North Carolina Congressman Brad Miller and Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank at a MeckPAC sponsored luncheon earlier this month held at the VanLandingham Estate.
Congressman Barney Frank was in Charlotte earlier this month. Frank doesn’t need any kind of introduction here — if you’re part of the LGBT community then more than likely you know who he is. The openly gay representative has consistently been re-elected in his home state of Massachusetts over and over since 1981 — pretty much making him our man on the hill when it comes to gay and lesbian issues.
Since he initially came out in 1987, he’s always been there to stand up for LGBT civil rights. For me — he’s become one of those iconic figures like Ted Kennedy or Coretta Scott King. It’s hard to imagine the world without them — but as we know in the case of King, even our icons are mortal.
Frank was in town to rally support for North Carolina Congressman Brad Miller who represents District 13 and has been a valuable ally of the LGBT community in the U.S. Congress.
A native of Fayetteville, Miller served in the North Carolina State House of Representatives from 1992 until 1994 and the North Carolina State Senate from 1996 to 2002. Later in 2002, Miller was elected to represent North Carolina in the United States House of Representatives. He’s been reelected twice over since that time and just this year was appointed chairman of the new Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.
If you keep up with the website DailyKos — you’ll probably know that he’s an occasional contributor to the progressive blog.
Most importantly, Miller received a 100 score on the HRC’s Congressional Scorecard — which means all of his actions in regards to LGBT issues have been favorable.
If you’re not educated about which politicians are our allies and those that are not — take a look at the HRC website and download the most recent scorecard.
As we prepare for the 2008 Presidential elections and hopefully a time that will set in motion positive changes for our society — it’s important that we be prepared to do what is necessary to get America back on a respectable, progressive track.
Ever wonder how we got where we are today?
“The evangelicals figured it out, about 30 years ago,” says Equality NC’s Ed Farthing. “They looked at the Republican Party and realized that was where they could get a foothold on a grassroots level.”
We’ve talked about precinct organizing in Q-Notes before and how important it is in getting a foot in the door of the political process beyond the act of voting.
According to Farthing, evangelicals took control of the Republican Party, initially, by attending precinct meetings.
Craig Berkman, a moderate former chairman of the Republican Party in Oregon explains their undertaking succinctly in an interview published in The Nation.
“They have acquired a very detailed and accurate understanding of how political parties are organized,” Berkman explained. “Parties are very susceptible to being taken over by ideologues because lower party offices have no appeal to the vast majority of our citizenry. Many precincts are represented by no one. If you decide all of a sudden because it’s your Christian duty to become a precinct representative, you only need a few votes to get elected.
“Increasingly, they have the key say-so on who will be a delegate at the national convention, and who will write the party platform and nominate the presidential candidate. In a state like Oregon, with 600,000 registered Republicans, it is possible for 2000 or 3000 people to control the state party apparatus. If they are outvoted by one or two votes, parliamentary manipulations begin, and after two or three hours of discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, the more reasonable people with other things to do leave, and in the wee hours of the morning, things are decided. That’s how they achieve their objectives.”
Farthing concurs with that assessment and insists that it’s through becoming involved with your local neighborhood precinct that we can keep the progressive ball rolling.
“You only have to attend a precinct meeting once to be able to vote,” he explains. “Not very many people attend these meetings — so if eight or nine people showed up they could probably take over. In a place like Mecklenburg County, for example, I’m sure there are at least ten queers in every neighborhood!”
To find out your precinct meeting dates in both North and South Carolina, Farthing suggests you visit your state political party website. Some websites will list the meeting date, others will list your county chairperson, who you can email and ask for the date.
As our society continues to ebb and flow and evolve — it becomes increasingly important that we take responsibility to educate ourselves on ways to make positive change. We can’t sit idly by and let our icons do all the work for us.
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