Change: buzz word of the presidential candidate campaigns, hallmark of the LGBT movement

It’s hard to even remember what life was like before George Bush stole his way into the presidency.

We’ve all slogged our way through an incredibly trying eight years — and we should be commended for keeping our heads up, stubbornly insisting on our humanity and the value of our lives, our families and our participation in this great democracy.

For those of us who came of age during the civil rights, anti-war or women’s movement, the Bush years have been despairingly claustrophobic. For those of us who came of age under this regime, our vision of what our country and our lives might be has been terribly constrained.

Creating Change, the LGBT movement’s largest, cross-issue, multigenerational, annual gathering of activists, researchers, policy makers and funders offers us a moment to break out of the Bush Box and beam ourselves into the still-forming possibilities of the future. What might our LGBT lives look like under President Obama? Who among us might President Clinton appoint to her cabinet?

Within this changing political landscape, what is our roadmap to full equality? What are the many paths we’ll take to change and how will they converge, overlap and diverge to build the communities, states and nation we know is possible as we live, work, love and pray alongside our heterosexual friends and neighbors?

Come to Detroit, Feb. 6–10, and hash out our future with the best and brightest thinkers and advocates our movement has to offer. The conversation won’t be complete without you, and it’s sure to challenge, energize and entertain.

Learn more here.

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Thursday, 1/17/2008, 9:44 AM (EST)

Thanks for the comments about change and your thoughts on the future, but I think the Bush years were full of change. I wonder if we will progress as much under a Democrat. I doubt it. History is on my side of the argument. Since Bush has been in office, several states have added civil unions, one has marriage, state and municipal governments with basic civil rights protections for LGBT folks have swelled to over 160 jurisdictions. We find people in places they have not been before, like the governor’s parties in Puerto Rico. Why? This happened in part because there was an identifiable enemy that LGBT people could rally around. Both Bush campaigns brought our issues to the fore. It kept LGBT organizations busy. This did not happen in the Clinton era after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. We were dropped like a hot potato. We cruised along being invited to cocktail parties where we raised substantial amounts of money for Democrats that never knew we existed once they were in office. Little by little over the last 15 years we are barely mentioned in the Democratic Platform (and most state platforms did not mention us at all) and any mention of us on stage is done while the cameras are rolling elsewhere. Sure, we will get some gratuitous and well earned appointments and we will continue to make some progress, but it will be due to the momentum of the Bush years, motivated and fueled by the Bush presence. I do think Logo’s debate with the Democratic candidates is a good model that should be emulated by other organizations, but once we pick a candidate, will we fade away or insist on being front and center? Will we ask the same questions of all candidates or will we give the Democrat a pass?

John T. Zimmerman
Dayton, OH 45405