A Platform of Ideas

The early reports from people in the LGBT media hinted that the Democratic Platform had left gays and lesbians out of the document entirely.

There was much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth for a few days until the final document was released.

Now all that seems a bit silly, and I have to wonder if it wasn’t a red herring being foisted on the gay media by someone on the right.

The Democratic Platform that has emerged will look about as LGBT-friendly as any in history. Though the words “gay” and “lesbian” are absent, the legal terminology that would be used in any law protecting LGBT rights is present in abundance.

The document talks about specifics like a national HIV/AIDS strategy, comprehensive employment non-discrimination legislation and repealing the “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy in the military.

Additionally, same-sex couples are specifically included in a passage on protections and equality for all families, and there is a groundbreaking addition of a pledge to fight discrimination based on “gender identity.”

When you add this to the strong language opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, the platform looks pretty good from a LGBT perspective.

LGBT leaders across the country who were involved in the process or who have been privy to the discussions leading up to the Platform Committee meetings agree that though the words, “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender” don’t appear in the platform their equivalents make it very strongly on the side of LGBT rights.

Personally, I think using more general terms like “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” make the platform stronger. These terms really have a much broader scope than LGBT, and would even include the emerging new group we often call “questioning.”

Additionally, it leaves fewer hot buttons for the religious right to jump on.

Remember: Most fundamentalist extremists have a problem grasping big ideas. They bury themselves in minutia. By nature they look for specific language in everything.

One only has to look at the online news site of that most fundamentalist of organizations — the American Family Association — OneNewsNow, where they began substituting the word “homosexual” for “gay.” That became a pretty embarrassing policy when Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay’s name was changed in a news blurb to “Mr. Tyson Homosexual.”

It’s just as well we don’t fall into the semantic traps that these kinds of groups set to snare any mention of gays or lesbians. Sadly, it’s a trap we often set for ourselves.

When we start trying to analyze a policy or document by the number of times key words are used, we become little more than “bean counters,” and we lose perspective.

I applaud the Democratic Party for diligently working to create a document that looks a lot more like a mission statement than one of the platforms of the past with lots of details but few big ideas.

This change I believe reflects the influence of Barack Obama’s campaign on the party.

Far too often, Democrats have been a party of policy points and not a party of ideas. In the past we have become lost in the minutia and failed to see the big picture.

The details of policy are things that will come from legislation. To become bogged down in them at this stage will only serve to make any kind of coalition building more difficult.

It will also give the Republicans easier targets for their negative sniping. They will do enough of that anyway without any help.

It will be refreshing to see a Democratic Platform that is intended to inspire the party to do great things rather than a laundry list of details that make even lawmakers’ eyes glaze over.

I haven’t seen the final platform yet, but an earlier draft of the platform, including the revisions that have been noted, gives a clearer view of what that vision will look like:

“Democrats will fight to end discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age and disability in every corner of our country, because that’s the America we believe in.”

That’s the America I believe in as well.


This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition August 15, 2008.


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