After months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, top officials at the Democratic National Committee last week turned down a proposal by the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus to add gays to the party’s affirmative action rules for selecting delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

DNC officials instead agreed to create a new “inclusion” section to the party’s delegate selection rules that recognizes the “LGBT community and people with disabilities” as underrepresented groups within the party.

“The national and state parties shall adopt and implement ‘Inclusion Programs’ in order to achieve the full participation of members of these and other groups in the delegate selection process and in all party affairs, as indicated by their presence in the Democratic electorate,” the proposed rule says.

 “As is already the practice in some states,” the proposed rule says, “state parties may use goals to achieve these ends; however, in no event may such participation be accomplished by the use of quotas.”

Gay caucus members said Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean endorsed the proposed “inclusion” rule late last week and his backing may well lead to its approval by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee and the full DNC when both bodies meet Aug. 18-19 in Chicago.

A DNC spokesperson did not return a call by press time, and Dean’s support for the proposal could not be confirmed.

Gay Democratic activists and party insiders had differing views on the importance of the compromise proposal. Some said it gives gay caucus members most of what they wanted, while others said it merely rehashes the party’s existing, non-binding outreach policies toward gays.

 “This new rule is really, really good,” said Rick Stafford, chair of the DNC’s 15-member Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus. “It gets us what we want, and it’s a great opportunity for the LGBT community to work with the state parties in the delegate selection process.”

Stafford said the main objective of gay caucus members was to persuade state Democratic parties to elect or appoint more openly gay delegates to future Democratic conventions. Stafford noted that at least 18 states already include gays in their own affirmative action rules. Many other states , especially in the South and Midwest, have never sent openly gay delegates to Democratic conventions, he said.

Rule has ‘no teeth’

John Marble, spokesperson for the National Stonewall Democrats, a gay partisan group, and Garry Shay, the gay DNC member from California who introduced the original “gay” affirmative action proposal, said they, too, were pleased with the compromise rule.

“The language is strong enough that we can live with it,” said Marble.
But Donald Hitchcock, the DNC’s former gay outreach director, said the proposed rule has “no teeth” because it does not require state parties to set specific goals for selecting gay delegates.

Dean fired Hitchcock earlier this year after his domestic partner, longtime gay Democratic activist Paul Yandura, questioned Dean’s commitment to helping gays fight anti-gay ballot measures surfacing in several states.

Hitchcock this week said he was reflecting the views of a number of prominent gay Democrats who are angry that party leaders did not back the initial proposal by Shay to add gays to the party’s affirmative action rule. Hitchcock said the gay Democrats he spoke to were reluctant to reveal their identities because they don’t want to damage their relations with Dean.

He said the language in the proposed rule reiterates language the party has adopted in the past in various rules and party outreach documents that address gays and gay rights.

Hitchcock said he and others he spoke to within the party were especially troubled that the substitute “Inclusion Policy” adds new language to the affirmative action section, known as Rule 6 of the party’s delegate selection rules, that appears to prevent gays and other groups from being added in the future.

The new language says those qualified for affirmative action should be linked to groups of Americans that historically have been denied the right to vote. The groups now covered under the party’s affirmative action rules are “African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Native Americans, Asian/Pacific Americans and women.”

Shay’s initial proposal called for adding “lesbians and gays” to this list of groups eligible for the party’s affirmative action program.

Opening the ‘floodgate’?

Stafford and Marble said opposition surfaced to adding gays to the affirmative action rule by some African-American DNC members who worried that adding more affirmative action groups would result in fewer delegates from the existing groups, including African Americans.

 “We argued that this would not happen,” said Marble. Marble said National Stonewall Democrats and gay caucus members vowed to help recruit and elect more openly gay African Americans, who would become “twofers” to fulfill the categories of gays and African Americans.

One DNC insider, who asked not to be identified because he didn’t want to alienate party leaders he works with, said the main reason DNC officials opposed opening the affirmative action rule to gays was the “floodgate” factor.

“They were worried that opening this up to gays would open the way for every other group not currently included in affirmative action to demand to be added to the list,” said the DNC source.

 “I am quite satisfied at the outcome, and believe it is a major step forward for our community in terms of eliminating under-representation in party affairs,” Shay said on Aug. 1

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