The Virginia Organizing Project : “Marriage” Amendment campaign builds the equality movement in Virginia

“Marriage” Amendment campaign builds the equality movement in Virginia

On November 7, the so-called Marriage Amendment passed, though only by 57 per cent of those voting, the lowest margin for such an amendment in a southern state.

On the way to this painful defeat, Equality Virginia, and others opposing discrimination based on sexual orientation, had won many small victories.

Claire Guthrie Gastañaga managed the campaign of the Commonwealth Coalition, created to defeat the Virginia amendment. After the election, she said, ‘‘I had two objectives: One was to win, the other was to leave Equality Virginia and the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community stronger. We didn’t accomplish the first, but we did accomplish the second.’’

How did the community (and its allies) become stronger? It became stronger when a hair salon in Virginia Beach put a “Vote NO” sign in the window. It became stronger when hundreds of volunteers got their first experiences in doorknocking, and found it wasn’t as bad as they feared. It became stronger when a little store in the Shenandoah Valley heard from its LGBT and straight ally customers after putting pro-amendment flyers in shopping bags, and decided to stop doing something that good customers told the owners was hurtful. It became stronger when Virginians got phone calls from other Virginians, gay and straight, who urged them to read the amendment and vote their conscience, not their fear.

After the passage of the amendment, the Equality Virginia Education Fund, the charitable research and education arm of Equality Virginia, launched a new program, Amendment Watch. “Now that the amendment will be part of our Constitution, our goal is to not have to say ‘I told you so’ when and if individuals seek to have the amendment interpreted broadly, affecting tens of thousands of unmarried Virginians by challenging wills, medical powers of attorney or domestic violence laws,” said Dyana Mason, executive director of Equality Virginia.

“During the campaign, Attorney General Robert O’Donnell issued a narrow opinion,” said Jay Squires, chair of Equality Virginia’s board of directors. “We disagreed with him about what the amendment meant because we thought it could be used broadly. He said no, that it would have a narrow effect. We want to make certain it has a narrow impact. All we are asking him to do is to act in a way that is consistent with his beliefs.”

In addition to Amendment Watch, Equality Virginia and other opponents of discrimination will be tracking the General Assembly’s actions impacting sexual orientation, especially in two areas — employment discrimination and Gay-Straight Alliances in the schools.

Employment discrimination

In the state of Virginia, a person can be legally fired or refused a job by an employer on the basis of that person’s real or perceived sexual orientation. A person could legally lose her or his job simply for being gay, or even because someone thinks he or she is gay.

Virginia’s employers cannot legally discriminate on the basis of other factors that have nothing to do with job performance — race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, marital status, and disability. Equality Virginia urges the Commonwealth of Virginia to add sexual orientation to Virginia’s workplace nondiscrimination laws.

The labor movement also opposes this kind of discrimination. AFL-CIO affiliate Pride At Work noted in its recent newsletter that “the labor movement understands … that creating a tolerant and welcoming workplace for all workers, regardless of any particular identity, is essential to a healthy workplace. . . We in the union movement are all too familiar with these classic divide and conquer tactics.” So are the 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies which have their own policies against such discrimination — and all civilian branches of the federal government prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In fact, a majority of the U.S. people support ending this kind of discrimination (83 percent of voters according to a 2000 Newsweek poll). Twenty-one states have passed laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation to varying degrees. Virginia should join them.

Gay-Straight Alliances

It is likely that this session of the General Assembly will again see legislation designed to allow school boards to prohibit Gay Straight Alliances (GSA) in Virginia high schools GSAs are extracurricular organizations offering straight, gay and lesbian students the opportunity to come together for mutual support and understanding.

School board efforts to ban GSAs would lead to expensive and fruitless litigation. The federal Equal Access Act requires schools to provide fair and equal access to all legitimate student groups that wish to conduct voluntary, student-initiated meetings. If a local school board allows a Bible-study group, or a group promoting sexual abstinence, to use school facilities, it must grant equal access to other legitimate student groups, including Gay-Straight Alliances.

At a more personal level, Tully Satre, a leader of Equality Fauquier-Culpeper and a young gay man about to graduate from high school wrote in his blog in December of 2005, “The leading cause of death for gay youth is suicide, and 95 percent of all teen suicides are preventable. The establishment of GSAs in this country has reduced the suicide rate of gay youth, but we need to continue moving in the right direction. Allowing public schools to ban GSAs would only welcome discrimination into the lives of so many GLBT youth.”

The success of the so-called Marriage Amendment was a hard blow to Virginia’s GLBT community and their families, friends and allies. But as Mark Hinkley told the Virginian-Pilot the week after the amendment passed, “You can do one of two things when something isn’t going your way: you can turn around and run. Or you can stay and fight for what you believe in.”

Paula Prettyman, president of Equality Fairfax, told the Falls Church News-Press that the effort to defeat Question 1 in Virginia is “an investment.”

“We’re better off for this long campaign,” she said. “The larger community we are a part of understands us better, they have sympathy for our concerns and, I believe, they want to begin helping us secure the rights we need to protect ourselves and our families. We might not have victory today, but we will soon.”

For more information, contact Equality Virginia by visiting www.equalityvirginia.org or calling (804) 643-4816.

Resources

VOP in the Media

Current Campaigns

Employment discrimination

Gay-Straight Alliances