by Euan Bear

      It's a year before the election, and former Governor Howard Dean's presidential campaign is rolling. For nearly a year now, he has been traveling the country, greeted with standing ovations at gay pride celebrations and other lgbt gatherings. At least two internet-based organizations — OutforDean.com and Dykes for Dean, a Yahoo group — are mobilizing gays and lesbians to become active in his campaign and to donate early and often. Neither organization is an official affiliate of the Dean for America campaign.
      Out for Dean's Chris Cooper is part of the team that in their spare time maintains the OutforDean.com website and organized house parties on National Coming Out Day, October 11. Dean connected with those attending the parties by conference call that night.
      The lgbt campaign organization is the 29-year-old Cooper's first foray into political activism. "I stumbled into activism by doing it. If you want something changed, you get up and do it."
      Cooper, based in Washington, D.C., and Jan Cadoret, the prime mover behind the San Francisco-based Dykes for Dean, fielded some questions about their organizations and what Howard Dean's candidacy means to them.
      Out For Dean was founded by David Mariner in April 2003, "before the bubble" of media attention and fundraising success put Howard Dean on front pages across the country. Cooper, a media/public relations specialist for the American Planning Association, a nonprofit public interest and research outfit, joined within the first month. "I found myself yet again screaming at the TV news, wondering why the rest of the country couldnÍt see the insanity I was seeing," he said.
      "I researched the candidates and made a practical decision to support the one who is most in line with my beliefs and could pass the electability laugh test. Howard Dean was the one," Cooper explained. He admitted that he did not agree with every stand Dean has taken, citing Dean's position on the death penalty as an example, "but I've been able to witness the process he takes to get to his positions, and I can respect that process."
      At this point, Cooper said, "I can't just be a passive observer, and politics becomes an exercise in persuasion. We need to take electability back from the right wing."
      Jan Cadoret, a 47-year-old carpenter-innkeeper-website builder-internet matchmaker, founded Dykes for Dean on August 6, 2003. "Dean was rising up in the polls, and I had participated in the MoveOn.org poll. I thought I was picking an underdog, and then he came out with 43 or 44 percent. I thought, 'Oh my god, other people are supporting him too!'"
      When Cadoret looked at a breakdown of the support for Howard Dean among the gay and lesbian community, it was about two to one men. "Lesbians tend to gravitate to stuff for women. Dykes for Dean was a way for me to promote him to my peers."
      Cadoret said that she had "never cared about politics" before the current campaign. "But I've been bitching about Bush for so long. When Dean speaks, I get the feeling that he's a real guy. Dean is head and shoulders above the rest of the [Democratic] candidates."
      Out for Dean contacted Cadoret within a week of her organization's founding to ask whether she would become an associate. "Out for Dean was pretty clear that they didn't want to just be a bunch of gay white guys," Cadoret said. She agreed to associate, but declined a closer tie.
      As of mid-October Dykes for Dean had 176 members nationwide with a distribution through 27 states — including Vermont — and Washington, D.C. Out for Dean has chapters in 24 states and Washington, D.C. There is currently no chapter of Out for Dean in the candidateÍs home state of Vermont, though Cooper maintained that lgbts in the missing states are involved in a state or city chapter of Dean's official campaign organization.
      "With Dean as a candidate, there is no way that the Democrats — and our community — can run from this issue [lesbian and gay equality]," Cooper said.
      Cadoret's National Coming Out Day Dykes for Dean house party hosted 40 women with 14 volunteers and a six-piece Dixieland band (three lesbians, three gay men, all Dean supporters, according to Cadoret). The party raised $1,000 for the Dean campaign and was in on a nationwide conference call with the candidate.
      Cooper's Washington, DC NCOD party had registered the largest amount in online campaign pledges by midnight on the Thursday before, so he was given one of two "guaranteed" question slots for the conference call. He and his party-goers decided to dedicate their question to transgender issues.
      "During his initial comments about lgbt equality, Dean recalled the story of meeting an 80-year-old veteran in South Carolina who told him about being gay in the military. The experience changed Dean's perception of gays and lesbians in the military and also his perception about the South," related Cooper.
      "I asked him if he had had any similar situations in his life that informed his understanding of TG [transgender] issues and, if not, how he came to his position on TG equality."
      Dean, wrote Cooper in an email, told of an encounter with transgender health issues when a personnel manager asked Dean "whether or not their health insurance was going to cover sex-change operations, etc. He said, 'Well... I dunno... I have to sit and think about that one. But I can't imagine that it's a question that comes up very often.' The manager said, 'You'd better think quick because we had 3 requests just last year.'" The incident happened early in Dean's governorship.
      "Then he articulated his vision for a world where TG is recognized the same as any other gender. He articulated his position about TG equality and how he would fight for insurance coverage of sex-change operations, etc.," Cooper concluded.
      Asked whether he thought gays and lesbians nationally are ready for a serious backlash, especially on gay marriage, Cooper declared, "We can win by telling our own stories. The Republican Party and the press identify the issue as gay marriage, when it's really about lgbt equality. We need to package it in terms of the ability of an lgbt partner to visit the hospital, in terms of real people, real issues. It's our responsibility to make the distinction between 'marriage' and equality.'"
      Cadoret wrote in an email, "Gay and lesbian Americans may not have much choice as to whether they can endure [a potentially dirty] campaign, since the right wing is already gearing up to make gay rights a main divisive issue. I think that the backlash will happen anyway because most of the Democratic candidates are supportive of gay rights. Since Gov. Dean already knows, from his Vermont experience, what right wing opponents are capable of, he may be able to handle it best."
      "On DonÍt Ask/DonÍt Tell, employment equality, hate crime, hospital visitation — on every issue the polling breaks our way. Except for gay marriage," Cooper said. And as for the common wisdom that Dean's support for lgbt rights makes him unpalatable in the South, Cooper pointed out, "The only Southern state we have to win is Florida, and the vote there will be under more scrutiny" in the upcoming election because of the debacle of the 2000 election. "But we've gotta win by a lot."