Terrance Heath asks Pelosi about family equality
David on Aug 4th 2007
Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend and Terrance Heath of the Republic of T (and gay father extraordinaire!) were two of the several bloggers that got to sit down with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for breakfast. You can read about the breakfast on Terrance’s blog, or by reading this post on Americablog.com.
Terrance, always being on message with family equality, asked the speaker a question about the many challenges that we face.
As a working father of a four-year-old, with another on the way [Ed. Note: At this point the Speaker gave me a big smile and said “Congratulations!”], and as a gay dad I’d like to hear more about strengthening families. How do we do it in a way that strengthens all families, and that recognizes the reality of diverse families; families where both parents work, families where parents aren’t married to each other, families where the parents can’t marry each other, single parents, etc.?
Pelosi “stammered” for a minute according to Terrance, and then responded with this paraphrasing: “we should already be there, and we can get there by supporting the current agenda.”
But what exactly does that mean? It means that, according to Pelosi, someday we’ll be able to legally secure family equality but we’re just not there yet. Pelosi doesn’t believe that rights we’re all fighting so hard to obtain are a current possibility. They’re not on her agenda, but maybe they will be in the future.
Pam’s commentary hits the nail on the head:
The fact of the matter is that too many who should be in our corner are “not there,” as in “we understand but are not willing to spend political capital on you — but please open your wallet for me.” There’s always some political obstacle standing in the way, and the onus has always been on LGBTs to convince the general public that we are entitled to civil rights taken for granted by most Americans. Many of our Democratic “allies” in office aren’t ready to come along until the public approval ratings hit the right target number for them to feel comfortable taking political risks (or, perhaps more accurately, doing the right thing).
That said, Speaker Pelosi is well-known as an ally for LGBT rights; she is working to pass the hate crimes bill and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. She will be the keynote speaker at HRC’s annual dinner, where she will receive the 2007 Equality award for her leadership on LGBT issues. It just shows you how some of these topics need better framing and more open discussion — we can all learn more on how to move these issues forward.
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