I am reading with interest the back and forth about which New York Senate candidate is "better on LGBT issues," the current Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, or the would-be candidate, former Rep. Harold Ford.
LGBT people suffered a frustrating defeat in the New York legislature at the hands of Democrats -- and Republicans -- who for years wanted money and support, but in the end couldn't bring themselves to do the right thing and vote for marriage. It was and remains infuriating to have to constantly seek political approval for rights which are granted to other citizens without thought or effort.
That is what makes this current debate over purity all the more interesting to me. Because I am all for conversion therapy. When a politician says, "I've evolved and am now in favor of full equality for LGBT Americans," a little bell rings and an angel in heaven gets her wings. Since we don't have a majority of politicians on our side now, we need every little bell to ring that we can muster.
And if those politicians convert because it is the evening of a governor making a decision on a Senate appointment (one that was held up, in part, because Gillibrand was not in favor of same sex marriage, until she said she would change her view), or if it is because a southern politician with a good heart has moved to New York and is considering a run for the Senate in a new day, I'll take the conversions.
Let's not kid ourselves, as those who attack Harold Ford are doing. Senator Gillibrand is a convert. A welcome and lovely convert, but a convert, who converted when it became politically important to do so. And now she is working hard to overturn Don't Ask Don't Tell in the Senate. I'll take it, and I like her and her energy. Harold Ford is a convert, too. I've had many conversations with him about these issues over the many years that I have known and liked him. For Ford, who has been out of office, his evolution has taken place more privately, as he watched the debates on civil unions vs. marriage, as he got married and moved to New York, and socialized with a more diverse crowd, and saw the consequences of prejudice more directly than in his old conservative Memphis district. I'll take that now, too.
It seems divisive and pointless to attack people for their past positions when they want to be with us now. We need all the friends we can get and the only way we will get them is to grow them -- to celebrate their evolution.
This Senate race has a lot at stake for New Yorkers, and I encourage the LGBT community to participate in the dialogue and the campaign. But in my view, it surely isn't about who will be better on LGBT issues in the Senate. They both have the equality of the converted. And that, my friends, is a small victory in and of itself.