
caregivers
* Care-giving and partnership relationships that have been developed to
provide support systems to those living with HIV/AIDS
Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it
should not be legally and economically privileged above all others.
While we honor those for whom marriage is the most meaningful personal ¬-
for some, also a deeply spiritual - choice, we believe that many other
kinds of kinship relationship, households, and families must also be
accorded recognition.
An Increasing Number of Households & Families Face Economic Stress
Our strategies must speak not only to the fears, but also the hopes, of
millions of people in this country - LGBT people and others - who are
justifiably afraid and anxious about their own economic futures.
Poverty and economic hardship are widespread and increasing. Corporate
greed, draconian tax cuts and breaks for the wealthy, and the
increasing shift of public funds from human needs into militarism, policing, and
prison construction are producing ever-greater wealth and income gaps
between the rich and the poor, in this country and throughout the world.
In the United States, more and more individuals and families
(disproportionately people of color and single-parent families headed by women)
are experiencing the violence of poverty. Millions of people are without
health care, decent housing, or enough to eat. We believe an LGBT
vision for the future ought to accurately reflect what is happening
throughout this country. People are forming unique unions and relationships
that allow them to survive and create the communities and partnerships
that mirror their circumstances, needs, and hopes. While many in the LGBT
community call for legal recognition of same-sex marriage, many others
- heterosexual and/or LGBT - are shaping for themselves the
relationships, unions, and informal kinship systems that validate and support
their daily lives, the lives they are actually living, regardless of what
direction the current ideological winds might be blowing.
The Right's "Marriage Movement" is Much Broader than Same-Sex Marriage
LGBT movement strategies must be sufficiently prophetic, visionary,
creative, and practical to counter the right's powerful and effective use
of "wedge" politics - the strategic marketing of fear and resentment
that pits one group against another.
Right-wing strategists do not merely oppose same-sex marriage as a
stand-alone issue. The entire legal framework of civil rights for all
people is under assault by the Right, coded not only in terms of sexuality,
but also in terms of race, gender, class, and citizenship status. The
Right's anti-LGBT position is only a small part of a much broader
conservative agenda of coercive, patriarchal marriage promotion that plays
out in any number of civic arenas in a variety of ways ¬ - all of which
disproportionately impact poor, immigrant, and people-of-color
communities. The purpose is not only to enforce narrow, heterosexist
definitions of marriage and coerce conformity, but also to slash to the bone
governmental funding for a wide array of family programs, including
childcare, healthcare and reproductive services, and nutrition, and transfer
responsibility for financial survival to families themselves.
Moreover, as we all know, the Right has successfully embedded "stealth"
language into many anti-LGBT marriage amendments and initiatives,
creating a framework for dismantling domestic partner benefit plans and
other forms of household recognition (for queers and heterosexual people
alike). Movement resources are drained by defensive struggles to address
the Right's issue-by-issue assaults. Our strategies must engage these
issues head-on, for the long term, from a position of vision and
strength.
"Yes!" to Caring Civil Society and "No!" to the Right's Push for
Privatization
Winning marriage equality in order to access our partners' benefits
makes little sense if the benefits that we seek are being shredded.
At the same time same-sex marriage advocates promote marriage equality
as a way for same-sex couples and their families to secure Social
Security survivor and other marriage-related benefits, the Right has mounted
a long-term strategic battle to dismantle all public service and
benefit programs and civic values that were established beginning in the
1930s, initially as a response to widening poverty and the Great
Depression. The push to privatize Social Security and many other human needs
benefits, programs, and resources that serve as lifelines for many,
married or not, is at the center of this attack. In fact, all but the most
privileged households and families are in jeopardy as a result of a
wholesale right-wing assault on funding for human needs, including
Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, HIV-AIDS research and treatment, public education,
affordable housing, and more.
This bad news is further complicated by a segment of LGBT movement
strategy that focuses on same-sex marriage as a stand-alone issue. Should
this strategy succeed, many individuals and households in LGBT
communities will be unable to access benefits and support opportunities that
they need because those benefits will only be available through marriage,
if they remain available at all. Many transgender, gender queer, and
other gender-nonconforming people will be especially vulnerable, as will
seniors. For example, an estimated 70-80% of LGBT elders live as single
people, yet they need many of the health care, disability, and
survivorship benefits now provided through partnerships only when the partners
are legally married.
Rather than focus on same-sex marriage rights as the only strategy, we
believe the LGBT movement should reinforce the idea that marriage
should be one of many avenues through which households, families, partners,
and kinship relationships can gain access to the support of a caring
civil society.
The Longing for Community and Connectedness
We believe LGBT movement strategies must not only democratize
recognition and benefits but also speak to the widespread hunger for authentic
and just community.
So many people in our society and throughout the world long for a sense
of caring community and connectedness, and for the ability to have a
decent standard of living and pursue meaningful lives free from the
threat of violence and intimidation. We seek to create a movement that
addresses this longing.
So many of us long for communities in which there is systemic
affirmation, valuing, and nurturing of difference, and in which conformity to a
narrow and restricting vision is never demanded as the price of
admission to caring civil society. Our vision is the creation of communities
in which we are encouraged to explore the widest range of
non-exploitive, non-abusive possibilities in love, gender, desire and sex - and in
the creation of new forms of constructed families without fear that this
searching will potentially forfeit for us our right to be honored and
valued within our communities and in the wider world. Many of us, too,
across all identities, yearn for an end to repressive attempts to
control our personal lives. For LGBT and queer communities, this longing has
special significance.
We who have signed this statement believe it is essential to work for
the creation of public arenas and spaces in which we are free to embrace
all of who we are, repudiate the right-wing demonizing of LGBT
sexuality and assaults upon queer culture, openly engage issues of desire and
longing, and affirm, in the context of caring community, the
complexities and richness of gender and sexual diversity. However we choose to
live, there must be a legitimate place for us.
THE PRINCIPLES AT THE HEART OF OUR VISION
We, the undersigned, suggest that strategies rooted in the following
principles are urgently needed:
Recognition and respect for our chosen relationships, in their many
forms
Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households, and
families, and for the children in all of those households and families,
including same-sex marriage, domestic partner benefits, second-parent
adoptions, and others
The means to care for one another and those we love
The separation of benefits and recognition from marital status,
citizenship status, and the requirement that "legitimate" relationships be
conjugal
Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation
and recognition of relationships, households, and families
Access for all to vital government support programs, including but
not limited to: affordable and adequate health care, affordable housing,
a secure and enhanced Social Security system, genuine disaster recovery
assistance, welfare for the poor
Freedom from a narrow definition of our sexual lives and gender
choices, identities, and expression
Recognition of interdependence as a civic principle and practical
affirmation of the importance of joining with others (who may or may not
be LGBT) who also face opposition to their household and family
compositions, including old people, immigrant communities, single parents,
battered women, prisoners and former prisoners, people with disabilities,
and poor people
We must ensure that our strategies do not help create or strengthen the
legal framework for gutting domestic partnerships (LGBT and
heterosexual) for those who prefer this or another option to marriage, reciprocal
beneficiary agreements, and more. LGBT movement strategies must never
secure privilege for some while at the same time foreclosing options
for many. Our strategies should expand the current terms of debate, not
reinforce them.
A WINNABLE STRATEGY
No movement thrives without the critical capacity to imagine what is
possible.
Our call for an inclusive new civic commitment to the recognition and
well-being of diverse households and families is neither utopian nor
unrealistic. To those who argue that marriage equality must take strategic
precedence over the need for relationship recognition for other kinds
of partnerships, households, and families, we note that same-sex
marriage (or close approximations thereof) were approved in Canada and other
countries only after civic commitments to universal or widely available
healthcare and other such benefits. In addition, in the United States,
a strategy that links same-sex partner rights with a broader vision is
beginning to influence some statewide campaigns to defeat same-sex
marriage initiatives.
A Vision for All Our Families and Relationships is Already Inspiring
Positive Change
We offer a few examples of the ways in which an inclusive vision, such
as we propose, can promote practical, progressive change and open up
new opportunities for strategic bridge-building.
* Canada
Canada has taken significant steps in recent years toward legally
recognizing the equal value of the ways in which people construct their
families and relationships that fulfill critical social functions (such as
parenting, assumption of economic support, provision of support for
aging and infirm persons, and more).
o In the 1990s, two constitutional cases heard by that country's
Supreme Court extended specific rights and responsibilities of marriage to
both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. Canada's federal Modernization
of Benefits and Obligation Act (2000) then virtually erased the legal
distinction between marital and non-marital conjugal relationships.
o In 2001, in consideration of its mandate to "consider measures that
will make the legal system more efficient, economical, accessible, and
just," the Law Commission of Canada released a report, Beyond
Conjugality, calling for fundamental revisions in the law to honor and support
all caring and interdependent personal adult relationships, regardless of
whether or not the relationships are conjugal in nature.
* Arizona
The Arizona Together Coalition (www.aztogether.org) is currently
running a broad, multi-constituency campaign that emphasizes how the proposed
constitutional amendment to "protect marriage" will affect not just
same-sex couples but also seniors, survivors of domestic violence,
unmarried heterosexual couples, adopted children and the business community.
The Arizona Coalition highlights the probability that the amendment
will eliminate domestic partnership recognition, by both government and
businesses. They also point out that DOMA supporters are the same forces
that wanted to keep cohabitation a crime. As a result of the
Coalition's efforts, support for the constitutional amendment declined sharply in
polls (from 49% to 33%) in the course of a few months (May 2005 -
September 2005). Accordingly, should the amendment make it onto the
November 2006 ballot, Arizona is poised to become the first state to reject a
state anti-gay constitutional marriage amendment in the voting booth.
We suggest that the LGBT movement pay close attention to the way that
activists in Arizona frame their campaign to be about protecting a
variety of different family arrangements.
* South Carolina
The South Carolina Equality Coalition (www.scequality.org) is fighting
a proposed constitutional amendment with an organizing effort
emphasizing "Fairness for All Families." This coalition is not only focused on
LGBT-headed families, but is also intentionally building relationships
with a broad multi-constituency base of immigrant communities, elders,
survivors of domestic violence, unmarried heterosexual couples, adopted
children, families of prisoners, and more. As we write this statement,
the Coalition's efforts to work in this broader way are being further
strengthened by emphasis on the message that "Families have no borders.
We all belong."
* Utah
In September 2005, Salt Lake City Mayor Ross Anderson signed an
Executive Order enabling city employees to obtain health insurance benefits
for their "domestic partners." A few months later, trumping the
executive order, the Salt Lake City Council enacted an ordinance allowing city
employees to identify an "adult designee" who would be entitled to
health insurance benefits in conjunction with the benefits provided to the
employee. The requirements included living with the employee for more
than a year, being at least 18 years old, and being economically
dependent or interdependent. Benefits extend to children of the adult
designee as well. While an employee's same-sex or opposite-sex partner could
qualify, this definition is broad enough to encompass many other
household configurations. The ordinance has survived both a veto by the
Mayor (who wanted to provide benefits only to "spousal like" relationships)
and a lawsuit launched by anti-gay groups. The judge who ruled in the
lawsuit wrote that "single employees may have relationships outside of
marriage, whether motivated by family feeling, emotional attachment or
practical considerations, which draw on their resources to provide the
necessaries of life, including health care." We advocate close
attention to such efforts to provide material support for the widest possible
range of household formations.
We offer these four examples to show that there are ways of moving
forward with a strategic vision that is broader than same-sex marriage, and
encompassing of all our families and relationships. Different regions
of our country will require different strategies, but we can, and must,
keep central to our work the idea that all family forms must be
protected - not just because it is the right thing to do, but also because it
is the strategic and winnable way to move forward.
A Bold, New Vision Will Speak to Many Who are Not Already With Us
At a time when an ethos of narrow self-interest and exclusion of
difference is ascendant, and when the Right asserts a scarcity of human
rights and social and economic goods, this new vision holds long-term
potential for creating powerful and vibrant new relationships, coalitions,
and alliances across constituencies - communities of color, immigrant
communities, LGBT and queer communities, senior citizens, single-parent
families, the working poor, and more -hit hard by the greed and
inhumanity of the Right's economic and political agendas.
At a time when the conservative movement is generating an agenda of
fear, retrenchment, and opposition to the very idea of a caring society,
we need to claim the deepest possibilities for interdependent social
relationships and human expression. We must dare to dream the world that
we need, the world that has room for us all, even as we also do the
painstaking work of crafting the practical strategies that will address
the realities of our daily lives. The LGBT movement has a history of
being diligent and creative in protecting our families. Now, more than
ever, is the time to continue to find new ways of defending all our
families, and to fight to make same-sex marriage just one option on a menu
of choices that people have about the way they construct their lives.
We invite friends everywhere to join us in ensuring that there is room,
recognition, and practical support for us all, as we dream together a
new future where all people will truly be free.
SIGNED BY:
(All organizational affiliations listed for identification purposes
only.
Asterisks* indicate "BEYOND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE" authors.)
Mimi Abramovitz
Professor of Social Policy, Hunter College School of Social Work and
the CUNY Graduate Center
Author, Regulating the Lives of Women
Katherine Acey *
Executive Director, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice
Kimberly D. Acquaviva
Washington, DC
Cathy Albisa
Executive Director, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative
Dorothy Allison
Author, Bastard Out of Carolina, and Cavedweller
Amy Andre
Sexuality author/educator and bi activist,
Documentary filmmaker, Black And White All Over Films
Martha Ackelsberg
Prof of Government and Women's Studies, Smith College
co-author, Why We're Not Getting Married
Nikhil Aziz
Executive Director, Grassroots International
Inelle Bagwell
Coordinating Team Member, Church Within a Church Movement
Marlon M. Bailey
Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender and Women's Studies,
University of California-Berkeley
Andre Banks,
Director of Media and Public Affairs, Applied Research Center
Rachel Baum
Former National Program Associate Director, The National Coalition of
Anti-Violence Projects
Nancy K. Bereano
Organizer, Tompkins County Working Group on LGBT Aging
Founding publisher and editor, Firebrand Books
Lauren Berlant
George M. Pullman Professor of English, University of Chicago
Editor, Intimacy
Joan E. Biren (JEB)
Filmmaker/photographer
Ricky Blum
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Staff Attorney, Legal Aid Society
Member, Pride At Work
Terry Boggis *
Director, Center Kids, the family program of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Community Center
Co-Chair, Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Marsha C. Botzer
Founder, Ingersoll Gender Center
Candice Boyce
Board Chair, African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change
Laura Briggs
Associate Professor of Women's Studies, University of Arizona
Author, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science and U.S. Imperialism in
Puerto Rico
Member, No More Deaths
Susie Bright
author
Michael Bronski
Visiting Professor in Women's and Gender Studies and Jewish Studies,
Dartmouth College
Author, The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay
Freedom
Wendy Brown
Professor of Political Science, University of California-Berkeley
Author, States of Injury
Wayne Bryant
Past President, Bisexual Resource Center
Author, Bisexual Characters in Film
Charlotte Bunch
Executive Director, Center for Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers
University
Kent Burbank
Executive Director, Wingspan (South Arizona's LGBT Community Center)
Linda Burnham
Executive Director, Women of Color Resource Center, Oakland
Richard D. Burns
Executive Director, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community
Center
Judith Butler
Maxine Elliot Professor, Rhetoric and Comparative Literature,
University of California-Berkeley
Author, Gender Trouble and Antigone's Claim
Leslie Cagan
National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice
Mandy Carter
Board Member, National Black Justice Coalition
Former Executive Director, Southerners On New Ground
Ellen Carton
Former Executive Director, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
Virginia Casper
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Bank Street College of Education,
New York City
Co-author, Gay Parents/Straight Schools: Building Communication and
Trust
Eli Clare
Author, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation
Pat Clark
Former Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Cheryl Clarke
Poet and author, The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry: 1980-2005
Blanche Wiesen Cook
Author, Eleanor Roosevelt, vols. I & II
Professor, John Jay College & the Graduate Center/CUNY
E.G. Crichton
Professor of Art, University of California-Santa Cruz
Paisley Currah
Executive Director, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS)
Director, Transgender Law & Policy Institute
Wendy Curry
Vice President, BiNet USA
Ann Cvetkovich
Professor of English, University of Texas, Austin
Author, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public
Cultures
Debanuj Dasgupta *
Board of Directors, Queer Immigrant Rights Project
Trishala Deb
Program Coordinator for the Training and Resource Center, Audre Lorde
Project
Kathleen DeBold
Executive Director, Mautner Project, the National Lesbian Health
Organization
Lara Deeb
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, University of California-Irvine
Founding member, Radical Arab Women's Activist Network
Board member, National Council of Arab Americans Defense of Civil
Rights Committee
Joseph N. DeFilippis *
Executive Director, Queers for Economic Justice
Former Director, SAGE/Queens
John D'Emilio
Professor of Gender Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
Founding Director, The Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force
Co-Editor, Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy and Civil Rights
Lisa Dettmer
Producer, Women's Magazine KPFA Radio
Caroyln Dinshaw
Founder, The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
Professor of English and Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University
Founding Co-Editor, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Bill Dobbs
Betty Dodson, PhD
Sexologist
Author, Sex for One and Orgasms for Two
Heidi Dorow
Activist
Marta Drury
Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, 1000 Women for Peace, 2005
Martin Duberman
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, City University of New York
Founder, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY
Author, Stonewall
Aine Duggan
Vice-President, Food Bank for New York City
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Lisa Duggan *
Professor and Director of American Studies, New York University
Author, The End of Marriage: The War Over the Future of State Sponsored
Love (forthcoming)
Barbara Ehrenreich
Contributing Writer, New York Times, Harpers, The Progressive and Time
Magazine
Author, Bait and Switch and Nickel and Dimed
Rev. Marvin M. Ellison
Willard S. Bass Professor of Christian Ethics, Bangor Theological
Seminary
Author, Same-Sex Marriage? A Christian Ehtical Analysis
Annie Ellman
Co-founder and former Executive Director, Center for Anti-Violence
Education
David L. Eng
Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University
Jeffrey Escoffier
Writer/Editor
Author, Sexual Revolution and American Homo: Community and Perversity
Rachel Epstein
Coordinator, LGBT Parenting Network, Family Service Association of
Toronto
Paula Ettelbrick
Executive Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission
Kenyon Farrow *
Co-Editor, Letters from Young Activists: Today's Rebels Speak Out
Author, "Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?"
Anne Fausto-Sterling
Professor of Biology and Gender Studies in the Department of Molecular
and Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Brown University
Author, Sexing the Body
Leslie Feinberg
Co-Chair, LGBT Caucus of National Writers Union/UAW
Author, Stone Butch Blues
Chai Feldblum
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Roderick Ferguson
Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota
Author, Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique
Martha Albertson Fineman
Robert W. Woodruff Professor, Emory University - School of Law
Author, The Autonomy Myth: A Theory of Dependency
Laura Flanders
Host, AirAmerica Radio
Charles Flowers
Executive Director, Lambda Literary Foundation
Katherine M. Franke
Professor of Law, Columbia University in the City of New York
Joyful Freeman
Director, GLTBQ Youth Program (Seattle), American Friends Service
Committee
Monroe France
Educational Training Manager, GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education
Network
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Susana T. Fried
Independent Consultant on Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights
Former Program Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission
Stephen Eagle Funk
Regional Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War
Coco Fusco
Associate Professor, Columbia University in the City of New York
Robert Galloway
Pastor, MCC Knoxville, Tennessee
Abigail Garner
Author, Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is
Nicky Grist
Executive Director, The Alternatives to Marriage Project
David Goldberg
Professor and Director, Humanities Research Institute, University of
California-Irvine
Author, The Racial State
Tami Gold
Filmmaker / Activist
Professor, Hunter College CUNY
Richard Gollance
Los Angeles, CA
Letitia Gomez
Gayatri Gopinath
Associate Professor of Women's Studies, University of California-Davis
Author, Impossible Desires: Queer Diaspora and South Asian Public
Cultures
Catherine Gund
Filmmaker / Writer / Activist
Ellen Gurzinsky *
Educator / Activist
Former Executive Director, The Funding Exchange
Gael Gundin Guevara
Judith Halberstam
Professor of English, University of Southern California
Director, Center for Feminist Research at USC
Author, Female Masculinity
Karl Hamner
President, KMH Consulting, Inc.
Health Consultant / Bisexual Rights Activist
Eileen Hansen
Jean Hardisty
Author, Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John
Birch Society to the Promise Keepers
Founding and Former Executive Director, Political Research Associates
Adam Haslett
Writer
Mary Haviland
Former Co-Director, CONNECT, New York City
Kris Hayashi
Executive Director, Audre Lorde Project
Silvia Henriquez
Executive Director, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
Robert-John Hinojosa
Field Director, Fairness for all Families Campaign, South Carolina
President, Palmetto Umoja, SC
Co-Director, SONG, North Carolina
Lou Hoffman
Board Member, Minnesota Bisexual Organizing Project
Ann Holder
Associate Professor of History, Pratt Institute
Amber Hollibaugh *
Senior Strategist, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Author, My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home
Mary E. Hunt
Catholic feminist theologian
Co-director, Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual
Nan Hunter
Professor, Brooklyn Law School
Co-Author, Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture
Loraine Hutchins *
Co-Editor, Bi Any Other Name
Advisory Board, BiNet USA
Abbie Illenberger
Assistant Political Director, UNITE HERE!
Janet Jakobsen
Director, Center for Research on Women, Barnard College
Co-Author, Love The Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Tolerance
Amira Jarmakani
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Georgia State University
Lillian Jiménez
Executive Director, Latino Educational Media Center
Darnell L. Johnson
Organizational Manager, Fairness Campaign
Co-chair, 2004 Kentucky "No on the Amendment" campaign
Founder/past President, Common Ground, University of Louisville
Rebecca O. Johnson
Writer/Activist
Ronald S. Johnson
Former Associate Executive Director, Gay Men's Health Crisis
Kenneth T. Jones
Research, Community Activist
Board member, In The Life Atlanta
Lani Ka'ahumanu
Co-editor, Bi Any Other Name
Advisory Board, BiNet USA
Rachael Kamel
Education Coordinator, Community Relations Division, American Friends
Service Committee
Caren Kaplan
Associate Professor of Women's Studies and Chair of the Cultural
Studies Graduate Group
University of California-Davis
Co-Editor, Between Woman and Nation
Esther Kaplan
Author, With God on Their Side
Host, Beyond the Pale, WBAI
Morris B. Kaplan
Professor of Philosophy, Purchase College, State University of New York
Jonathan Ned Katz
Historian/Independent Scholar
Author, Gay American History
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
Author, The Issue is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and
Resistance
Former Executive Director, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Bobbi Keppel
co-founder, Unitarian Universalists Bi Network
Hamid Khan
Executive Director, South Asian Network
Surina Khan *
Senior Program Officer, Women's Foundation of California
Former Executive Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission
Richard Kim *
Writer, The Nation
founding Board member, Queers for Economic Justice
Laura Kipnis
Professor of Radio-TV-Film, Northwestern University
Author, Against Love
Gwyn Kirk
Co-editor, Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives
Co-founder, Women for Genuine Security
Cathy Knight
Executive Director, Church Within a Church Movement
Debra Kolodny
Editor, "Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith,"
Exec. Dir., ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
Kitty Krupat
Associate Director, Joseph S. Murphy Center for Worker Education, City
University of New York
Co-editor, Out at Work
Frances Kunreuther
Director, Building Movements Project
Former Executive Director, The Hetrick Martin Institute
Malachi Larrabee-Garza
Advanced Political Education Coordinator, The School of Unity and
Liberation (SOUL)
Board Member, Transgender and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP)
Deke Law
Arthur S. Leonard
Professor of Law, New York Law School
Asha Leong
Campaign Manager, South Carolina Equality Coalition
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun Magazine
National Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives
Jenifer Levin
Author, Water Dancer and The Sea of Light
Reverend Jacqueline J. Lewis
Senior Minister in Charge, The Middle Collegiate Church, New York, NY
Yoseñio V. Lewis
Board of Directors, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Writer/Performance Artist
Phoenix Lindsey-Hall
Volunteer Coordinator, The Fairness Campaign, Louisville, KY
Susan Lob
Director, Voices of Women Organizing Project
Kerry Lobel *
Scott Long
Director, LGBT Rights Program, Human Rights Watch
Lisa Lowe
Professor of Literature, University of California-San Diego
Author, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics
Craig Lucas
Writer / Director
Samuel Lurie
Director, Transgender Awareness Training
Chris Lymbertos
Oakland, CA
Pat Maher
Co-Director, Haymarket's People Fund
Martin Manalansan
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at
Champaign-Urbana
Author, Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora
Rickke Mananzala
Campaign Coordinator, FIERCE!
William Mann
Writer and Historian
Beth Maples-Bays
East Tennessee Bureau Chief, Out and About Newspaper
Co-President, Greater Knoxville LGBTQ Leadership Council
Vice President, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
Tennessee Nashville) Chapter
Armistead Maupin
Writer/Producer
Pam McMichael
Director, Highlander Research and Education Center
Founding Co-Director, Southerners on New Ground
Terrence McNally
Writer
Alice M. Miller, JD*
Ass't Professor, Clinical Population and Family Health, Columbia
University, Mailman School of Public Health
Marshall Miller
Co-Founder, The Alternatives to Marriage Project
Co-Author, Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living
Together as an Unmarried Couple
Gwendolyn Mink
Co-Coordinator, Women's Committee of 100
Charles N. Clark Professor, Studies in Women and Gender, Smith College
Author, Welfare's End
Donna Minkowitz
Journalist
Author, Ferocious Romance
Nasreen Mohamed
Writer & Activist, Minneapolis
Jeffrey Montgomery
Executive Director, Triangle Foundation
Board Member, Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Richard W. Morrison
Executive Editor, University of Minnesota Press
Shadow Morton
José E Muñoz
Associate Professor and Chair of Performance Studies, New York University
Author, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of
Politics
Yasmin Nair
Activist, Educator
Member, CLIA (Chicago LGBTQ Immigrants Alliance)
Writer, Windy City Times
Scot Nakagawa
Grants and Program Director, Social Justice Fund Northwest
Holly Near
Singer/Activist
Joan Nestle
Lesbian Herstory Archives
Heba Nimr
Program Coordinator, Partnership for Immigrant Leadership and Action
Reverend Dr. Penny Nixon
Senior Minister, MCC San Francisco
Robin Nussbaum
Educator/Activist
Former Coordinator, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Queers
for Justice Program
Robyn Ochs
marriage equality activist
Editor, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World
Margo Okazawa-Rey
Research Consultant, Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling
Doyin Ola
Welfare Organizer, Queers for Economic Justice
Working Group Member, TransJustice, a project of the Audre Lorde
Project
Steering Committee, Uhuru-Wazobia, LGBT Africans
Ana Oliveira *
Executive Director, New York Women's Foundation
Former Executive Director, Gay Men's Health Crisis
Nancy Ordover
Author, American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of
Nationalism
Reverend Freeman L. Palmer, Minister
Congregational Life and Development, Middle Collegiate Church, New York, New York
Cori Schmanke Parrish *
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Cindy Patton
Professor of Sociology, Simon Fraser University
Author, The Invention of AIDS
Clarence Patton
Executive Director, The New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence
Project
Acting Director, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs
Gerry Gomez Pearlberg
Poet/Editor
Ann Pellegrini
Associate Professor of Performance Studies and Religious Studies, New York University
Co-Author, Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Tolerance
Denise Penn
Past President, BiNet USA
Board Member, The American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB)
Rosalind Petchesky
Distinguished Professor, Hunter College & the Graduate Center, City
University of New York
Author, Abortion and Woman's Choice
Suzanne Pharr *
Author, In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation and
Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism
Former Director, Highlander Research and Education Center
Judith Plaskow
Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College
co-author, Why We're Not Getting Married
Nancy Polikoff *
Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law
Author, Valuing All Families (forthcoming, Beacon Press, 2007)
Elizabeth Povinelli
Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
Author, Empire of Love: Toward A Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy and
Carnality
Achebe Betty Powell *
Activist / Educator
Consultant, Betty Powell Associates
Lisa Powell
Attorney and activist
The Rev. Cecil Charles Prescod
Director, Public Voice for Peace and Equality Project, Love Makes A
Family, Inc.
Jasbir Puar
Assistant Prof. of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University
Christopher Punongbayan
Advocacy Director, Filipinos for Affirmative Action
Susan Raffo
Editor, Queerly Classed: Gay Men and Lesbians Write About Class
Chandan Reddy
Assistant Professor Department of English, University of Washington,
Seattle
Betsy Reed
Executive Editor, The Nation
Reno
Performance Artist
Ruby Rich
Author of Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film
Movement
Community Studies Dept, UC Santa Cruz
Holly Richardson
Out Now
Ignacio Rivera *
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Founder of Poly Patao Productions / performance artist
Colin Robinson
Founder, Caribbean Pride
Former Executive Director, New York State Black Gay Network & Gay Men
of African Descent
Ruthann Robson
Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law
Juana María Rodríguez
Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies, UC Davis
Author, Queer Latinidad
Loretta J. Ross
National Coordinator, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health
Collective
Rev. Nori Rost
Executive Director, Just Spirit: A Center for People of All Faiths
Maggi Rubenstein
Co-founder, the San Francisco Bisexual Center
Founding member, Bay Area Bisexual Network
Graciela Isabel Sánchez
Director, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center
Ronni Sanlo ED.D
Director, UCLA LGBT Center
Founding Chair, National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in
Higher Education
Ann Schranz
Unitarian Universalist minister
Joan Wallach Scott
Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
University
Rinku Sen
Executive Director, Applied Research Center
Publisher, Colorlines Magazine.
Mark M. Sexton and W. Kirk Wallace
Svati P. Shah
Member, South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association
Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow, Center for the Study of Gender and
Sexuality,
New York University
Julie Shapiro
Associate Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law
Eveline Shen
Executive Director, Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice
Carl Siciliano
Founder/Executive Director, Ali Forney Center
Kathy Skaggs
Writer
Anna Marie Smith
Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University
Author, Welfare Reform and Sexual Regulation (forthcoming)
Rita Smith
Executive Director, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Sarah Sohn
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Former Legal Fellow, Immigration Equality
Alisa Solomon
Director, Arts & Culture MA, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia
University
Former Executive Director, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY
Dorian Solot
Co-Founder, Alternatives to Marriage Project
Co-Author, Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living
Together as an Unmarried Couple
Dean Spade
Founder, Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Judith Stacey
Professor of Sociology, New York University
Author, Brave New Families
Erich Steinman
Co-Editor, Bisexuality in the Lives of Men: Facts and Fictions
Gloria Steinem
Founder and original publisher, Ms. Magazine
Jessica Stern
Researcher, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program,
Human Rights Watch
Board Member, Queers for Economic Justice
Jacquelyn Stevens
Associate Professor, Law and Society Program, University of
California-Santa Barbara
Author, Reproducing the State
Julia Sudbury
Professor of Ethnic Studies, Mills College
Founding member, Critical Resistance
Editor, Global Lockdown: Race, Gender & the Prison-Industrial Complex
Ashley Tellis
Asst. Professor, English, Eastern Illinois University
Queer Immigrant Rights Project
Beth Teper
Executive Director, COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere)
Jennifer Terry
Associate Professor and Director of Women's Studies, University of
California-Irvine
Author, American Obsession: Science, Medicine and Homosexuality in
Modern Society
Kendall Thomas *
Activist
Nash Professor of Law, Columbia University in the City of New York
Juhu Thukral
Director, Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center
Judith Thurman
Writer
Bonnie Tinker
Executive Director, Love Makes a Family, Inc.
Jay Toole
Shelter Organizer, Queers for Economic Justice
Barbara Turk
Former Executive Director, YWCA of Brooklyn
Judith E. Turkel
Turkel Forman & de la Vega LLP, New York
Sharon Ullman
Associate Professor of History, Bryn Mawr College
Author, Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America
Tony Valenzuela
Writer / Gay Men's Health Advocate
Paula Vogel
Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Literary Arts and Comparative
Literature, Brown University
Playwright, How I Learned to Drive
KC Wagner,
Director of Workplace Issues, Cornell-ILR, NYC
Leonie Walker
Philanthropic Activist
Carla Wallace
Fairness Campaign Leadership Council, Louisville, Kentucky
Suzanna Walters
Chair of the Department of Gender Studies, Indiana University
Author, All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America
Michael Warner
Professor of English, Rutgers University
Author, The Trouble with Normal
Denise Wells
Cornel West
Robin West
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Center of Law
Marcy Westerling
Founder and Executive Director, Rural Organizing Project, Scappoose, Oregon
Kay Whitlock *
Writer/Organizer
Former National Representative for LGBT Issues, The American Friends
Service Committee
Robyn Wiegman
Professor and Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women's Studies, Duke University
Author, American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender
Maya Wiley
Executive Director, Center for Social Inclusion
Penelope Williams
NE Regional Coordinator emeritus, BiNet USA
Co-organizer, People of Color Institutes, Creating Change
Andre A. Wilson
Organizer/Activist, Trans Health Advocate
Co-founder, Transforum of University of Michigan
Member, Pride At Work - Michigan
Joe Wilson
Program Officer for Human Rights, Public Welfare Foundation
Documentary Filmmaker, qWaves Productions
Ellen Willis
Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication
Director, Concentration in Cultural Reporting and Criticism, New York University
JoAnn Wypijewski
Columnist, Mother Jones
Independent Journalist
Jesi Yager
Artist/Activist
Former volunteer, 2004 Kentucky "No on the Amendment" Campaign
Former Director, 2004 National Coming Out Day Works on Shirt Project,
Louisville, KY
Former Administrative Staff, New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Campaign
Miriam W. Yeung, MPA
Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, The Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
Kenji Yoshino,
Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Rebecca Young
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Barnard College
Karen Zelermyer
Executive Director, Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues
Beth Zemsky *
GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota
Former Co-Chair of the Board of Directors, National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force
posted by bustingbinaries | 10:06 AM
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