Did the summer just end? It certainly did, and the fall political season, as expected, began right on time, the day after Labor Day. At 7:30 a.m. the first day of the campaign, Sen. Arlen Specter held an LGBT meet-and-greet hosted by Abbe Fletman’s law firm, Flaster Greenberg, and put together by Micah Mahjoubian, former co-chair of Liberty City Democratic Club. About 25 community leaders attended.
The same day, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato flew in from Pittsburgh and met with several members of the LGBT community. Thanks to some of the LGBT leadership in Pittsburgh, I was pleased to have lunch with Onorato.
He’s a pragmatic politician. As an Allegheny County commissioner, he created the coalition and compromise that resulted in Allegheny County’s antidiscrimination legislation.
As I’ve said in the past and continue to strongly stress, antidiscrimination legislation should be the cornerstone piece of legislation that we should put all our efforts behind here in Pennsylvania. We are one of those 29 states that does not protect LGBT citizens from losing their jobs on the basis of sexual orientation. No other legislation is as important. And it’s the only legislation that has the possibility of passing our legislature.
There are other issues out there, but nondiscrimination legislation is the only one that affects all LGBT people.
Our national leaders and some bloggers seem to be missing this point. They are all over the map with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Defense of Marriage and, finally, nondiscrimination. They need to focus. At this point, we’re at a standstill in Washington. Maybe it’s because we haven’t sent out clear signals. We should be marshalling all our legislative skills on one piece of legislation rather than three: It makes our supporters work a little harder to deliver. Best example: When Bill Clinton became president, the Human Rights Campaign put its muscle behind changing the military’s ban on gays. While we didn’t like the resulting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — which actually strengthened the ban — we had moved the issue. Now we’re just a muddle of issues and nothing is moving. This lack of movement has resulted in a march on Washington.
You might not have heard, but there is an LGBT march on Washington planned. Unfortunately for Philadelphia, it’s the same day as OutFest. And as I expect, this is the first many of you have heard about it. It’s a good cause, but I’ll be here at OutFest, since we still have work to do in Pennsylvania.
Mark Segal is PGN publisher. He can be reached at [email protected].