Community Leaders and Activists Create Movements Future at Summit

By David Stocum

Approximately 100 LGBT community leaders and activists assembled at the UNM Law School on June 6, 2009 for the Summit on LGBT Rights New Mexico. Saturday’s event was the first such summit since 2003. The summit was organized by an Ad Hoc committee including representatives from several LGBT and ally organizations along with individual activists. Attendees represented a broad range of organizations and geographic areas including Las Cruces, Alamogordo, Mora, Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

The morning was devoted to assessing where the LGBT rights movement in New Mexico is, how we got here with the afternoon devoted to what the next steps should be.

Havens Levitt facilitated an interactive presentation of the history of the New Mexico LGBT movement to lead the day off. One striking point of this history is that New Mexico in many areas has been in the lead on issues like employment non-discrimination. A recap of the 2009 Legislative session was presented by Rep. Mimi Stewart and Linda Siegle, EQNM Lobbyist. Stewart and Siegle reported that the Senate continues to be the roadblock to relationship recognition. Rep. Stewart said that she had the votes to pass the Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities Act if it had gotten out of the Senate. They detailed the drama filled process of SB12 and its ultimate failure to pass the Senate. Siegle reported that a new bill separating Domestic Partnership from the Marriage statutes is being drafted by the Legislative Council Service. The new bill is intended to win over critics of SB12 including the Catholic Church. The morning session was wrapped up with Shannon Minter, Lead Counsel California Marriage Cases and Lynn Perls an Albuquerque attorney who helped draft the Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities Act providing information on litigation and legislation. This session provided perspective on the risks and benefits of each approach. It also put the New Mexico movement in context of the national LGBT rights movement.

Andrew Gans and Sonia Bettez facilitated the afternoon session which focused on the future of the LGBT rights movement in New Mexico. Small groups looked at the questions of where do you want our movement to be, what’s most important to you and what is needed to get there? All summit attendees used the results of the small groups to set some priority areas for going forward. A second round of small groups began creating action plans based on those priorities. These action plans were then reported to the larger group and actions begun.

The summit was followed by a rally on Civic Plaza in downtown Albuquerque and a reception for Equal Rights Champions at the 4^th Street Nightclub.