Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, blew it last week when, in an attempt to court evangelicals, he wrongly said on Pat Robertson's The 700 Club that the party platform states "marriage is between a man and a woman." It does not. But there's evidence that Dean did more than just misspeak – he's tried before to quash the party's attempt to recognize equality for all – and in so doing, we have serious reservations about the state of the party under his leadership.
Equally disturbing is the silence of some prominent Democrats – most notably Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco – who haven't publicly condemned Dean's mistake. It's as if the party leadership wants us to crawl under a rock and hide – except, of course, when it comes to soliciting campaign contributions. The Democratic Party hasn't learned from its bumbling of the election in 2004, when it ran away from same-sex marriage and its presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, sent conflicting signals. You remember Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, who opposed same-sex marriage in his own state, and during the height of the presidential race, supported a constitutional amendment in Missouri that prohibits same-sex marriage. He later said that supporting the amendment was a mistake (sort of along the lines of when he said he voted for financial support for the war in Iraq before he voted against it). Those were the days.
Dean's fumble last week is just the latest in a string of incidents that make us question his leadership. He eliminated the gay "outreach" desk at the DNC; he released his "Annual Report to the Grassroots" that didn't mention gay outreach at all; and he fired DNC LGBT outreach worker Donald Hitchcock after Hitchcock's partner, Paul Yandura, issued a blistering open letter critical of the party's leadership.
Now, we're entering the run-up to the congressional midterm elections in November, in which antigay marriage constitutional amendments are on the ballot in several states, and there appears to be no offensive strategy at a national level. DNC spokesman Damien LaVera said last week that the party "is working to develop a strategy" on LGBT issues. But of course, he couldn't say what that strategy is.
All of this is surprising – and frustrating – since Dean has long been a popular figure among LGBTs. Here in San Francisco, Dean had incredible support for his failed presidential bid – and a lot of that support came from the LGBT community. As Chris Crain of the Washington Blade noted on his blog, gays jumped on the Dean bandwagon early, and "organized all but one of Dean's fundraisers outside of Vermont in all of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003, according to a Washington Post report."
Yet some aren't surprised at all. Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) told us last week that soon after Dean became party chair in early 2005, he attended the state party convention in Los Angeles. Dean met with legislators and said the party should lead on women's issues, immigration, and others.
"So I used the opportunity to suggest he could better articulate LGBT civil rights issues," Leno said. "He got very defensive. He said we're not going to win Senate seats in Kentucky talking about gay marriage."
Leno also recalled that the day after Dean became party chair, he was quoted as saying that the party didn't support gay marriage. So Dean's comment last week wasn't surprising in historical context.
We already know that Republicans don't support us (despite all the recent publicity surrounding out lesbian Mary Cheney and her book), and will barrel ahead with a vote on the federal marriage amendment next month. And while we're aware that the Democratic Party has its own issues with us, it's disingenuous that a political party that claims to represent "hardworking American families" can't even muster the guts to stand up to the right-wing attacks on gays and lesbians. We need to be more than a link on the DNC Web site. We need total support within the party. And that's not the kind of leadership Dean is providing.