NJ Gay Activists – Pause While You’re Ahead

October 27, 2006 by
Filed under: Current Affairs, Life, Religion 

Gays and lesbians in NJ are celebrating the Supreme Court decision on Wednesday that will eventually give them the right to marry or enter an equivalent union.  However, some don’t believe that the decision goes far enough.

In this article, Steven Goldstein (the head of Garden State Equality) is quoted as saying that he will continue to fight for the term marriage to apply to gays and lesbians until there is “blood on these knuckles”.  He continues:  “We will outwork, outplay, outthink and demolish the other side”.  The Garden State Equality website says:

Those who would view today’s Supreme Court ruling as a victory for same-sex couples are dead wrong.  So help us God, New Jersey’s LGBTI community and our millions of straight allies will settle for nothing less than 100% marriage equality.  Let decision makers from Morristown to Moorestown, from Maplewood to Maple Shade, recognize that fundamental fact right now.

My day job is that of an IT Project Manager.  In both my college days and in the years since, I’ve received training in change management.  One fundamental principle of change management is that you must leave those impacted by the change enough time to process the change and make it a part of their world view.  Attempting to force a change upon masses who may not agree with the change in a short period of time by fiat is a bad idea – the change is doomed to be actively resisted at best and to fail at worst.  The bigger the change, the bigger the amount of time required to process it.  Any attempt to force change to happen faster merely causes a backlash against that change.  In the workplace that results in passive and aggressive behavior:  refusing to use the new process, intentionally working slowly to punish those forcing the change, excessive sick days, negative comments passed behind the backs of those making the change, etc.  In society, imagine failure to recognize the change as the best case, with actual violence as the worst case.

When a minority (numerically) wins a victory over the majority, they must behave as a good winner.  That means acknowledging the loser’s value even though they have not triumphed, and choosing not to emphasize the loser’s attributes/mistakes/ability.  “Yay, we won!” not “Yay, you lost!”  Then, the losers need to be given space to grieve for their loss and incorporate the new reality into their worldview.  Pressing for the next concession immediately is only going to infuriate those who are already wounded by the decision.  That puts them in fight or flight mode, and with societal change flight isn’t really a possibility.

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Let’s face it, time is on the side of the gay community.  Polls show that gay rights are increasingly supported by the public, and that the support is more positive among those who are younger.  Time will finally erase the stigma incorrectly applied to non-heterosexuals, but it will take time.  Just as it has taken time to reduce racism and gender bias.

Winners have a responsibility to losers to ensure that the loss is not so painful that the losers walk away from the game (or worse, change the rules to cause the winners to lose next time).  Losers have a responsibility to accept the loss and act graciously towards winners.  Both must do this because next time, they could be on the other side.

This principle is too often lost in today’s society, religion, and politics.

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