If They Unite to Fight, Minorities Can Be a Majority : Gay rights: The conservative coalition is successful only because all the excluded groups can’t see their common values.

With the Republican Congress dismantling federal oversight of what remains of progressive social policy, there is a major shift of power to the state legislatures. This shift is exaggerated in California, where Gov. Pete Wilson’s aborted presidential bid has weakened his authority.

With Curt Pringle as Assembly speaker and Rob Hurtt as Senate leader, the far right has taken control of the California GOP and is building a coalition around exclusion, one that embraces bashing immigrants, dismantling affirmative action, blocking gay civil rights, limiting reproductive rights and promoting stereotypes of Jew and Muslim.

This coalition is not a majority; its success depends on each of the excluded communities being unable to focus beyond its own agenda. It even relies on some members of the excluded communities themselves lending it credibility.

This happens when a member of one excluded group supports attacks against another. It also happens within a community, when in exchange for lending such credibility, that community is temporarily rewarded on a particular issue. It also happens gratuitously, as evidenced by the pathetic spectacle of a gay Republican group giving $1,000 to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, only to have it publicly returned.

As this coalition of intolerance gains strength, immigrants, women, people of color, lesbians, gay men and all who are not Christian have the opportunity to form the core constituency of a new majority coalition. But this will happen only when each of the excluded groups acknowledges the uniqueness of the others and collectively organizes around common values.

As a demographic microcosm of society, the gay community is a useful model of the possibilities and limits of embracing diversity and coalition organizing. This is illustrated by the recent struggles with these issues by Life, California’s Lesbian/Gay and AIDS Lobby.

Life’s mission is to coordinate, develop and promote the legislative agendas of gay and HIV-affected Californians. Given that this constituency cuts across all economic, racial, ethnic and political boundaries, how is consensus reached? Is it always necessary to achieve consensus before acting? Is it a sign of growth in an organization that it creates an agenda that does not reflect the values of some in the community?

A good argument can be made that instincts for survival as much as skills at community building have propelled many lesbian and gay men’s successes to date. Fighting gay-bashing, fighting for lives around HIV and even fighting for jobs are issues that have allowed consensus despite divergent perspectives.

Just as there are differences within the gay community, there are differences within and among all the excluded groups. Opposition to the agenda of the far right will be successful when the excluded groups identify and act upon common values.

To identify common values, it is necessary to look beyond the least common denominator of a group, be it sexual orientation, gender, immigrant status, race, ethnicity or religion, and look to whom in each group is most vulnerable to the onslaught of intolerance.

When we know who is most in need of protection, it becomes easier to see the similarities among those whom we must protect. It then becomes easier to act collectively upon common values. These values are: protection of the most vulnerable, respect for inclusion and tolerance of difference.

It is only when we are comfortable in discussing differences that we will be able to wholeheartedly work within and outside our own communities on the many issues on which there is common ground. Out of these discussions, we may even begin to develop a consciousness as a larger united community. Or maybe we won’t.

What matters is that we are all at one table, that we all learn from and empower each other and that we together protect our most vulnerable against the intolerant onslaught. This is the basis of a new majority coalition.