Sorry I was late ...
www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com • December 19, 2008 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 5
BRIAN DEWITT
Before State Rep. Dan Stewart updated activists on the progress of an Ohio LGBT equal rights bill, he apologized for being late.
"I was watching Prop 8, the Musical,” he joked. The popular online video, starring Jack Black as Jesus Christ, is three minutes long.
Stewart spoke with 78 leaders of LGBT organizations from across the state at Equality Ohio's fourth annual Leadership Summit in Columbus on December 6.
He declared that the Equal Housing and Employment Act is an economic measure, noting that "Ohio is number one with 18to 40-year-olds leaving the state."
Stewart described a conversation he had with an "Ivy League-graduate" lesbian couple during the group's Lobby Day in May. The women told him they planned to move out of
state.
"Why would we stay here, where, if we get a good job, we can get fired if they find out we are in a lesbian relationship?” he quoted them.
"Do we want to say to a huge population: 'You're not welcome in Ohio?' In this economy? I don't think so," he said.
Clarence Patton of the Pipeline Project spoke in the afternoon. Pipeline is an initiative to increase diversity within LGBT organizations.
"Nonprofits in the LGBT sector appear to have been underperformers in achieving diversity," he said.
The Pipeline Project is currently conducting research and will be operational in 2009. It is funded by the Arcus Foundation.
Patton calls it "affirmative action for the gay industrial complex."
The project's mission is to work with LGBT organizations on issues of racial and ethnic diversity in leadership and membership.
"A recent publication by the Movement Advancement Project indicates that the leadership of the nation's LGBT organizations is actually less diverse today than it was a decade ago," said Patton.
"Only four percent of executive directors of LGBT organizations are people of color, one third less than in nonprofits in general," Patton continued.
Patton said that in 2004, the cultural right wing used this lack of diversity as an organizing tool to unite African-Americans and Latinos to support 13 state marriage ban amendments.
"They're using it to kick our asses," he said.
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