Bringing Lesbian and Gay Rights Into the Mainstream : Twenty Years of Progress

ISBN-13: 9781560235255 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 352 str.

Steve Endean; Vicki L. Eaklor

Opis

A lively memoir of LGBT activist Steve Endean one of the most influential political strategists ever to lobby Washington DC Bringing Lesbian and Gay Rights Into the Mainstream: Twenty Years of Progress is the spirited and provocative memoir that blows the lid off the complex machinations of state and national politics. LGBT activist Steve Endean's autobiographical chronicle, completed shortly before his death in 1993, tells insider stories that are sometimes rousing, other times infuriating, recounting the fight for lesbian and gay rights from the trenches of the Minnesota state capital to the Washington Beltway. Readers get a clear view of the political activism of building grassroots support systems, fundraising efforts, lobbying to rally support for bills, and the election/reelection of sympathetic political representatives. Bringing Lesbian and Gay Rights Into the Mainstream: Twenty Years of Progress dynamically recounts Endean's activism and instrumental leadership of the LGBT movement from 1973 to just before his death in 1993. From being the first Executive Director of the Gay Rights National Lobby, founder and Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, and founder of the Speak Out mailgram campaigns for grassroots pressure on congresspersons on G/L rights issues, the author discusses with amusing anecdotes and self-effacing humor his strategies, victories, and failures as movement leader. This lively mix of the accomplishments in those crucial years and the dos and don'ts of political activism is peopled with well-known and lesser-known movers and shakers on the political landscape.

Spis treści

• Editor’s Foreword
  
• Preface
  
• Acknowledgments
  
• Abbreviations
  
• Rules of the Road
  
• PART I: THE ROLLER COASTER
  
• Chapter 1. My Minnesota Roots
  
• Chapter 2. Pushing the Pedals of Power: From Minnesota to the Gay Rights National Lobby
  
• Chapter 3. Money Talks: Gay and Lesbian Political Clout and the Founding of Human Rights Campaign Fund
  
• Chapter 4. We’ve Met the Enemy . . . and the Enemy Is Us: Internal Conflicts Can Be Far More Painful Than Fighting Homophobes
  
• Chapter 5. Beginning Again: Building an Effective Capacity to Generate Grassroots Mail to Congress
  
• Chapter 6. Speak Out
  
• PART II: REFLECTIONS OF AN OLD, TIRED ACTIVIST
  
• Chapter 7. If It Ain’t Broken . . . : Demonstrating a Need for the Gay and Lesbian Rights Legislation
  
• Chapter 8. One-to-One Lobbying
  
• Chapter 9. Do Dog and Pony Shows Make a Difference? How Much Do Hearings Really Matter?
  
• Chapter 10. Thoughts on Fund-Raising
  
• Chapter 11. Of Battles Lost and Opportunities Missed
  
• Chapter 12. Bedfellows Make Strange Politics: Of Hypocrisy and Honesty, Coming Out and “Outing”
  
• Chapter 13. The Politics of Self-Indulgence? A Self-Confessed “Insider” Assesses His Experience with Protest Activities
  
• Chapter 14. Wrapping Up a Movement Career: Retiring on Disability, Acknowledgment, and . . . Victory!
  
• Editor’s Afterword
  
• PART III: APPENDIXES
  
• Appendix A. Membership Lists of Boards of Directors
  
• Appendix B. Cosponsors of the National Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Bill
  
• Appendix C. African-American Support for Lesbian and Gay Rights
  
• PART IV: TIMELINE AND REMEMBRANCES
  
• Stephen Robert Endean: Time Line
  
• Congressional Tribute to Steve Endean (Martin Olav Sabo)
  
• Tribute to Steve Endean (Robert R. Meek)
  
• Steve Endean: A Remembrance (Allan H. Spear)
  
• Notes
  
• Index
  

O autorze

Vern L Bullough, Vicki Eaklor, Robert R Meek