Guest Post: Touching Down in the Flyover States

Touching Down in the Flyover States: A 50-State Strategy for the LGBT Movement

By April Barton

Note: It's a thrill to post this piece by April Barton, a friend, a gifted community organizer and a native Iowan. The original, full text of this piece, which includes in-depth analysis and recommendations, can be found below the fold.

Last week, my wife, Adrienne, and I had a two-hour layover in Milwaukee, WI, on a trip between Boston, where we live, and Iowa, where I grew up and my family still lives. Adrienne spent our layover buried in her law books, and I took the time to read Star Magazine, order a Bloody Mary, and contemplate the state of the LGBT movement. 

Adrienne and I were married when we took off from Boston, and we would be married again when we landed in Des Moines, thanks to the recent ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court. But for the two hours and fourteen minutes that we spent in the Milwaukee airport, Adrienne was a legal stranger to me.  Like Iowa, Wisconsin is often characterized as a “fly over” state by East and West Coasters.  I asked myself, “what exactly is the status of same-sex marriage and other LGBT rights in Wisconsin?”  The answer: I have no idea.  Would you? 

In contrast, I know the status of the same-sex marriage in California, Vermont, Oregon, Washington, and New Jersey and other coastal states.  I travel through Wisconsin three or four times a year but only have been to these coastal states a handful of times in my life.  So why do I know so much about my rights as a gay woman in places I rarely go, but know so little about them in a place I regularly visit?
The answer can be traced to something I call “trickle down civil rights,” which has shaped the national strategy of the LGBT movement for too long now. The movement has been operating under assumption that progress must first happen in progressive enclaves along the coasts and then spread to the rest of the country.

An example of this is that the national LGBT community was heavily encouraged to give to the No on 8 campaign in California this fall but there was little national support for campaigns happening simultaneously in Arizona, Florida or Arkansas. And it’s the reason why, on April 7, 2009, Alan Van Capelle, the Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, wrote an email to the organization’s subscribers titled, “I'm embarrassed for New York State.”  He expressed his concern that New York was “falling behind” after Iowa and Vermont legalized gay marriage before New York.  Two days later, in an opinion piece in the New York Times, Susan Dominus wrote that Iowa legalizing gay marriage before New York was a blow to the self-regard of many New Yorkers. 

These pieces highlight a mistaken assumption: that the people living on the coast set the tone for the country in everything, from fashion to civil rights, and that somehow a “conservative” state beat places like New York to the LGBT equality punch. 

But the Iowa decision demonstrates we should not assume that our country will or can only progress by making gains in states located on the coast first, for example, winning gay marriage in every New England state and waiting for this to somehow percolate down and turn into hate crimes legislation in Alabama. 

Like its economic counterpart, this trickle-down approach to civil rights has proven to be flawed and dangerous.  It is flawed because it fails to recognize where real and substantial progress can be made when messaged and delivered in the right way; it is dangerous because it risks leaving part of our country (and LGBT folks who live and travel there) without satisfactory legal rights.  Seeing the limitations of this approach, we should change course.

Sitting unmarried in Wisconsin on my way to a Midwestern state that has legalized same-sex marriage, I was hit with the following thoughts: 1) we, the LGBT movement, need to change the way we are doing work in this country by believing that change can happen everywhere and put energy and resources into making progress, even if in small increments, across the country; and 2) in order to do this, we need to plug into the resources that already exist and give people from every state, not just the coasts, a seat at the table to determine how best to make progress across this country. In short, we need a 50 State Strategy that entails thinking broadly --  what can be accomplished across the country -- and acting locally -- what makes sense to do in my community to gain equality.

Contributor's Bio: April Barton currently lives Boston, MA with her wife. She was born and raised in Iowa and visits her family in Des Moines often. She is an Organizational Development and Adult Learning specialist.  She is also a community organizer in the LGBT community, and helped to lead efforts to engage the Boston community in the No on 8 campaign in 2008. She has an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, Teacher's College.

The original, full text of this piece, which includes in-depth analysis and recommendations, can be found below the fold.

Touching Down in the Flyover States: A 50-State Strategy for the LGBT Movement

by April Barton

I am currently sitting in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, airport during a two-hour layover on a trip from Boston, Massachusetts, to Des Moines, Iowa.  I am flying home to celebrate a combination of my 30th birthday, my grandparents’ 54th anniversary, and Easter.   My wife, Adrienne, has responsibly taken advantage of this brief respite to bury herself in law books before we begin the “family tour.” I quickly became bored of wandering alone in the airport and decided to find a productive activity before I started to think the “Cows Make the Best Tipping” t-shirts were clever or sat down to order a bad Bloody Mary at the airport bar (drinking alone in an airport at 9:14 a.m. is just sad). 

In a thinly veiled attempt to increase my feeling of self-importance and impress my wife, I pulled out my computer to make it appear I had urgent and important things to get done. Unfortunately they are charging $7.99 for internet access (more than a Bloody Mary!), so reading my horoscope online was out.  That left me with the following options:  read Star Magazine, (which, sitting next to someone reading a book ominously titled “Secured Transactions,” was unlikely to increase my feelings of importance), play solitaire (which, since I always lose, could also negatively impact my self-esteem) or think deep thoughts.  After quickly looking over “Who Wore it Best” in Star Magazine at the newspaper stand, I opted for deep thoughts. 

While doing this, and mentally sending Adrienne messages to put down the book and talk to me, I realized that in this airport she was not legally my wife.  We had been married when we took off from Boston this morning, and we would again be married once we landed in Des Moines.  But sitting here in Milwaukee, she was a legal stranger to me.  Adrienne and I travel out of Massachusetts together often, and despite all of the potential legal and personal catastrophes that could befall us on our travels, I rarely think about this fact because I can’t get in a tizzy every time we cross state lines.  This time, however, our relationship’s legal limbo impacted me, because Iowa legalized gay marriage just four days before this visit, making our “unmarried status” limited to the span of only two hours and fourteen minutes.  (I am not sure what our legal status is in the air but I will ask Adrienne to look it up when she puts down her monstrosity of a book).  The fact that loving, committed and stable marriages can become legally defunct during this time caused my “deep thinking time” to become “really angry lesbo time.” 

Before allowing my thoughts to unravel into angry rants, I realized that I know very little about Wisconsin other than the fact that the state produces cheese, is the home of the Green Bay Packers and, like Iowa, is characterized as a “fly over” state by East and West Coasters.  I asked myself, “what exactly is the status of same-sex marriage and other LGBT rights in Wisconsin?”  I couldn’t help but notice: I have no idea.  Would you?  I don’t know what is already being done in Wisconsin to secure LGBT rights, I don’t know where to go and find out, I don’t know what kind of messaging would work well here, and I could not begin to articulate the best next steps. I am not from California, but I know the status of the same-sex marriage there.  Same is true for Vermont, Oregon, Washington, and other coast states.  I travel through Wisconsin three or four times a year but only have been to California, Vermont, Oregon and Washington a handful of times in my life.  So why do I know so much about my rights as a gay woman in places I rarely go, but know so little about them in a place I regularly visit?

During a moment of clarity, I have to admit I allowed an underlying (although often unspoken) assumption that the coasts are “winnable” while the rest of the country “just isn’t there yet” pervade my thinking.  Sitting unmarried in Wisconsin on my way to a Midwest state that has legalized same-sex marriage, I am hit with the following thoughts:

1) we, the LGBT movement, need to change the way we are doing work in this country by believing that change can happen everywhere and put energy and resources into making progress, even if in small increments, across the country; and

2) in order to do this, we need to plug into the resources that already exist and give people from every state, not just the coasts, a seat at the table to determine how best to make progress across this country. In short, we need a 50 State Strategy that entails thinking broadly [i.e., what can be accomplished across the country] and acting locally [i.e., what makes sense to do in my community to gain equality].

Now, how did I get here and what do I mean?

Let me say upfront that I am a full-fledged, card-carrying, liberal-loving East Coaster.  I have a station wagon and I can pronounce all of the highly competitive liberal arts colleges to boot.  Even so, I always will be an Iowan at heart.  In fact, I have been known to deliver a three-pronged argument about why Iowa is the best state in the union (that is a subject for another time) to a graduate from aforementioned highly competitive liberal arts colleges once I manage to corner them at a party after a beer or four.   Before moving to Boston, I lived in New York City for six years, which is where I met Adrienne who was born and raised in New York City (don’t worry fellow Bostonians, she is a Mets fan).  After countless conversations with East Coasters and living there for ten years, I have a pretty good understanding of what people on the East Coast think of Iowans and why many of them were surprised that Iowa legalized gay marriage. And I believe the sentiments expressed in the face of the Iowa decision highlight the major road blocks to our seeing progress across the country.

First, we need to move away from the assumption that progress will first happen on the coast and then spread to the rest of the country.  On April 7, 2009, Alan Van Capelle, the Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, wrote an email to the organization’s subscribers titled, “I'm embarrassed for New York State.”  He expressed his concern that New York was “falling behind” after Iowa and Vermont legalized gay marriage before New York.  Two days later, in an opinion piece in the New York Times, Susan Dominus wrote that Iowa legalizing gay marriage before New York was a blow to the self-regard of many New Yorkers.  In my experience, these pieces highlight a flawed and dangerous assumption I see our movement making, namely that the people living on the coast set the tone for the country in everything, from fashion to civil rights, and that somehow we can’t imagine how a “conservative” state beat places like New York to the LGBT equality punch. 

We should not assume that our country will or can only progress by making gains in states located on the coast first, for example, winning gay marriage in every New England state and waiting for this to somehow percolate down and turn into hate crimes legislation in Alabama.   This is what I call the “trickle down equal rights argument.”  Like its economic counterpart, this reasoning and strategy is flawed and dangerous.  Among other reasons, it is flawed because it fails to recognize where real and substantial progress can be made when messaged and delivered in the right way; it is dangerous because it risks leaving part of our country (and LGBT folks who live and travel there) without satisfactory legal rights.

This assumption also may, over time, improperly allocate our time, effort and energy.  I believe that one of the underlying reasons why organized, large-scale efforts led by gay rights activists and organizations have focused on states like California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York is because of this coast-centric strategy.  I understand why people made this assumption; I made this assumption!  In the months leading up to the November elections, I dedicated many hours and made several donations to the No on 8 campaign in California while doing nothing to support those that were working on marriage equality in my native state.  For starters, California was a ballot initiative and the Iowa case was quietly making its way through the court system.  Supporting a campaign that was targeting voters (as opposed to judges) to defeat a ballot initiative seemed like a good way to get involved. Furthermore, there was an active campaign working on the ground and sending me daily emails that made it a whole lot easier to get involved.

But if I am going to do real soul-searching during my deep thinking time I have to admit that there is a third, perhaps more truthful, reason why I spent time on California: I thought it was filled with like-minded liberal flag-waving people.  But as an Iowan, I should have known better.  This doesn’t mean I regret getting involved with the No on 8 Campaign.    I think that we should have, and should continue to, fight hard for marriage equality in California.  It does, however, make me ask myself some tough questions about the assumptions I made and how I will spend my time and money going forward.

The LGBT movement needs to shift how it is thinking and working.  We need to start believing that change can happen everywhere.  Take Iowa.   Reading through the Iowa decision, I was struck by how rooted it was in the culture of Iowa.  The concerns expressed by the Court were familiar to me.  For example, the decision’s description of Iowans as “responsible, caring, and productive individuals” rings very true to me.  In my experience, most Iowans are very nice and non-judgmental people who are friends with their neighbors.  They don’t get involved in their neighbors’ business.  They are not the type of people who want to make a group of people second class citizens in their state.  The rationale laid out in this decision, and one can presume the arguments made by the plaintiffs, are very Iowan. 

The decision is not filled with hard to understand arguments focused on legal theory.  It draws simple, concrete similarities between heterosexual and LGBT people in Iowa before determining that these similar people should have similar marriage laws.  In fact, the Court begins every sentence of the opinion with something akin to “Like all Iowans” to highlight ways in which gays and lesbians are identical to heterosexual Iowans until the court declares, “Unlike opposite-sex couples in Iowa, same-sex couples are not permitted to marry in Iowa.”  It addresses practical concerns based on what is best for the people of Iowa in a way that resonates with Iowans.  This is why I am not surprised the Supreme Court of Iowa legalized gay marriage and this is why I think if we start working on a campaign that is tailored to communities of people living in Iowa now we can defeat backlash that is currently gaining momentum in the State.  Likewise, if we tailor our efforts to other communities in which we are working, I believe we can make progress there too.

This brings me to my second point: we need to value, draw attention to and celebrate progress being
made everywhere.  We need to plug into the resources that already exist and figure out what the people living in these communities believe is possible and what they think is the right message to deliver.  We need to see this struggle as a 50 state effort.  We need to ask people what it would mean to make progress where they live and how we can create a message that will resonate with their neighbors, families, and friends.  Progress might mean same-sex marriage in New Hampshire, but it might mean an LGBT-safe school for Alabama queer youth or a city ordinance protecting housing discrimination based on sexuality in Kentucky.  I know that it will be necessary for specific organizations to prioritize but also I know that by thinking creatively and working together we can begin building on small wins to create real change in the country.  This does not mean we suddenly need to secure tons more resources or create a new national non-profit organization.  What it means is that we have to engage more people by changing our way of thinking and working. 

This is why I am calling on you, the people across this country who want to see LGBT folks have equal rights, to start thinking broadly and acting locally.  I have ideas about what this could look like in Iowa and I know you have ideas about what this would look like where you live. 

So let’s put our heads together to share stories and begin a national dialogue.  What stories can you share that we can all learn from?  What are you working on to bring equality to where you live?  What ideas do you have for actions like-minded people can take?  What skills or resources do you need to continue or start doing this work?  What can you bring to the table to help others?  What do we need to support an on-going dialogue: a national email listserve, a website, a Facebook group, a national conference for like-minded people? 

In the meantime, you know where to find me. I am the one in the Milwaukee airport drinking a Bloody Mary and reading STAR. 

Oh, and thank you Iowa.  I promise I won’t ever forget where my heart lies again.

Contributor's Bio: April Barton currently lives Boston, MA with her wife. She was born and raised in Iowa and visits her family in Des Moines often. She is an Organizational Development and Adult Learning specialist.  She is also a community organizer in the LGBT community, and helped to lead efforts to engage the Boston community in the No on 8 campaign in 2008. She has an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, Teacher's College.