Tea Party incites LGBT activists
The massive Tea Party rally in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-Nev.]'s hometown on Saturday, March 27, drew former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and thousands of others, but some LGBT activists maintain socially conservative ideologies lay just under the surface of anti-health care reform and anti-Washington rhetoric.
Pointing to the anti-gay slurs Congressman Barney Frank [D-Mass.] faced on Capitol Hill on the eve of the passage of health care reform and racist undertones of a handful of Tea Partiers, these activists encourage LGBT Americans to not dismiss them.
Derek Washington, president of the Southern Nevada Stonewall Democrats, attended the Searchlight rally with a group of other LGBT and progressive activists.
"I saw a lot of anger in Searchlight, people who want to shut down free speech and I definitely think this is a group that bears watching," he told EDGE. "If they feel that way about [President] Obama and that every Democrat is a Socialist, I can only imagine what they think of the gay community. Some people who are truly hateful and racist have co-opted the group and we need to pay attention to their tactics."
Darlene Nipper, deputy executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, agrees LGBT activists should not ignore Tea Partiers, but she adds that, "we shouldn't play their games on their terms either." Nipper questioned whether the movement has, in fact, gained political clout amid extensive national media coverage.
"I'm not sure how big the Tea Party is?" she told EDGE. "Somehow there's a perception that it's a large group, but I'm not sure it's true."
Nipper reiterated her previous argument.
"If we call them out, it's got to be on our terms," she added. "It's important for our community to keep its eyes on the prize. We shouldn't let ourselves get caught up in the back and forth on this rhetoric."
Candice Nichols, director of the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada stated she "learned a long time ago that extremists aren't worthy of spending time and energy on." Log Cabin Republicans did not return EDGE's request for comment, but Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network, advocates for a more organized response. His group, known for their street activism, has begun organizing a counter-demonstration against a forthcoming rally in the Windy City.
"In economic times like these, we need to be on top of the fact that the right wing is going to attempt to use these difficulties as a means of scapegoating and passing discriminatory legislation as a means of offering up their own solution," he said. "We need to counter that movement."
Thayer further described what he described as the dangers of the Tea Party movement.
"The Tea Party phenomenon has given the far-right movement a ripe recruiting ground they will take advantage of," he said. "The danger of this movement is not just in that it could take power, a very remote possibility, but if they gain even a little bit of power, the kind of damage they can do through violent attacks is immense."
Conjuring an admittedly extreme example of economic difficulties in pre-Nazi Germany, Thayer argues desperate times can often lead to "delusional politics" gaining a following. According to the Socialist Worker, the more than 900 Southern Poverty Law Center-defined "hate groups" currently operating in the United States are small but "growing--and in some cases, attempting to unify."
Thayer urges LGBT activists to follow a "theme of solidarity" in countering these groups' often anti-immigrant, racist, homophobic rhetoric, resisting the "divide and conquer" line of thought.
"History has shown that, given the right conditions, people of these extreme politics can develop a following and that puts people at risk," he added.
For his part, Washington hopes to see LGBT activists beat Tea Partiers at their own game--borrowing some of their civil disobedient, media-friendly political theatrics and adapting them for their own means. He is emboldened by recent action from groups like the recently formed Get Equal grassroots organization, but Washington remains dissatisfied by what he describes as inaction from the Human Rights Campaign, the Task Force and other "Gay, Inc." groups.
"We need to stop having cocktail parties and start hitting the streets," he said
Nipper insists there is a place for both street-based actions and lobbying in LGBT activists' response to far-right organizing, in addition to a healthy amount of questioning the movement's political leaders.
"I think there's a role for all of us in our movement," Nipper said. "We need agitators to be there making sure the people in these power positions are representing the people whose needs they claim to address."