HomoQuotable - Toni Broaddus

"Dear Cleve, We don't really know each other, but I've always respected your work, especially as a leader working on HIV and AIDS issues. And I know that hundreds of thousands of LGBT people still look up to you, especially since your early days of activism have been immortalized on the big screen. But over the past year, I've become increasingly disillusioned by your comments in the press about the work of our movement in the states. You have repeatedly said that 'the state strategy is a failed strategy.' Cleve, nothing could be farther from the truth.

"Over the past three decades, our movement has passed hundreds of laws at the state and local level. By way of contrast, we have been unable to pass any laws at the federal level that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people, let alone bring us closer to equality. Cleve, it is a fact that the only success our movement has had in securing equal rights for LGBT people to date is at the state level, even as most of our movement's resources have been focused on the national level. Your claim of a failed state strategy simply is not supported by reality. Without our work to achieve equality in the states, LGBT people in this country would have no rights at all." - Equality Foundation executive director Toni Broaddus, in an open letter written to National Equality March founder Cleve Jones, just published on The Bilerico Project.

Read Broaddus' entire letter. She takes great exception to Jones' dismissal of local and state activism as less effective than working for equality at the federal level.