Stonewall Democrats of Dallas will celebrate its 15th anniversary tonight, during the group’s regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Ojeda’s on Maple Avenue.
“October marks the 15th anniversary when founders Bill Fry, Christy Kinsler, Gary Fitzsimmons & Michael Milliken gathered in a living room and created our organization,” the group wrote in an email Monday. “I don’t know if they realized where we would be today, but I sure am glad they did it! A warm hearted thank you to our founders, and especially to each and every one of you who has made SDD grow and develop into what we are today!”
Featured speakers at tonight’s meeting will be Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippens-Poole, who’ll talk about the new voter ID law, and County Democratic Party Executive Director Steve Tillery, who’ll talk about constitutional amendments on the November ballot. And yes, there will be cake!
Meanwhile, National Stonewall Democrats Michael Mitchell announced his resignation Monday after two years in the position. Mitchell, almost laid off earlier this year due to budget problems, told Metro Weekly the national group is “struggling” to raise money due to the bad economy and the fact that the mainstream Democratic Party has become so pro-LGBT. National Stonewall currently has only six of 15 board positions filled (including Erin Moore of Dallas), but the group’s leaders insist there’s still a place for the organization — largely because of the 70 local chapters like Stonewall Democrats of Dallas. From interim executive director Jerame Davis: “It doesn’t matter how good the DNC is on LGBT issues, if, for instance, the Democratic Party in Mississippi is horrible and they elect a Democrat to Congress that doesn’t care about the LGBT community. The work is never-ending, regardless of how things might look in Washington or however many successes we might have on a national level, there’s still a lot of work to be done in the various states.”
As Communications Chair for Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, I would like to respond. It’s very important that readers and members alike understand that “Stonewall Democrats” is not a top-down organization. We are much more of a bottom-up organization – consisting of nearly 100 local “affiliates” of Stonewall Democrats across the United States. Each affiliate is fairly autonomous in it’s organization and structure. We do not collect vast sums of money to send to our national office in Washington D.C. – but instead spend 95% of the funds we do receive – right here in local elections – in the Dallas area. We do not send 50% or 75% of our funds to our National office – as do some other organizations. “National” Stonewall Democrats is merely the link that unites all of the various autonomous independent affiliate chapters together. Fundraising has always been a challenge for our National organization because each local affiliate has a strong emphasis on keeping the money locally – and as a result the National Executive Director of Stonewall Democrats has always received a VERY LOW salary and bare bones operating budget by most GLBT organization standards. I personally would like to see a ‘stronger’ national presence for Stonewall Democrats however – while never forgetting than our primary mission is
to use funds raised from our members/supporters back into the local community in an effort to turn out the GLBT vote for Democratic candidates. So while we do go through rather frequent National Executive Director changes at Stonewall – I can assure you that the organization will continue to thrive going forward as a “confederation of affiliates” well into the future. Remaining focused locally, rather than building a large and powerful national organization has been a ‘conscious decision’ among many leaders of Stonewall Democrats across the nation.
JAY NAREY – COMMUNICATIONS CHAIR – STONEWALL DEMOCRATS OF DALLAS