A national search has begun to find a new Executive Director for LGBT state lobbying group Equality California (EQCA). LGBT|POV’s Editor-in-Chief, Karen Ocamb, has been compiling a narrative history of this nationally-recognized organization and the organizations that preceded it. I encourage you to read it here.
As a companion project to Karen’s history series, I have organized a collection of Op-Ed articles written by LGBT Californians from across the state.
I asked them to respond to two questions:
- What is the most important quality we need in the next Executive Director of Equality California?
- What is the most important kind of work Equality California should focus on in the next five years?
I’m very proud of, and impressed by, the assembly of writers who have come together to contribute to this public discourse on our next steps as LGBT California. We hope you enjoy reading this series of varied points of view from people in our community. We will publish one Op-Ed a day for the next few weeks. The articles will be collected at the bottom of this page; click on any photo to read that person’s contribution.
Note: We reached out to representatives and organizers from Equality California and The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force for Op-Ed submissions, but both organizations declined to participate directly in this series. However, Equality California has arranged so that anyone can contact Morris & Burger, the executive search consultants managing the search for its new Executive Director, with their thoughts and questions about the process. –Syd Peterson
Ari Gutierrez |
Masen Davis |
Lisa Powell |
Richard Segal |
Lindasusan Ulrich |
Michael Armentrout |
Doreena Wong |
Vincent Jones |
Milton Davis |
Christine Marge |
Robin McGehee |
Scott Schmidt |
Sara Beth Brooks |
David Link |
Jason Scott |
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it is quite disappointing, to say the least, to see karen turning her site into a mouthpiece for EQCA, but so be it. i will continue to criticize this elitist org, oh, for things like no town hall meetings and no mechanism in place to hear from average community members. nice to see EQCA and their straight search firm, two months into the search process are reaching out to average gays. here is what i wrote on february 17:
http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2011/02/straight-firm-searches-for-new-gay.html
The last time Geoff Kors and his colleagues at Equality California hired a firm of heterosexuals to carry out work for them, and by extension all of the state’s gay community, was in 2008. During the disastrous $45 million No on 8 campaign to retain gay marriage, EQCA used the services of Dewey Square, a Sacramento-based political consultancy run by straight people.
What did Dewey Square and its main straight consultant to the No on 8 effort, Steve Smith, do for us? Among their lame decisions were the TV spots that didn’t talk about or feature gay couples, the failure to use a letter from candidate Barack Obama opposed to the measure, and they refused to debate the Yes on 8 side.
Now, Kors and EQCA have retained the services of the executive search firm Morris and Berger to locate a new executive director, and guess what? It’s a company run by heterosexuals and a straight person, Karin Berger Stellar, pictured, is in charge of the search. This means, yet again, a number of crucial decisions affecting the California gay community are being made by straight folks.
Oh, and just like the straight people at Dewey Square, their counterparts at Morris and Berger are not holding any public meetings to democratically engage the community. Why should Morris and Berger listen to average gays at town halls, get a sense of what we want from our next statewide leader, who will soon be speaking on behalf of all of us? Because the community deserves transparency in how our official leaders are chosen.
There is so much wrong with this corporate/professional approach to gay advocacy, starting with how disempowering and disenfranchising it is for the community at-large. Keeping the decision-making process behind tightly closed doors, allowing heterosexuals to have a bigger say than ordinary gays, and then one day announcing who our new statewide leader is incredibly unhealthy for the gay body politic.
Putting aside for a moment the heterosexual angle of the search firm, even if it were run by homosexuals, we would still have to address the lack of democracy at EQCA. Other than pricey galas beyond the reach of many average gays, there are no public forums put on by the group, allowing more of us to set our state’s gay agenda.
By no stretch of the imagination can EQCA be defined as democratic, small d, and truly representative of the full economic and political diversity of the Golden State’s gays.
One member of EQCA’s board recently climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, but like the rest of the board, can’t find her way to the San Francisco gay community center for regular public engagement with the community. Upon her return from Africa, the board member held, what else?, a fundraiser.
When Morris and Berger, and the folks at EQCA who hired them, soon enough deliver the news about who will be California’s designated leaders and spokesperson, it will be done without any voting having taken place among the rank and file. Only the A-gays on EQCA’s board and its rich donors will have been permitted a say in choosing our new leader.
The rest of us will just have to swallow the latest autocratic maneuvers of what is supposed to be our community group at the state level. This is no way to run a movement.
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