Part of Emory's observance of National Coming Out Day, Vaid's appearance was sponsored by the Office of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Life, as well as OutWrite Books in Midtown and Charis Books & More in Little Five Points. Vaid's Emory address was the first stop on a 33-city tour to promote her first book, Virtual Equality. Adding another element of the paradoxical to the event was its occurrence on National Coming Out Day, a time when many gays and lesbians choose to reveal their sexual orientation to people they had not previously told. Vaid told the audience of about 350 faculty, staff, students and visitors that the line "Our dream of safety has to disappear," from the late gay poet W.H. Auden's poem "Leap Before You Look," speaks to the paradoxes surrounding the lives of gays and lesbians in America today. Happiness over unprecedented successes, Vaid pointed out, must be tempered with a realization of the difficulties that still remain in society for gays and lesbians.
Gays and lesbians, Vaid said, have the highest level of public visibility in history and the highest level of public support for their civil rights, as well as political access to President Bill Clinton. "That seeming progress is conditional and illusory," Vaid said. "There is still a pervasive lack of understanding about our lives. Our national movement has been unable to win on any issue it has brought before Congress. And most of us are still in the closet."
While the gay rights movement has dramatically advanced the cause of gay/lesbian rights in America, the movement's successes are accompanied by difficult challenges. Three of the challenges that Vaid addresses in her book include:
*The limitations of a civil rights paradigm in advancing the gay rights movement: "I absolutely believe in equal protection under the law and non-discrimination for the gay/lesbian community," she said. "But a civil rights paradigm cannot address problems such as moral and religious condemnation, and community and family rejection. Vaid called on the gay movement to shift its focus from civil rights to cultural transformation, in which gays and lesbians at the local, grassroots level concentrate on fostering understanding of gays and lesbians within their own communities.
*Class, race and gender divisions within the gay movement and the gay community: "The national gay movement has become dependent on a handful of people who created the movement's agenda," Vaid said. "I am arguing for a more democratic movement built around the formation of local chapters and involving people at the local and neighborhood levels."
*Structural problems with the gay movement: "The national gay movement is top-heavy, and it's weak at the state and local level," said Vaid. "But we are at a place as a people and as a movement where we can create stronger state movements. I believe in the power of the vote and in the power of a group of people who organize to leverage that vote. That's what the Christian right has done. They're organizing and recruiting, and we've got to do the same thing."
Vaid said she envisions an organizational structure with precinct captains who keep in close contact with 20 or so households in their neighborhoods, making sure those households are aware of the contributions that gays and lesbians make to their larger communities and of the issues the gay community is dealing with. "That's a manageable structure," she said. "That's traditional political organizing: building a base of support right where we live. With the Republican Congress in office, so many issues are being pushed to the state and local level. Marriage and domestic partnership are state and local issues. So is non-discrimination, parenting, adoption. Let's rethink our framework and focus ourselves on the state and local levels."
--Dan Treadaway