How Queer Activists Are Getting the Better of Conservatives

http://www.alternet.org/activism/155858/how_queer_activists_are_getting_the_better_of_conservatives/

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LGBT organizations are behaving in unconventional ways – and their strategies may just outfox conservative bigotry in the long run.

Take the organizing around New York City’s “stop and frisk” program. In 2011, the NYPD stopped nearly 700,000 people, mostly young Black and Latino men. Nine out of 10 were innocent of wrongdoing. So what do we make of Al Sharpton, the NAACP, and LGBT mainstream groups all working together to stage a protest later this month at NYC police headquarters?

This promising alliance beyond simple identity politics – highlighted in Kate Taylor’s recent New York Times article, “ Black Leaders and Gay Advocates March in Step ” – shows both that we are all getting more sophisticated politically and that the “divide” between gays and Blacks is largely the result of manipulation by the Right. The court-ordered release of documents last March from Maggie Gallagher’s anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage illuminated the ulterior motive for opposing same-sex marriage: “The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies.”

While the Right continues to skillfully use homophobia and racism as tools in its overall strategy to seek and maintain power, its campaigns are losing support. Queer activists have managed to win substantial victories in the recent past with little attention from mainstream media. Their success is not the result of an untethered shift in public opinion. It is evidence that queer groups are learning how to out-organize their opponents.

However, a dynamic of victory and pushback also exists, in which the Right capitalizes on every equality milestone to mobilize its own followers. Last month, members of the anti-LGBT Right like Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, lauded President Obama’s decision to come out in favor of same-sex marriage as handing Republican challenger Mitt Romney “the key to social conservative support.”