Garden State Equality Cuts Off Parties

An announcement Monday from Garden State Equality. Said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality,

No political party has a record good enough on LGBT civil rights that it can rightfully claim to be entitled to our money on a party-wide basis.  No longer will we let any political party take our money and volunteers with one hand, and slap us in the face with the other when we seek full equality.

I say good for Garden State Equality.  We need to support our allies, not the party of which they are members.  I don’t fault the Democratic part for working to elect moderate “blue dog” Democrats.  They are more electable in certain areas and can help to pass a lot of really good, important legislation.  However, they  generally (and sadly) can’t be relied on to vote for many important issues that are deemed as unpalatable to the more socially conservative.  Blue dogs are admittedly important to me on a lot of issues (though haven’t really come through on health reform), but frankly we all only have so much to give, and giving to candidates who support our issues both sends a strong signal and rewards (for lack of a better, less cynical word) the members who are outspoken for our issues–LGBT or any other progressive cause.