Daniel Graney
As David Taffet mentioned the other day, Freedom to Marry is pushing for the Democratic National Committee to add a pro-marriage equality plank to its platform — and prominent members like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have signed on to the effort. Meanwhile, here in Texas, state Democratic Party leaders are apparently afraid to even ask primary voters whether they support marriage equality.
Back in November we reported that the State Democratic Executive Committee had voted 33-22 against placing a non-binding resolution on the primary ballot calling for same-sex couples to receive “equal access to civil marriage and all its benefits,” and stating that “all state and federal laws denying such access should be repealed.”At the time we noted that two openly gay SDEC members from Tarrant County had actually voted against the proposal.
Now, the president of the state Democratic Party’s LGBT caucus reports that the proposal resurfaced at an SDEC meeting on Feb. 11 — only to be shot down again, apparently by an even wider margin. Daniel Graney, president of the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus, writes at QSanAntonio:
This time the “no” vote came on a procedural matter. Garry Brown, an SDEC member from Austin, made a motion to bring back the marriage equality resolution for reconsideration in general session. State Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie ruled Brown’s motion out of order “because this was already voted on at the last SDEC meeting and was defeated.”
Brown appealed Chairman Richie’s ruling. A voice vote was taken on the appeal. The outcome of the voice vote was unclear and a division of the house was called. Only 16 members stood in support of the appeal and more than 40 stood in support of the Chairman’s ruling.
“I am very disappointed in the leadership of the Texas Democratic Party,” said Daniel Graney, President of the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus.
“Many of these SDEC officials privately tell LGBT Democrats that they are with us on marriage equality and yet, they vote against us in public. Some of these officials who voted against us are LGBT, which makes this even more disgusting. The SDEC is clearly on the wrong side of history here.”
This just goes to show how entrenched North Texas actually is by Christian Theology and legislated Morals. We the people need to cut the strings of the puppet masters. They have 2 hands Left and Right. Notice how neither side accomplishes anything for LGBT Rights in our area! Let’s not even discuss the lack of HRC pressure and/or support … I mean False Flag Groups…think of all the local ones, they always want money, but what is being done? Can we get some transparency please!!! Texas ranks 4th highest GLB population in the Nation behind New York (3), Florida (2), and California (1).<--See Wikipedia Gay Village. Texas is also the 2nd most populated state in the NATION....gee what a cash cow for supposed politico minority groups to milk! It's time to separate the men from the boys, so the boys can actually get married, not contract HIV, and avoid AA's- 12 steps to reparative therapy or the porn industry! The time has always been NOW!
what is happening here is an extension of the opportunistic “Republicans in Democratic clothing” routine to which unfortunately we have become accustomed in Texas for the past three decades, since the onslaught of the Bush/Connely/Cornyn circus.
Shameful. History will note these Democrats were not on the right side.
Putting this question on the ballot would do *nothing* to help progress towards marriage equality, could have negative electoral consequences for pro-LGBT candidates in the general election and very well could have failed, producing a black eye for both Texas Democrats and the LGBT community. Not putting this on the ballot was the right call.
I am a proud gay man, and I fully believe now is NOT the time to put this on the primary ballot. Texas liberals are outnumbered 2 to 1 by conservatives. If we put it on the ballot, we are sure to get blasted by the conservatives just waiting to use gay marriage as another way to win big at the polls. Now is not the time to allow right wingers to use us as pawns. Right now, we are on the right track in other states. At some point the supreme court will be forced to rule on this issue at which point, there is no turning back for even the right wingers in Texas. We all need to play this right or sit our movement back decades. The Stonewall caucus is always causing problems and has never understood how to fight properly. If we want to win, we have to play the gay right. Just yelling the loudest doesn’t win the game in the end.
I and the gay and straight people around me feel the same as commenter Kirk, “Putting this question on the ballot would do nothing to help progress towards marriage equality, [and] could have negative electoral consequences for pro-LGBT candidates in the general election….” Its easy to see why Democrat party leaders are using this strategy after reading the comments from Lamposterity and Nathan who seem to make decisons based on prejudice, inaccuracy and Wikipedia information.