about Colorado's Losses

[Merlyn Risser]

How Do You Offer Support In Dealing With Election Loss?

Dear PFLAG Friends,

 

Colorado has just been through an enormous effort over the past 7 or more months to pass Referendum I about Domestic Partnerships and to defeat Amendment 43 that would ban same-sex marriage.   We actually expected both campaigns to win which would have added marriage discrimination to our state constitution but would have also given our state the first popular vote for civil unions with all the states rights and responsibilities that non-gay couples have. Philanthropist and gay activist,  Tim Gill,  generously spent millions to develop the Coloradans for Fairness Campaign which created an excellent media advertising campaign and galvanized GLBTs and allied volunteers into action in a myriad of ways.  CFF and all of us volunteers across the state knocked ourselves out.  Our hopes were high.   So to learn on Nov. 7 that  even though BoulderDenver and Summit County voted 2 to 1 for Ref I, we only had 47% of the total state approving and 56% opposing Ref I.  That was an enormous disappointment.

 

When Jody Huckaby visited Colorado to offer his support for Ref I, he and I talked about "what if the referendum fails---what's Plan B for how to help heal the hurt and assuage the anger and resentment that was bound to be felt by straight allies and glbt citizens"?     I pass on to you what happened two days after the election and urge you to find a way to help your own glbt community, PFLAG members and allies to heal by processing what happened and finding ways to move forward with hope by seeing the Truth of a our Movement for Equality moving inevitable toward Justice for All.

 

I knew music was important as a healing agent for strong, unresolved  feelings, so I invited Sue Coffee who directs Resonance, our Boulder Women's Chorus (made up of gay and straight members by design), to provide music and some sing-along time to bring us to together in song.   I asked Glenda Russell, a psychologist who studied the effects of anti-gay violence from Amendment 2 in l992 on the GLBT community, to help plan and to speak.   We called the community gathering "Moving Forward Together Win or Lose" and planned for it to happen no matter what the elections results were.  This gave us time to invite other speakers and reserve a venue as well as send out a press release in time for adequate publicity.  We included poetry by Maya Angelou and an anonymous gay high school youth, a youth speaker who is a PFLAG board member and C.U. student,

Alice Madden the newly elected majority leader for the state house of representatives, Michael Brewer, the director of Public Policy for the GLBT Community Center in Denver, and Jean Dubofsky, the attorney who carried and won the case for the U.S. Supreme Court to rescind Amendment 2.   There was a time to mourn and a time to laugh and best of all, a time to be together, to know that we are not alone and that the strugglel for glbt equality is not won or lost in one election.  It is a long distance run that requires resilience and undaunted determination.

 

Take time in your chapters to process grief, acknowledge disappointment, reaffirm commitment to continuing the struggle.   If you can, collaborate with other GLBT[related groups in your community, to create a gathering that is larger than just PFLAG;  that is all the better.  It not only makes PFLAG visible in the community, it becomes an opportunity to encourage both gay and straight allies to join!   As many said after our event,  "I didn't know how much I needed this until I got here."   We have to find ways to boost one another to keep on keeping on.   

 

And lest we forget----CONGRATULATIONS TO ARIZONA for defeating the Marriage Ban amendment in their state.   We all take hope from that.  And the knowledge that the strategy of talking about  financial costs to the straight community of restricting benefits to all non-married couples really works as a broad appeal for support!

 

  Jean Hodges, Co-President PFLAG Boulder

  Chair, Colorado Coalition of PFLAG Chapters

  PFLAG Mountain West Regional Director

 

 

Jean Hodges

6177 Olde Stage Road

Boulder, CO 80302

JeanI...@comcast.net

303-444-4580 (Home)