No Cash to Political Parties? It's About Time! The following was published in the March 2010 issue of Challenge.

On page 10 of this issue of Challenge you will find a press release from Garden State Equality (GSE) announcing a new policy for the state's largest GLBT rights organization. No longer, says GSE leader Steven Goldstein, will the group donate money to a political party. No longer, says Goldstein, will a party take money and volunteer effort from the GLBT community only to withhold full equality from us.

This is an encouraging sign that GSE, along with many GLBT activists in New Jersey, has realized that the struggle for equality is too valuable to be left to the mercies of any single political party.

I applaud Garden State Equality's decision.

It should have come much sooner than this.

From the start, GSE and New Jersey's other GLBT rights organizations should have kept themselves from appearing to be seen as extensions of political parties. Instead, they have made it appear that they are volunteer employment agencies for those parties, financial backers for the parties' activities, and deliverers of a guaranteed bloc of votes come election day. They became, for all intents and purposes, part of a political "machine", with all that implies.

There is nothing wrong with supporting a candidate who is on board with changes you want to see made. There is nothing wrong with opposing and removing candidates who oppose those changes. That is, after all, what representative democracy is all about: the election of that candidate who best represents your views.

There is nothing wrong with GLBT voters banding together to support one party's goals. Both the Stonewall Democrats and the Log Cabin Republicans have done admirable work in supporting and, in some cases, influencing the directions their respective parties have taken.

But for any organization dedicated to achieving civil rights, it is close to suicidal to appear as though the group is allied with one party to the exclusion of other parties. Doing so hurts the cause. It fosters the tendency to ignore the existence of supportive legislators from other parties, or to belittle their efforts. Of course, no party stays in power forever; once a "favored" party is out of power, we are left in a form of political exile until the balance of power shifts again.

The acceptance by New Jersey's GLBT leaders, no matter how reluctant, of the "lame-duck" strategy proposed by the state's Democrats proved to be a disastrous choice, as we saw to our dismay. By going along with this strategy, the state's GLBT rights organizations bound themselves to the fortunes of one party. This combined with the reluctant or abandoned efforts of those organizations to continue educational outreach to legislators in both parties on the need to ensure our rights. The result was enmity from state legislators and our defeat in the Senate this past January.

The leaders of New Jersey's GLBT rights organizations forgot that, in the struggle for equality under the law, justice delayed is justice denied. That struggle should never be adjusted to accommodate any party or candidate. These leaders failed in their task of making sure such delay did not happen. They forgot their responsibility to the members of their organizations.

For too long now, too many of the leaders of state GLBT rights groups have been practically self-appointed. They have been non-responsible to their members, who have given freely and generously of their time, their talents, and their money. Those members have trusted in their leaders to make the hard decisions in order to achieve such goals as marriage equality, inclusive employment non-discrimination, immigration reform, and the ability to serve openly in the military. Now, too many of those members feel betrayed by the leaders they most trusted. And too many of those leaders have gone scurrying for cover, deflecting attention away from close scrutiny of their leadership failures.

Too many questions remain unanswered. Why was the "lame duck" legislative strategy proposed? Why did the Democratic party in New Jersey think they could ask this of the GLBT communities? Whose decision was it to acquiesce to the Democrats' request? Whose decision was it to throw GLBT resources into the coffers of any party? In short, what was the reasoning behind all of these decisions?

These questions should never have had to be asked. But now, it is important that all of New Jersey's GLBT rights groups, from the largest to the smallest, answer these questions openly and honestly.

The time to stand by in muffled silence, to continue to buy into the myth that "they are the experts, they know what they're doing", is gone. I encourage everyone with a stake in a future of equality for New Jersey's GLBT community to let their voices be heard at the New Jersey Lesbian & Gay Coalition meeting on March 6^th. (See article, page 9.)