Two weeks before Christmas, Geoff Kors lingers over the finishing touches to an op-ed piece he's writing for The Bottom Line, a gay magazine based in Palm Springs. Dressed in black jeans, a dark-gray sweater and black-leather shoes, he sits in his small, two-window office in San Francisco and stares intently at a wide screen. The founding executive director of Equality California wants people to know exactly what he has accomplished in nine years.
In the op-ed, Kors announces that in March he will step down as the leader of one of the most powerful gay rights groups in the nation. To many, it's a big surprise. Kors, an energetic, exceedingly smart 49-year-old, seemed wedded to his high-powered job.
"It has been a true honor and a privilege to lead Equality California and serve the state's LGBT community," Kors writes in the op-ed. "When you think back to how far we have come in less than a decade, it is breathtaking."
Kors, a former attorney, is indeed leaving a legacy. As he writes, he and his staff have helped to elect gays and lesbians to public office, co-sponsored successful gay rights laws and helped build a social services network for the LGBT community.
During Kors' reign, the state has become one of the most gay-friendly in the country. Among its many pro-gay laws, California offers expansive domestic-partnership rights for gay and lesbian couples, hate-crimes protections and antidiscrimination protections in the workplace.
Supporters and even critics of Kors don't think it's a coincidence that these political victories happened on his watch. Both camps generally believe a statewide gay rights lobbying group was necessary, and many applaud Equality California's work in Sacramento.
As in his farewell op-ed in The Bottom Line, Kors has been quick to take credit, sending out a crush of press releases and e-mail blasts often accompanied by a plea to contribute money to Equality California — a Kors technique that has made the organization cash-rich.
Yet as he prepares to leave, Kors and the group are drawing criticism from surprising quarters. Former state senator Sheila Kuehl, the first openly gay person elected to the California State Legislature, who worked on many gay rights bills until she was termed out in 2008, tells L.A. Weekly, "Equality California never really convinced legislators on their own [to pass a bill], but inevitably something would pass — and they'd send out a press release taking all the credit. I never thought they were team players. They would take credit, and it was more credit than they earned."
Those press releases and e-mails touting Equality California as a supremely effective lobbying team have meant great riches for the group, whose efforts affect the rights and lives of some 850,000 gays and lesbians in California. Equality California receives millions of dollars from the gay community each year.
In April 2002, Kors was hired to lead a small operation with troubled finances, a handful of staff, a $384,282 annual budget and about 2,000 contributors. Equality California now has a $7 million budget, more than 20 paid staffers and a membership of 700,000 people — 143,200 of them monetary contributors.
Former Equality California board president John Duran says, "Geoff came in and fixed it. Not only that, he grew it — tenfold. He was the right person at the right time."
Kors built an impressive lobbying group that other U.S gay rights organizations try to emulate. "All of us turned to Equality California because it was so successful," says Marc Solomon, former executive director of Boston-based MassEquality, who later worked for Equality California.
But Kors has become a controversial figure. He played a key, and widely criticized, role in the failed campaign to stop Proposition 8, California's 2008 anti–gay marriage ballot measure. A top player on the No on 8 campaign's executive committee, Kors strongly influenced TV ads and field operations as polls showed the measure to block gay marriage was foundering. After voters turned tables and approved the gay marriage ban, the group's campaign decisions were roundly attacked for being created in isolation by Kors and other gay rights insiders.
In particular, they failed to detect or address strong anti–gay marriage sentiment among Latino and black voters in big, Southern California cities like Los Angeles, and in working-class inland counties such as San Bernardino and Riverside.
L.J. Carusone, a gay rights activist who worked with Kors at Equality California, describes the executive director as a "tyrant." "It's funny how strong and forceful he can be," Carusone says, "but when it comes to people, he lacks people skills."
Critics charge that Kors, intent on building an empire, makes a critical error by snubbing the smaller, grassroots gay rights organizations that bring new blood, ideas and contact with ordinary people. For critics, Equality California, instead of helping to create a stronger gay rights movement, is a key part of what some derisively call "Gay Inc." — a handful of gay rights groups that operate as self-focused money machines.
"They become very high-profile and they get a lot of access," says Ivy Bottini, a longtime gay rights activist. "They fall in love with power, and that's the kiss of death for an aggressive gay rights movement."
Wow. As a long-time activist who volunteered for EQCA and was employed with NO on 8, I had an idea that these things were going on but my suspicions were never affirmed until recently by articles like this one.
I have linked this story in my vlogs:
Big Gay/LGBT Groups Ignore Rural Gays http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Too Many Gay/LGBTI Groups Doing Same Thing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
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Hello Halflop...Your suggestion is exactly what many grassroots folks would like to see, but Gay Inc., they say, doesn't always play nice with them. I can't think of anyone in the article who insisted on just one approach or the other.
Patrick Range McDonald,LA Weekly
Patrick, perhaps you can followup this piece with an article highlighting some of the effective work of some gay political grassroots efforts/organizations. I am particularly excited about what I have seen GetEqual do, and would like to know more about them and others who may be overlooked and need our support.
A decent article, but it could have done more to highlight what Equality California has accomplished. I think that would have been a more realistic accounting of the job Kors has done. Rarely does any group set out to do everything they hope to accomplish - and to do so in a state as large and diverse as California is even more difficult.
I'm not directly involved in GBLT rights work, so my opinion may be way off, but it seems that what is needed is a multi-layered approach. The state and nationwide groups can do the political wrangling and use their fundraising ability to directly support grassroots organizations that can do the ground floor work and local initiatives via grants so that some level of group autonomy is maintained. California is big and diverse enough to need both the "gay, inc." and grassroots approaches, but insisting only one of them is the way to go is a great way to limit progress.
I would like to see Equality California support more smaller causes that build the foundation for state-wide success, such as working closely with or supporting minority GBLT rights groups at a local scale. If they do this type of work already, it would be great to know about it, as with their transgendered work that someone else commented on.
Firstly, let me say that I agree with Robin McGehee and Robin Tyler more then anyone on this thread. Second, I also of the belief that this article is not balanced. Why was a representative from API Equality not quoted for this article, say co-chairs Marshall Wong and/or Doreena Wong? Apparently, Derrick, it's not just inputs from African-American (I thought Ron Buckmire is black) activist voices that were left out of this supposed "balanced" piece, Asian Americans also are still invisible. And, I blame the API collective for not injecting their voices into this very lively discussion on this comment thread and to hold Mr. McDonald accountable.
With that said, as someone who was the leading field organizer/trainer/recruiter/fundraiser for the No on 8 campaign-- top grossing in terms of fundraising and volunteer recruitment for the Hollywood team--I have first hand experience in going out into the fields and trying to engage the unconscious and sometimes unconscionable "grassroots." The fault is not wholly Geoff Kors' or EQCA's or Lori Jean's or Vote for Equality's. The community didn't really give a damn. Yes, the executive committee of No on 8 snubbed the POCs and they even used the names of these organizations for marketing purposes but shut out any input from these same organizations. You only have to ask Doreena Wong and she will confirm it for you. I wrote about this on my blog The Socal Voice (www.socalvoice.net) some time ago when I interviewed her at the Q-POC summit that Ron Buckmire also participated in.
No, there wasn't any canvassing done as far as changing hearts and minds are concerned. We didn't have the messaging--not at all. Our "canvassing" script consisted was really to gage who is supportive and who is opposed and they we would ask our supporters (once we've identified them) to volunteer and/or donate money. That was the extend of our plan for election---which was only to contact our supporters and or the "movable middle" so we can get them out to the polls. Myself and Laura Gardiner--the other leading field organizer and brilliant trainer for the Hollywood Office--worked on drafting these scripts but the final messaging had to come from our higher ups.
Mainly, all the field work we did was focused solely on going out into the streets and asking for money or recruiting volunteers to recruit more volunteers to raise more money for the campaign and several weeks leading up to election we still have not reached our goal of recruiting 15,000 volunteers to make phone calls and/or go knocking on doors to ask people to vote. The volunteers were simply not there because the community was asleep. You can't simply blame that on the campaign.
Now, as far as Molly McKay and her "reluctance" in speaking her truth about Geoff Kors and/or EQCA, is concerned, and I'm glad that she practiced restraint here, however, part of it is because Molly is hardly innocent in her dealings with other newly minted grassroots activist such as myself, to be exact, when I approached her about coming on board as one of the recipients of a fund raising event for marriage equality back in 2009. I'd founded a grassroots organization, post-Prop 8, the Gays United Network's and we were throwing our first--and last--fundraiser for marriage equality titled IDES OF MARCH: Dancing for Equality/Movie for Equality. I had approached Molly and several other organizations across the nation because initially event was supposed to be a national fundraiser and, to make a long story short, Molly came out and flatly asked me to merge my event with her event up in SF and make MEUSA the sole beneficiaries of our events because she knew more of the logistics of throwing a national fundraiser then I ddid. She was right, but I didn't want to renege on my promises to other organizations but in we scaled back our events and made it local and I was desperate so I made MEUSA the sole fundraiser. So, the long drawn out story, and I really thought I was gonna go to the grave with that secret (sorry Molly, but we're airing out the communities dirty laundry so I feel the need to be honest. I still love and adore you and admire and respect the work you've done and will continue to do for our movement), was to put it out there that the nature of activism is such that sometimes we make missteps and make bad choices and hurt our own, but let's not cannibalized each other and in this instance let's not burn Geoff Kors at the stake because the man did some great things for our community and had made some huge strides. Let's forgive and forget shall we? Like Chris Daley said, none of us are perfect. We must allow Geoff to be human, because he is and so are we.
In solidarity,-Nakhone Keodara
Oh, and, by the way, Geoff, thank you for your hard work, dedication and sacrifice for our community. I want to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to you for being the inspiration that facilitated my first act of activism back in the 90s. I read that you drafted the Equal Benefits Law and back in 1999 I was working for the Legal Department of United Parcel Service where they canceled all their contracts with the City of San Francisco and diverted their planes from city airports to their own private airport outside of SF so they didn't have to provide domestic partner benefits to their employees. I stood up and resigned as a protest to that controversy and that was my first political activism as an out gay man at the time. So, your legacy has touched my life even before I was even politically aware and/or active.
Good luck with your future endeavors.
I think the gay rights movement has failed to sufficiently criticize homophobia within the black community. It's due to political correctness. Homophobia within the black community - especially black music - is extremely widespread. It needs to be challenged.
I also think that the gay rights movement has failed to challenge homophobia within the wider culture such as the music and movie industries. Why is it that a woman can say she's bisexual and get applauded for it but, if a man does it, he's treated as if he's a leper? Liberals are responsible for this hypocrisy. The gay rights movement needs to criticize these liberals.
The gay rights movement has also failed to challenge the rampant homophobia within the straight porn industry of Los Angeles. In the straight porn industry, bisexual men are often demonized by both men and women, including bisexual women. I think the gay rights movement needs to criticize the bisexual women who prop up the bisexual double standard of the straight porn industry.
"I think the gay rights movement has failed to sufficiently criticize homophobia within the black community. It's due to political correctness. Homophobia within the black community - especially black music - is extremely widespread. It needs to be challenged."
There was a time when I too, actually believed that. Until I became exposed to the astounding and wide spread racism in the gay community. No, the black community doesn't have to change or do a thing. Clean your own house Terry. You can't demand someone else clean up theirs while yours is crawling with rodents and filth.
The gay community over the last two years has done nothing but re-edit, reinvent, omit, rearrange and make up black American history for its own purposes. Black America doesn't owe gay people shit.
On the other hand it is gay America who needs to be offering apologies.
You like many of those like you, are quick to point out homophobia in black communities while six WHITE republican presidential candidates straight up and proudly proclaimed to be against gay marriage. The majority of the country---white America---is against gay marriage and frankly hates gays with an extra SPECIAL passion.
But white gay folks like yourself------your feelings are hurt because the descendant of slaves dares to look down on you. That's why you're so focused on "black homophobia" as you call it. You can't get past these Negroes looking at you as less then them. It jacks you up.
The sad thing is over 43% of California's African Americans voted in favor of No On 8. That's a hell of a lot of black folks that you and yours have brazenly chosen to ignore. And it shows what you're about.
Clean your own house Terry. Gay white folks have made a career these last couple of years of painting themselves the victim to end all victims. Well, many of you are also a bunch of racists. You need to clean that up and stop pointing fingers at everybody else.
Renwl.org, which is a blog written by Derrick Mathis, fails to mention I also talked with and quoted Ron Buckmire of the Jordan/Rustin Coalition, a black gay rights group based in Los Angeles. I also talked with many women, who gave invaluable insights for the piece. In addition, I addressed how the No on 8 campaign failed to properly reach out to African American and Latino voters.
In fact, one of the first critiques I wrote about the No on 8 campaign was its failure to reach out to people of color. That article was published one week after Prop. 8 was passed in November, 2008.
I specifically chose that subject matter because African American and Latino voters were partly being blamed for the No on 8 loss, which didn't feel right to me. That hunch was proven correct after I talked with gay African American and Latino leaders and found out that effective voter outreach by the No on 8 campaign was nearly non-existent in their communities in Los Angeles. An inadequate outreach effort, in other words, was the real reason why the No on 8 campaign fared poorly among black and Latino voters.
Take care,Patrick Range McDonald,LA Weekly
RON BUCKMIRE IS NOT BLACK YOU FREAK!!!! YOU MIGHT AS WELL HAVE INTERVIEWED DIANE CARROLL WHEN SHE WAS STARRING IN JULIA!
Patrick engaged A---ONE latino for this post. Wait. Deja vu! I know this behavior.
My GAWD. It's Equality California all over again! Black gay people are INVISIBLE----just like they've been this entire time since November 5, 2008.
FUCK YOU PATRICK YOU FUCKING MISERABLE FUCK! And people actually hounded me to read this fucking shit?!
Thanks for all of your comments. Geoff Kors received his due in this story, but it was also important to look at his mistakes, especially now that a new executive director will be hired by EQCA. If people don't examine what went wrong in the past, they are bound to repeat those mistakes in the future -- over and over again.
Hopefully, EQCA and its new executive director will not repeat that cycle, especially when their decisions affect the lives, rights, and pocketbooks of some 850,000 gay and lesbians in California. We are still paying for the Proposition 8 debacle, for example, in a multitude of ways.
It was alarming, however, that two current EQCA board members interviewed in this story seemed unwilling or unable to learn from past mistakes and believed the organization should move forward without changing all that much.
Every single person who spoke frankly and honestly with me about their experiences with EQCA had one thing in common--they wanted a strong and unified gay rights movement. It takes a certain amount of guts and integrity to speak up, and I thank each and every one of them. They clearly wanted to start a dialogue on how to improve the gay rights movement for future battles -- a true "movement" that includes many different people, groups, approaches, and talents.
It's also important for ordinary gay folks and straight allies -- the 20-year-old college student, the 30-year-old teacher, the 40-year-old police officer, the 60-year-old parent of a gay son -- to engage in that dialogue, too, and not leave it up to a handful of leaders to call the shots.
Ultimately, this cover story is an effort to let the general public know exactly what those leaders are doing on your behalf and with your money, what's happening behind the scenes, and then to help you make informed decisions and get involved accordingly.
Take care,Patrick Range McDonald,LA Weekly
This article saddens me. I was asked to be interviewed, but was out of the country at the time.The fact is, a decade ago, our community had almost no rights in California. Today, we havemore rights then in any other state in the USA.I organized the first community Prop 8 meeting after we lost. Several hundred people cameto express how they felt. And yes, the grassroots were left out. And I was one of the angriest ones. I also advised Molly McKay not to 'merge' MECAwith EQCA as MECA would be devoured. AndMECA was.However, to say that Geoff Coers and Equality California were not responsible for many of the victories that we have had, and many of the rights we have gained, is just not true. And to compare EQCA to HRC laughable. HRC withhundreds of million dollars and thirty years, hasreversed DADT (I am being generous, because I think the credit should really go to Get Equal and the Federal lawsuit win) and the Matthew Sheppard act. So HRC was a lightweight in delivering civil rights on a national level, while we here in California,thanks to EQCA, LGBT politicians, and a grassroots movement, have our rights. So, DO NOT say EQCA=HRC. BS. Frankly, I would like to see what would happen if Geoff became ED of HRC. We would see movement. As to his not being popular in Sacramento, it was his job topush for our rights, and in doing so, as activists know, one sacrifices personal popularity. So what?I am not going to rehash prop 8. And I am certainly not going to engage, as this article did, in smearing an activist who has really moved our agenda tremendously.
resulted in DADT (thanks to Get Equal and the Federal lawsuit)has delivered almost nothing.
Patrick -- good and thorough piece, but I did want to clarify how you quoted me here. If you'll recall, here is my full quote to you:
"I am deeply thankful for the LGBT equality gains Geoff Kors and EQCA have been able to accomplish. Geoff took EQCA from deeply desperate times to an organization that has been able to secure much needed legislation for the LGBT community. Although Geoff and I may have disagreed on strategies, tactics and the engagement of the grassroots during the Prop 8 campaign, I have never questioned his, or EQCA's, commitment to full equality for our community. Much has been accomplished under the tenure of Geoff Kors, and I deeply appreciate his efforts in those accomplishments."
I know that may not serve the tone of the piece and may be too long to print in its entirety, but I did want to set the record straight. Now that I'm directing an organization, I understand some of the hard decisions Geoff had to make at EQCA -- that's not to say that I would have made the same decisions, and it's not to say that I agree with his moves. It's just to say that I get it.
Again, thanks for the piece and for your commitment to holding all of us -- myself included -- accountable for our actions and for the fight for full equality.
"...but only after California voters, in their surprising Yes vote, banned gay marriage via Proposition 8."
This is incorrect. What happened was California voters repealed marriage equality and stripped it's citizens of a Constitutionally-guaranteed civil right. And the vote was only a surprise to those who weren't paying attention as Geoff Kors single-handedly lost marriage equality for this state.
Kors has done a world of good for the state of California, but he will be remembered for turning this guaranteed victory into a spectacularly tragic loss. At any rate, he long ago clearly overstayed his welcome. If only he'd understood the value of leaving while you're still on top.
Because this "organization and its leadership that have dedicated their lives to furthering equality in this state" has massively failed. They're upper middle-class gays and lesbaisn talking to other upper middle-class gays and lesbians. Nothing more.
It's a hit piece because instead of presenting two sides to an argument, McDonald appears to be actively seeking negative commentary against Kors and Equality California. He states that one of the sources"was hesitant to come down too hard on Kors and Equality California" which wouldn't even make sense if he wasn't actively trying to get the source to say something nasty.
I've volunteered extensively with EQCA and know they have focused a great deal of their resources towards grassroots outreach. And McDonald acknowledges that Equality California's legislative agenda in the state has mostly been accomplished.I'm just not sure why McDonald wants to be so critical of an organization and its leadership that have dedicated their lives to furthering equality in this state.
"One result is that groups like Equality California and the Human Rights Campaign don't stand up to the Democratic politicians they've long courted."
Uh... back in the day of the small-time, grass-roots activists, we didn't protest at the offices of those who agreed with us and voted our issue either. We sat in at the opposition's offices.
Weird, huh?
What "hit piece" Mr. Daley? This is a solid example of straigthforward journalism. My only caveat is MacDonald failed to mention the (quite elaborate and expensive) ads that the Kors group put out to fight Prop 8 which didn't include any actual LGBT people in them because they were told by PR "experts" that would "offend" straights.
I've been a gay rights activist since Stonewall, working for many years with the GayActivists' Alliance of New York on the "Media Comittee" with Vito Russo. Things have changed dramatically since tehn. But one fact remains, whihc affects everything in politics gay or straight -- class. The HRC is stem-to-stren upper middle-class gays and lesbians. It knows nothing of the multifarious lives of LGBT peoples throughout this country, and doesn't want to know. Their willful blindness is our loss. Gay Power begins in the streets not in the suites.
Wow, what a nasty hit piece. The only quote this piece is missing is one from a senior citizen Geoff Kors cut off in traffic. Have we gotten to the point where it is impossible to publish balanced evaluations of LGBT leaders?
Like all of us, Geoff wasn't perfect. Show me anyone who is. However, he is a unique voice in the movement who gave his all to improve the lives of LGBT people throughout the state. I was the Director of the Transgender Law Center for much of Geoff's tenure at EQCA. TLC is the definition of the grassroots, multi-issue organization that the author of this piece posits Geoff as conspiring to undercut.
To the contrary, Geoff was a vital partner in our work. He fully backed every legislative reform we worked on and was a key player in making California the state with the most transgender supportive laws in the nation. He also, without reservation, put EQCA's weight (and resources) behind our long-range community building efforts. He was the inspiration behind the creation of the Transgender Leadership Summit and didn't hesitate to support the effort even when EQCA and TLC staff significantly reframed the event's focus. He was always an incredible partner in securing the participation of elected officials in first-of-their-kind public forums on important transgender equality issues like safe schools, health insurance discrimination, and LGBT prisoner rights. Not to mention that he and EQCA Board members threw fundraisers for us and helped us identify and go after donors.
Beyond his personal involvement, Geoff has an incredible eye for talent. He hired some of the sharpest, most committed staff members I had the pleasure of knowing. EQCA staff, not a single one of whom questioned the importance of transgender equality work, were vital to much of the positive change that has taken place in California during the last decade.
While these accomplishments and efforts may seem par for the course in 2010, EQCA (under Geoff's leadership) was one of the earliest LGBT organizations in the country to fully embrace transgender equality. When other states experienced open warfare between gay rights organizations and transgender communities, EQCA was a driving force in making sure that didn't happen in California.
None of these examples of Geoff's contributions are meant to discount the experiences of other people interviewed for this story. Instead, they are meant to add more dimension to the author's very one-dimensional hit piece. One would think that any responsible journalist would have done that of her or his own initiative but I guess we don't live in that world anymore.
Chris Daley
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