It's important to learn lessons from the things we do so that we can do better the next time around. There are many lessons the White House can take away from last Wednesday's announcement about benefits to gay Federal employees. Monday morning quarterbacking is far easier than governing, so this analysis is meant with the intention to help the White House get it right the next time, the time after that, and the time after that and.....Get my drift?
Lesson #1: Understand your audience. Amid growing criticism from the LGBT community, quietly spreading the word of a pending 'major announcement' in order to quell unrest raises the bar. If you are not going to be able to meet expectations, it's a bad idea to suggest that you will, especially among a constituency sensitive to being let down. It's just setting you up for failure and a higher volume of criticism.
Lesson #2: Don't get blindsided by your own Administration. While it is understandable to be sensitive to the Bush Administration's over-politicization of the Justice Department, having an overreaction of giving no oversight is a mistake. Doing so sets you up for instances such as the DOJ brief on a lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, where they compared marriage equality to incest, among other things.
That brief became the standard by which next steps were judged. It was a standard the White House could not possibly meet with Wednesday's announcement and will take some time to make reparations for. Instructing DOJ to run legal briefs by the White House Counsel's office, if for no other reason than to know what's in the pipe, would give the White House much-needed knowledge in order to act upon.
Lesson #3: Don't overstate. Honesty and frankness, while not always popular, will help avoid criticism. Selling something as more than it is invites criticism. Having properly characterized the action being taken from the Administration would have prevented certain criticism and also lessened the perception that the announcement was far from meeting expectations.
Lesson #4: Get the mt the messaging right. This episode was wrought with confusing and complicating points. First, the issuance of a Presidential Memorandum instead of an Executive order began a distracting side conversation that immediately began to undermine the announcement.
On further investigation, I found that the Office of Personnel Management is actually changing Federal regulations and has drafted and published them to the Federal Register. That is an accurate portrayal of what happened and would have avoided many of the confusing perceptions in the discussion about it.
Lesson #5: Optics matter. They also need to match the rhetoric and the reality. Part of the anger surrounding this announcement is that the White House was trying to claim credit for more than they were doing. (See Lesson #3.)
Oval Office ceremonies are a big deal; they are often used to sign landmark legislation. While a positive step forward was certainly made with this announcement, it is a small step when compared against the large number of changes that need to be made to erase each instance of discrimination that currently exists in the Federal code of laws.
The event was staged straight out of the 90's and, with the changing of the characters, could have been President Clinton signing the executive order banning discrimination in the administration of security clearances. The standard practice to give 'official' approval of 'the gay community' is to place leaders of gay rights organizations and gay elected officials behind the President. For a President that built the largest grassroots movement in the history of our nation, such a visual is disrespectful at best.
Since the action was most important to Federal employees, a more appropriate venue would have been at OPM addressing those employees about the changes being made. It would have shown that the White House understood those that were affected by the announcement and avoided criticism that it was suggesting the scope was broader than it was.
Lesson #6: Staff matters and hearing what they have to say is critical. There is a perception that the Obama Administration lacks sensitivity to the LGBT community. This can be easily addressed by empowering staff to address this within the White House and to a diversity of people on the outside. This may, and likely does, require that staff abandon traditional thinking about the gay community.
Major changes to both the structure and mindset of the LGBT community have occurred in the past two years. Having staff that not only understand that, but also embody that change will help to ensure that the White House takes them into consideration on future decisions affecting the gay community. Without new perspective, mistakes may continue and that is something the Administration can't afford to do.
Follow Lane Hudson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tlanehudson
June 23, 2009
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500Dear President Obama:
I am writing to respectfully urge you to bring the energetic moral vision that you championed as a presidential candidate to the cause of equality for gay and lesbian Americans.
Among the reasons that millions of people were inspired by your candidacy was your eloquence on behalf of an America in which everyone is offered respect and equality under the law. At People For the American Way, we disagreed with your decision to stop short of supporting marriage equality, but we welcomed the clarity with which you articulated the constitutional principle of equality in so many other areas. That vision energized not only gays and lesbians, but many other fair-minded Americans who recognize discrimination as a national moral failing, who view equality under the law as a defining part of the American Way, and who believe the country is ready to discard discrimination based on bigotries that should be left in our past. That vision would be even more powerful coming from you as president, but since your election we have heard very little.
Any reasonable person is aware of the extraordinary challenges that faced the nation as you took office, including a dire financial crisis that has cost millions of Americans their jobs, homes, and access to health care. You have not shied from these most daunting of challenges. But it seems that you have shied from promoting the vision of equality that you articulated during your campaign.
Legislative change is needed, and we will continue to push Members of Congress and the Democratic leadership to move forward to end discrimination against LGBT Americans even as they grapple with other urgent national priorities. We are counting on you to call for and help win passage of legislation that you pledged to support.
As importantly, Mr. President, you are uniquely capable of communicating to the American public the moral and constitutional values at stake in ending discrimination against gay Americans. Beyond the clear harm to gay and lesbian Americans, the lack of your leadership on these issues damages both America’s sense of fairness and the credibility of your administration.
Your recent action to extend some benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees, and your statement from the Oval Office committing yourself to work tirelessly toward equality, could have been the kind of moment that was celebrated as a milestone on the march toward equality. But instead it had the feel of, and was reported as, an incremental half-measure rushed onto the stage to placate a discontented political constituency.
While your comments in opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act at the recent signing ceremony were welcome, they would have carried more weight as part of a larger ongoing effort to educate the American public about the moral need for LGBT equality. Moreover, the impact of your words was blunted coming so soon after your administration’s brief in support of DOMA using arguments that degraded gay and lesbian couples. You may havmay have felt it was your duty to defend the law, but your argument that discrimination against same-sex couples doesn't count as discrimination and citation of case law on incest to claim that marriages of gay couples are unworthy of legal recognition was beyond the pale. Americans who support equality would not have been at all surprised if that brief had been filed by the Bush Administration. Coming from you, particularly without a broader public affirmation of your commitment to equality, it had the force of a hard slap in the face by someone we trusted.
Moreover, in the absence of a stronger statement about the importance of equality for all Americans, it has been equally difficult for your supporters to understand the continued discharges under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell of service members devoting their lives to our country. Congress should vote to repeal the destructive law that destroys military careers and robs the armed forces of highly trained soldiers, but until that happens, you should use your authority as commander-in-chief to suspend discharges of these personnel until that law is changed.
We have seen you change a nation’s conversation with an extraordinarily compelling speech on the issue of race in America. We have seen you change the perceptions of the world with a historic speech on history, pluralism, respect, and democracy to the world’s Muslims. We have seen you bring grace and conviction to the debate with your speech at Notre Dame about preserving a woman’s right to choose.
On the question of LGBT equality, it’s time to make that speech.
Mr. President, you have the opportunity to be on the right side of history. Every day, LGBT Americans face discrimination and are being denied their constitutional rights. There is no one in public life who could, and based on your stated principles and promises should, do more to move America forward toward becoming a country in which LGBT people are respected and treated as fully equal under our Constitution and laws.
We ask for your leadership and voice. When you lead, we will back you with every bit of heart and determination we can muster.
Sincerely,
Michael B. Keegan
President
People For the American Way
An important question has been left unasked in all the hullabaloo surrounding the renegade WhoSigned.org. Namely, if the anti-family, anti-child forces behind Referendum 71 fail to gather enough signatures to submit it to the Secretary of State, what happens to the names, addresses and e-mails of people who signed the petition (the petition asks for e-mails even though they're not legally requiredequired)?
By law, referendum backers can do whatever they want with them. Including sell them.
Gary Randall is on record admitting that data from failed petitions go right into the Faith & Freedom Network's database and are later swapped with other organizations or used in-house for fundraising and other solicitations. Such lists are so valuable to a foundering organization like his that in 2006 he and then-ally Pastor Joe Fuiten got into a public hissy fit* with Tim Eyman over the control of petitions from their failed effort to repeal the gay civil rights law via Referendum 65.
* Gary deleted the pertinent Faith & Freedom blog post after I discussed it here.
The Spokesman-Review asked the right questions back in 2006:
Ever wonder what happens to your name and address on a petition that never gets turned in?Gary wasn't looking out for his own best business interests, perchance? Just think how valuable those name$ would have been as this Oregonian continued on his cruisade to manipulate Washington voters. It seems that Tim Eyman was on to Gary Randall's game.Anything the sponsors want, according to state law.
That's apparently why the two different camps behind Referendum 65, a ballot proposal that failed last week to gather enough signatures, are fighting over access to some 100,000 names and addresses on the petitions they didn't turn in. Longtime initiative maestro Tim Eyman has the petitions and said he won't give them to the Faith and Freedom Network, an umbrella group of religious organizations that helped gather the lion's share of the names.
Each is accusing the other of bad faith. Each is claiming to be looking out for the best interests of signers...
"We're not going to be intimidated or blackmailed [by Randall and Fuiten] into allowing these citizens who signed these petitions to have their names and addresses used ... to do anything other than seeking a public vote on HB 2661," Eyman said in an e-mail to his supporters around the state. "These voters did not sign R-65 petitions to be solicited by faith-based groups like Faith & Freedom."
Interestingly, Randall was forthcoming at the time about his plans. I wonder if he would be so chatty today, now that we all know how self-serving and deceptive he can be.
Gary Randall, president oident of Faith & Freedom, said Thursday the religious network had hoped to develop a mailing list for future efforts to overturn the law. If a new referendum or initiative campaign is launched, they'd probably mail a copy of that petition to the people who signed Referendum 65, asking them to sign the new proposal and have their friends sign it, too.Of course fundraising isn't the primary reason for floating the petitions of an unpopular referendum too late to collect enough signatures to qualify. Of course.The network would have shared the list with other church groups who helped during this year's signature drive. "But we don't sell or lease out mailing lists," Randall said. He knows some initiative groups do that, but "we never have."
The signers of Referendum 65 might also be asked for a contribution to support such an effort, although "that was not the primary reason for wanting" the petitions, he added.
Several organizations besides Gary Randall's are involved in promoting the referendum and distributing the petitions. They include Washington Values Alliance and Protect Marriage Washington (both run by Larry Stickney); Washington Eagle Forum; the Focus on the Family affiliate Family Policy Institute of Washington; Constitution Party of Washington State; Youth With a Mission / USRenewal; Knights of Columbus; Christian Coalition; Antioch Bible Church. Will petition signers' data be shared among all these organizations? Even if we could get a promise from Gary Randall that he won't sell his copy of the list (he hasn't been asked for that promise regarding this referendum, to my knowledge), he cannot guarantee that one or more of these other organizations won't. There are many fingers in this petition pie. Which of them are sticky?
Petition signers be aware.
Join Washington Families Standing Together in their fight to defeat Referendum 71 by clicking on the graphics below.
Cross-posted at Washblog.
So, how have your conversations gone so far? What went well? What kind of responses have you gotten? What have you learned? Share your stories, comments and questions here!
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