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Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean (Source: Evan Vucci / AP) |
Democratic National Committee
Chairman Howard Dean took the stand to give his testimony in a lawsuit alleging
that Dean fired a gay DNC staffer because of writings critical to the DNC
authored by the staffer’s partner.
In a March 28 article the Washington Blade reported that Dean’s two-day
testimony insisted that Donald Hitchcock, who served as the director of the Gay
& Lesbian Leadership Council for the Democratic National Committee’s director
for just under a year, was let go because of under-performance on the job,
rather than on account of anything Hitchcock’s partner, Paul Yandura, wrote.
Hitchcock’s firing took place within a matter of days after Yandura sent an open
letter questioning why the DNC had not done more to counter conservatives’
efforts in various states to outlaw marriage equality.
According to an EDGE story from last month, The Blade reported in January that
Yandura’s letter contained a suggestion that GLBT Democrats stop withhold
financial support of the DNC to pressure the organization to take steps to stop
the Republican party from using gay families and the issue of marriage equality
to galvanize conservative voters.
After the letter was circulated, Hitchcock was informed that Dean had decided to
terminate his employment with the DNC. In a May 5, 2006 story, the
Washington Blade quoted Yandura as calling Hitchcock’s firing "retaliation,
plain and simple."
Added Yandura at the time, "This shows what they think about domestic partners."
Said Yandura, "All I did was ask questions about what the party and Dean are
doing about its GLBT constituency."
Added Yandura, "I have yet to see any answers."
The Mar. 28 Blade article cited media attention that focused on the issue of the
DNC’s commitment to GLBT concerns, saying that stories in the press had begun to
appear prior to Hitchcock’s firing.
Dean, the former governor of VT under whose watch that state became the first in
the nation to offer civil unions to gay and lesbian families, testified that
Hitchcock’s employment was terminated for one reason only: Hitchcock did
not achieve the goal of enhancing GLBT support for the Democrats.
The Blade article quoted Dean as saying, "I don’t know what Donald was doing."
Continued Dean, "I know what he wasn’t doing. He wasn’t getting us the
support in the gay community."
Added Dean, "The relations with the gay community, which I had a very good
relationship when I started, had been deteriorating since Donald came on board."
As for news items focusing on whether the DNC was serving the GLBT community
effectively, Dean said, that negative reportage on the downsizing of a gay
outreach position was "unfair and unwarranted," but that in terms of Hitchock’s
firing, "The press is not the problem."
Continued Dean, "The problem was the community itself was getting a bad
impression because Donald wasn’t able to counteract in the community what the
press was writing."
Added Dean, "You are supposed to have clout [in the job Hitchcock was hired to
perform]."
Dean went on, "In this job you have to have the respect and the clout in the
community so they do buy it."
Said the former governor, "And if you don’t have that clout, you can’t do the
job."
Dean also claimed that he had been "unaware of the letter [send by Yandura]
until long after" Hitchcock was fired.
Dean portrayed Hitchcock’s firing as a business decision that carried no taint
of personal acrimony and was carried out in a professional manner on the part of
the DNC.
The Blade article quoted Dean as testifying that, "I personally liked Donald
Hitchcock as a human being and I had no will to harm him in any way."
Continued Dean, "And normally the way we handle people who in our opinion can’t
do their jobs is leave them a viable option for future employment. And he
refused that viable option."
Said Dean, "When he did, I realized that he was going to be very
confrontational."
Hitchcock’s lawyer contended that criticism from the media in the wake of the
gay outreach job being eliminated was something that Hitchcock could not have
prevented, the Blade reported.
Said attorney Lynne Bernabei, "Donald did what he could do to defend the DNC."
Added Bernabei, "But the key policies and actions of the DNC that were
criticized in the press were things that Donald had no control over."
Hitchcock’s lawsuit alleges that he was the target of retaliatory measures by
the DNC for Yandura’s letter, and also claims that Hitchcock suffered job
discrimination because of his sexuality.
The suit further alleges that DNC officials, including Dean, spread untrue and
unflattering rumors about Hitchcock, and that his termination was not due to job
performance.
Aside from Dean, the suit names DNC treasurer Andy Tobias and deputy finance
director Julie Tagen.
The DNC’s attorneys say none of those claims are true.
The Blade reported that Dean’s testimony revealed internal dissension as the DNC
contemplated adding language relevant to GLBT people to the organization’s
policies. Some DNC-affiliated individuals took that suggestion to be "an
affront to the civil rights movement."
Donna Brazile, part of the DNC Black Caucus, was specifically cited; the Blade
article said that Brazile would not comment.
Dean said that his own view was that it was important to honor both sides of
that question.
Said Dean, "I wanted equal representation for gay and lesbian Americans, and I
wanted to achieve it in a way that wasn’t offensive to the history of the civil
rights movement."
Some leaders in the African-American community have taken exception to GLBT
equality leaders casting their cause as a civil rights issue. That
argument has been denounced for various reasons, including the observation that
non-African American gays and lesbians did not have ancestors who were slaves.
Another argument from black leaders has been that gays and lesbians can simply
pass as straight, thereby side-stepping the effects of discrimination, whereas
for African-Americans that is not generally an option.
GLBT leaders take the view that gays and lesbians should not have to pass as
anything other than who they truly are, and that their family rights should not
be legally attacked on the basis of their life partners being of the same
gender.
As previously reported by the Blade, the DNC’s chief of staff, Leigh Daughtry,
also opposes marriage equality. Said Daughtry, "I believe, as the church
believes, that marriage is intended for one man and one woman."
Dean was asked more general questions about the DNC’s role in addressing the
concerns of American gays and lesbians, reported the Blade.
Bernabei quizzed Dean on an appearance Dean made in 2006 on the religious
program the 700 Club, in which Dean stated that the Democrats’ position on
marriage equality was that "marriage is between a man and a woman."
The Democratic party, the Blade reported, had taken no such position, and has
stated that marriage equality should be left to individual states to decide, as
Mass. did in 2004 when it became the first and, so far, only state to extend
marriage equality to all its citizens.
Dean’s words on the 700 Club resulted in harsh responses from gay and lesbian
equality groups, with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force going so far as to
send back a donation of $5,000 that the DNC had made.
Asked about the incident by Bernabai, Dean replied, "What I said on television
was a mistake."
His own belief, Dean said, was that gays and lesbians should enjoy the same
right to marriage as heterosexual couples, a view Dean said he arrived at when
he himself was campaigning in 2004.
During that experience, Dean said, "I learned a lot about the gay community.
And I became much more comfortable with the gay community as I got to know more
about them."
Bernabei then pursued Dean on the topic of a campaign worker from his 2004 bid,
Claire Lucas, a lesbian activist who had been fired by the Dean camp, allegedly
for delivering a slap to another person.
Claire Lucas has also been called to testify, the Blade reported, and must
appear before April 18.
Though the alleged slap was not discussed at length in Dean’s testimony, a
lawyer for Lucas said in a statement that his client, who worked on the Dean
campaign in 2004 on a volunteer basis, "was never fired for misconduct." the
Blade reported.
Pointed out the statement, "Gov. Dean believing that Claire Lucas would do such
an act is also incongruous with his subsequent actions."
The Blade further quoted the statement as saying, "After Howard Dean’s
presidential bid, he became chair of the DNC. He quickly appointed Ms.
Lucas as chair of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council."
In turn, the DNC’s communication director, Karen Finney, issued a statement
saying that, "Governor Dean is grateful to Claire Lucas for her commitment to
the LGBT community, friendship to the DNC and her hard work in helping to raise
the funds we need to defend the ideals of equal rights for everyone and ensure
democratic victories up and down the ballot."
The DNC statement went on, the Blade reported, to say, "It is disturbing that
once again testimony has been leaked as part of an ugly fishing expedition into
an unrelated lawsuit for what appears to be personal attacks having no relation
to the Hitchcock lawsuit."
Continued the statement, "All of this is a distraction from the facts and from
the work that we all need to be united for, winning back the White House and
widening our lead in Congress."
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes
commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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