Panel Voices: After civil unions pass, what’s the next top issue for Colorado’s LGBT community?

Jace Woodrum, Phil Nash, Karl Wesley and George Gramer weigh in on this week’s question.

Jace Woodrum 

Colorado’s LGBT community is beautifully diverse. We cross the boundaries of race, ethnicity, class, ability, gender identity and more. It is in this diversity that I find our community’s inspiring strength, power and promise.

Although beautiful, the diversity of our community makes it difficult for us to unite around one single issue. And in fact, maybe we shouldn’t focus on only one issue at a time. Do we ask queer youth to wait for safe schools or inclusive curriculum while we secure marriage for same-sex couples? Do we ask transgender Coloradans to go without access to healthcare while we work to end the violence that plagues our community?

Our community has many priorities – and our challenge is to advance progress for each of them. When we focus on one issue alone, we risk pitting members of our community against one another. We risk leaving people behind. We risk destroying the diversity of our community by breaking it apart.

We’re stronger when we’re together. If we want to achieve full and true equality in this state, we can’t risk tearing apart our community by elevating the needs of some over the needs of others. Instead, we must strive to go this journey together. We must commit to working on all the issues that matter. We must hold our beautifully diverse community together so that when we celebrate victory, each of us has a reason to cheer.

Jace Woodrum is the Deputy Director of One Colorado, the state’s leading LGBT advocacy organization. He’s also a trans guy, a husband and a puppy parent.

Phil Nash 

When it comes to paying the public’s expenses, LGBT taxpayers have always enjoyed equal treatment. When it comes to the way government treats LGBT taxpayers, we are shortchanged, sometimes insulted. How about an LGBT Taxpayer Bill of Rights? A few random ideas to get started:

Public education benefits everyone. Although more LGBT homes are raising children today, the vast majority of LGBT people are helping finance the education of other peoples’ children. Great! Guarantee me, as a gay taxpayer, that all students learn respect for differences, that LGBTQ kids are safe and thriving in their schools, that LGBT resources are in the school library, and that ZERO tax dollars fund religious schools.

Economic development benefits everyone – tax breaks for employers, subsidies for job creation, low-interest loans to small businesses. Guarantee me, as a gay taxpayer, that NOT ONE RED CENT of public funds go to support an enterprise that discriminates or promotes anti-gay causes. (Case in point: economic development funds helped bring Focus on the Family to Colorado in the 1980s). Reach out to LGBT entrepreneurs and help them grow their businesses.

Government agencies make grants to nonprofit organizations that provide services for youth, elders, the poor, the uninsured and others. We have all of the above in our community, we have LGBT organizations serving them, and we have gay-friendly elected officials who seek our votes—but little or no government money to help. Why not?

Let’s become more sophisticated as taxpayers. Let’s demand government accountability to our community’s needs.

Phil Nash has spent 37 years working in the realm of public affairs, nonprofits, advocacy and is a former editor at Out Front. Nash works as a communications consultant with nonprofit organizations.

Karl Wesley 

Once Civil Unions are legal, why worry about the “next big political issue” when we should be focusing on the issues within our own community?

In the last several years, the GLBT community has become so focused on “what’s big in politics”, DADT and other gay rights in the outside world that they seem to lose focus of and deny those same rights to their own community.  I always hear, “What’s the ‘T’ (the Truth/Gossip/News)?”

I look at that question differently.  The “T.E.A.” we should be focusing on are Tolerance, Education and Acceptance!  If we expect to gain tolerance in this world, we have to learn to tolerate one another within the GLBT community respectfully. To stop ignorance towards the GLBT community, we must educate our younger generation and understand our older generation.  To gain acceptance anywhere, we must accept one another unconditionally for who we are individually and as a group!  We discuss these three points all the time, but we tend to project them towards the world outside our gay walls.

The reality is that we should focus our attention less on what the world believes at this moment and more on what is going on within this rainbow structure so many have helped to build.  Worrying about what the President is going to do next or what “gay rights” we can acquire next seems highly irrelevant when we can’t even focus on our own back yard.

Better to be the caring family than the nosey neighbor.

Karl Wesley is a 28-year-old gay resident of Denver that was named Mr. CGRA in 213, and continues to be active in the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association. Wesley works to strive toward a more tolerant, educated and accepting future for the LGBT community.

George Gramer

In 2006, Colorado voters approved Amendment 43 which limited recognition of same-sex unions by  banning same-sex marriage and common law marriages between same-sex partners.  During the subsequent Ritter Administration, Democrats did nothing to overturn this, nor to pass legislation for civil unions. Many now expect our legislature to pass civil union legislation soon.

Passing civil union legislation will be a start – a little piece of chocolate tossed onto the path of Colorado’s partnered GLBT community. What Sen. Steadman and Speaker Ferrandino need to do next is to show that they truly support GLBT Coloradans.  They need to work vigorously to repeal Amendment 43. Anything short of that is hypocrisy on their part and on the part of the governor and legislature.

Nine states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage. Thus, 41 states including Colorado do not. When the US Supreme Court takes up the Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act cases later this year, it is uncertain how broad their ultimate decisions might be.  While polls indicate that a majority of Americans support the freedom to marry, that majority does not represent a majority in every state – nationwide marriage equality will be a long time coming.

So what about Colorado?  Passage and enactment of the civil union legislation is a start.  Now begin the effort to repeal Amendment 43.

Iowa native George Gramer is the president of the Colorado Log Cabin Republicans.