By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

In Chicago Feb. 18-19 to meet with the local chapter of Stonewall Democrats, Jon Hoadley, the group’s national executive director, expressed the same excitement about the upcoming November election that many Democrats are feeling.

“We’re in this amazing Democratic moment,” Hoadley said. People are wanting a new type of politics. There’s this consciousness developing that all people should be treated fairly.”

Now celebrating its 10th anniversary as the GLBT community’s leading advocacy group in Democratic politics, Stonewall’s job remains the same as it’s always been, Hoadley said—to encourage Democratic politicians to fully support GLBT equality.

“Our job is really to push Democrats to make sure that even the most conservative Democrat is on board,” Hoadley said. “We still have work to do in our own base.”

Most notably right now, that push is still needed on marriage equality. As progressive as they may be, for example, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama supports equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.

“It’s another example of why we still need to do work in our party,” Hoadley said. “Vice President Al Gore is someone who recently came out for marriage equality because he knows it’s the right thing to do. …When Democratic leaders can lead, they should.”

One issue on which many GLBTs felt leadership wasn’t shown happened last fall in Congress, when Democratic leaders unilaterally pulled transgender protections out of the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Hoadley said that wasn’t a popular move among Stonewall members.

“We completed a survey of our members, and we asked how important it is to have a transgender-inclusive ENDA,” he said.

The survey results showed that 70 percent of Stonewall’s members “are willing to wait” if that’s what it takes to pass a fully inclusive bill, Hoadley said.

“We want to be there to help make sure the votes are there,” he said. “If we have an incremental advance, it needs to include all members of our community.”

With 90 chapters around the country, Hoadley said Stonewall is pushing two initiatives to increase the group’s voice within the Democratic Party. Pride in the Party is one, aimed at increasing the number of GLBT delegates at the Democratic Party’s national convention this summer.

“Our goal is to get 321,” Hoadley said. “To date we’ve identified more than 1,000 people across the country who want to be involved.”

Increasing GLBT representation at the convention “makes sure our issues move to the forefront,” Hoadley said.

“The more people we have there, the better chance we’ll have of impacting the platform,” he said.

People who go to the convention as delegates also bring a lot of energy back to their local political arenas, he said, increasing the visibility of GLBT issues.

The second Stonewall initiative, Grow to Win, is aimed at nurturing the growth of local Stonewall chapters, three to five at a time. That can lead to victories such as the effort to defeat homophobic U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in 2006 in Pennsylvania, Hoadley said, where Stonewall Democrats had a big impact. In Texas, he said, Stonewall members have helped elect two openly gay state legislators, he added.

“They were special elections and they were pick-ups for Democrats, too,” he said.

That’s the kind of energy and results, Hoadley said, that Stonewall aims to produce this year, when Democrats are in the ascendant, and down the road.

“There’s so much energy, Democratic energy,” he said. “People are hungry for change from politics as usual, and people have the sense that this election is so important. …The trick is that we have to make sure that they’re not only excited about the presidential race, but the races down the ticket, too, and that they stay excited.”