Chip Arndt is known to Amazing Race fans for winning Season 4 of the
show, with his then-partner Reichen Lehmkul. The co-founder of
e-commerce business MerchantAdvantage, he is now a Board member of the
Gay American Heroes Foundation, which honors LGBT people who have been
murdered as a result of hate crimes. (Photo by Dale Stine)
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By CHIP ARNDT
Thursday, May 15, 2008
On May 10 and 11, The Human Rights Campaign (“HRC”) held a two-day political campaign training event in Broward County, called “Camp Equality.” Yes, I passed up a boating invitation to learn how to wake board, but I do love politics, and ‘tis the political season. Plus, I wanted to see what HRC was doing with their national “Camp Equality” initiative…and what they were doing with the money I give to them each year.
HRC states on their website, “Camp Equality is an intensive, 2-day interactive training program that combines lectures, discussions, and real-life simulations…[that] teaches both advanced and fundamental skills to help strengthen the impact our community has on the 2008 elections.”
The program was set up in different sessions: lectures on how to write press releases, set up door-to-door campaigns, raise money for political campaigns. There were no fancy speeches, no celebrities, no asking for money from candidates, there was just a group of people wanting to make a difference and yearning for guidance. Our common bond was frustration…frustration with our leaders, frustration with ongoing intolerance, and frustration at the pace of legislation to help the LGBT community gain full civil and human rights.
The sessions weren’t taught by LGBT activits per se; these were experts who organized national campaigns, or appeared as talking-head pundits on MSNBC. Whether or not they were actually lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, I don’t know. It didn’t matter. They weren’t there to teach us how to be gay; they were there to teach us how to beat our opponents. They were there to teach us how to win an election.
I was surprised to find that an equal mix attended, of women to men, straight to LGBT. One attendee drove over 95 miles to be there, and another flew in from Michigan. There was a community organizer who has walked more miles canvassing communities than the average gay man has stair-mastered his entire life; there were representatives from HRC partner organizations, with decades of experience in advancing LGBT rights. And then there were the people like the nice woman sitting next to me, people who just had jobs and families and who wanted to change the way the LGBT community is treated by the local, state, and national government.
The training stressed how we must not think only in terms of our own community, or just ourselves. The issues that affect us will also affect many people outside the community, and to convince others of that fact we must understand it ourselves. We didn’t have to look far for examples: Dr. Nancy Blackburn, PhD, from West Palm Beach who attended the training because she was worried that Florida’s Amendment 2 Marriage Amendment Bill would take away her best friend’s rights to be with her live-in, straight, unmarried, male partner of seven years. She was concerned that the affects Amendment 2 would have on their pension and Social Security benefits. Sadly, if Amendment 2 passes, that is exactly what it will do. It’s interesting to consider how people might vote for Amendment 2, on the grounds of moralizing against LGBT people, and end up taking rights away from themselves.
We can make a difference, one person at a time, one vote at a time, one door at a time, The path to change is difficult and doable. And most importantly, Camp Equality reminded us that we are not alone in our efforts. I have some 20 new friends to prove it.
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