Asking & Telling: A Letter to Our Binational Families
By Steve Ralls on 12/02/2010 @ 01:17 PM
When I was first approached about working with the team at Immigration Equality, one of the first things I was told was, “We’d like you to help us do for LGBT immigrant families what you’ve helped do for ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
As some, but not all, of our supporters know, I spent nearly a decade working to repeal the military’s ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members. When I began that work in 1999, just about half of the country supported repealing the law; by the time I left that campaign in 2008, repeal was supported by 8 out of 10 Americans.
Today, Congress is closer than ever to ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” While I certainly don’t take all the credit for that success, I did learn some very important lessons over that decade about how to build winning campaigns. I think it’s important for our binational families to understand some of those lessons in our work to pass the Uniting American Families Act, too.
In recent weeks, I’ve heard many of our supporters ask: Why should we support the DREAM Act? Why isn’t UAFA moving as a standalone bill in the lame duck Congress? And, is Immigration Equality pushing as hard as it can for our families?
They are all fair questions, and their answers go to the very heart of how a winning campaign is built. These universal truths apply to almost every successful legislative campaign.
We need allies. The suffering, separation and pain of LGBT binational families facing exile is why all of us at Immigration Equality come to work every day. We know there are tens of thousands of you who are counting on us to win, and win quickly. The truth, however, is that legislation passes when public support reaches a critical “tipping point” that spills beyond the borders of just those who are directly impacted. Returning to the military reference, while we knew there were 65,000 LGBT service members in the armed forces, repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” really started moving forward when veterans organizations, straight military personnel and the larger LGBT and progressive movements lined up behind it. That’s how we got to 80% support for repeal.
How we got those groups behind us is important to understand, too.
When then-Senator Kennedy wanted to add a federal hate crimes law - which, like the DREAM Act, impacted the LGBT community as well as many others - to the Defense Authorization Bill, repeal advocates steadfastly stood with him, and supported the decision . . . even though that bill, at that time, did not include a repeal measure for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” LGBT troops understood that, by standing with their potential allies in one fight, they’d have a whole new army of supporters fighting with them when the time to move repeal came about.
The hate crimes measure passed — in large part because of those alliances that were built — and today, that same authorization bill is where repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” now resides.
Binational families have similar, important bridges that can be built now by supporting passage of the DREAM Act and other important immigration matters. If we do so — as we explained to Congress.org just last week — the long-term alliance will be strong, important and effective in passing UAFA that much sooner.
We need to pursue every option for winning, and not just one. It’s not often reported — but it’s true — that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal legislation wasn’t introduced as a stand-alone bill in the Senate until March 3, 2010. The option of moving repeal as a stand alone bill didn’t even exist in the Senate until earlier this year. And even when that measure was introduced, it was never pursued for passage as a single issue bill. The fate of repeal has always rested on a strategy built upon a larger legislative vehicle.
That, of course, doesn’t mean that stand alone bills aren’t important. They absolutely are. Using the repeal campaign as a reference again, it’s important to point out that the House repeal bill has been around since 2005. Building support for that measure was absolutely critical in building the case for its inclusion in a larger, “must pass” bill.
The same is true for UAFA. That is why Immigration Equality seizes every possible option for passing the bill. We ask every Congressional office to co-sponsor UAFA. And, we ask Congressional leaders on immigration to include it in larger bills. We know how time sensitive this issue is, and we support any possible way to win for you. In order to win, however, we need you to stand with us in supporting all of those options, too.
We need to be strategic. It is critical that all of our families understand that the Immigration Equality team is exploring every option for keeping you together. We have a bipartisan strategy ... we have an administrative strategy ... we have a legal strategy ... and we have a messaging strategy. Those are all built with our families’ best interests in mind. They are not all developed, however, for public consumption by those who are working on Capitol Hill to oppose us.
In the 12+ years I’ve been working in Washington, one rule has always been true: Giving away your full strategy is the surest way not to win. Indeed, putting every card on the public table allows political opposition to organize, strategize and out-maneuver you.
Each of us comes to work every day to fight for you. Which is what informs the most important point of all:
We are in this together. Questions are fair, and even necessary. We try to answer as many as we can. But, at the end of the day, it is our ability to unite behind, and build, our movement that will give us the power to win. We can’t do it alone ... we can’t do it with a one-track strategy ... and we can’t do it by helping our opposition. But we can do it if we build, and stand with, allies ... if we stand together in supporting every possible avenue for victory ... and if we trust in each other that, yes, all of us want the same victory and are committed to working – together – to make that happen.
I accepted Immigration Equality’s challenge because I believe — passionately— in our cause. I have a Vietnamese partner, and I have been moved beyond words by the stories of all of your families, too. But in order to keep my promise – that I will help Rachel, Julie and the rest of our team “do for binational families what I did for ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” I’ll need – and we’ll all need – your help, too.
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