Victory Fund Creates Equality
As a donor to the Victory Fund for over 20 years I have found it to be the most effective and efficent way to support our community's desire for equality.
|
By Mark Burstein | Contact
Mark Burstein is Executive Vice President of Princeton University. He is the University's chief administrative officer and has direct oversight of human resources, facilities, campus life, public safety, university services, and university audit and compliance efforts.
Previous to Princeton, Mark worked at Columbia University as well as in investment banking and consulting.
He received a B.A. in History from Vassar College, and his M.B.A. in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
He lives in Princeton, New Jersey and New York City with David Calle, his spouse of eighteen years.
He has served on the Board of the Victory Fund since 2004, recently as its secretary.
|
|
| |
|
Nearly 20 years ago, I found myself drawn into an effort to elect Tom Duane as the first openly gay member of the New York City Council. At the time, New York was a very different place for LGBT folks and in some ways too similar to many parts of our country today. Buffeted by a painful effort to pass an anti-discrimination law and suffering from the severe impact of AIDS, New York City did not feel like a hospitable place to live. Electing an openly gay or lesbian city council member would, I thought, help change the outlook for our community. And, I'm happy to say, it did.
My experience in New York is an example of what can and is happening across the country. When the Victory Fund was founded in 1991, the same year Tom Duane was elected to New York's City Council, just 49 openly LGBT elected officials served at any level of government across the country. Today, there are more than 400, and the Victory Fund will endorse more than 100 candidates in 2008 alone.
In 2004, after years of supporting LGBT candidates through the Victory Fund, I decided to join its Board of Directors. My reason for doing so was simple: I have come to believe that nothing has greater positive impact for our community than electing openly LGBT officials across the country.
When we think about activism, we often imagine a group of committed people loudly demanding fairness. We want the powerful to relent and give us the rights we so clearly deserve. But there's another path to progress that can run parallel to this: electing LGBT officials to represent us. Whether we like it or not, the countless meetings held at the local, state and federal level is where power is most effective, and that's where our community has been absent for too long.
Electing openly LGBT candidates is an extremely effective way to create change, and there's no better proof than what we saw happen last year in state legislatures across the country.
> New Hampshire passed legislation legalizing civil unions, making it the only state to do so without a court battle;
> Oregon passed a domestic partnership bill and an anti-discrimination bill;
> Colorado completed a decade-long fight to add sexual orientation to the state’s nondiscrimination law;
> Washington granted important marriage-like rights to gay couples; and
> Iowa passed legislation that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in the workplace, as well as an anti-bullying bill that protects LGBT students.
In each of these states, LGBT legislators were at the center of these debates, pushing their colleagues to do the right thing and playing hardball politics to win passage of important legislation. Toward the end of 2007 I read an article by columnist Deb Price. She was marveling at this progress and declared, "Gay lawmakers are rocketing our country forward." That's the kind of effect I'd always hoped my support could have, and I was extremely proud to be a part of it.
But it’s not always good news. Unfortunately, many state legislatures continue to attack our rights and our families. And in those cases, LGBT legislators can be our best – and sometimes only – defense. Take for example Rep. Kathy Webb in Arkansas, who successfully blocked an anti-gay adoption bill that would have prevented LGBT from fostering adopting kids. And in Utah, the legislature’s three openly LGBT members took the venom out of an anti-gay bill that aimed at gay clubs in schools.
In concrete and undeniable ways, the Victory Fund and the candidates it supports are moving our country toward equality. The work is planned, deliberate, strategic and measurable. We're moving in the right direction, and we're picking up speed. I invite you to join me in supporting an organization staffed with political professionals who are dedicated to and focused on a singular mission that I believe is among the most important of our movement.
|
