No Excuses

Last night members of the GLBT community in Denver and surrounding cities had the opportunity to meet with Senator Michael Bennet's State Director Rosemary Rodriguez.

Rosemary started off asking that the meeting be personal, open and informative both for us and for her.

Prior to the meeting, before she arrived, a few of us were sitting around talking, discussing what we hoped to hear, what we wanted to portray, and offering up questions to ask if the meeting hit a point where there was silence. One of the questions I was hoping to hear was what Senator Bennet did for GLBT employees as superintendent of Denver Public Schools. It was encouraging to hear that he extended benefits to same-sex couples that were previously enjoyed by heterosexual couples.

Senator Bennet is in favor of expanding the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation and gender identity. To show his support he became a co-sponsor of the Matthew Shepard Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Currently the senator sits on the Homeland Security Committee. Up for discussion is extending medical benefits to same-sex couples(I don't remember which bill this is so if anyone wants to expand on this please do).

There was a great question asked of what we can can do as a community to give the Senator coverage/protection when he votes in favor of pro-equality legislation. Rosemary made it very clear that once the senator makes up his mind whether he supports legislation or not his decision is final. Recently he was in a very unfriendly atmosphere, right outside Colorado Springs(city starts with a "F"?), and someone asked him what he thought about Marriage Equality. He stated that he believed it was a state right, and that if it were up for a vote in Colorado he absolutely would vote in favor of Marriage Equality. I find it very encouraging that in an atmosphere where he felt he had to be on guard he remained resolute in his support of equality and his own convictions.

I'm very thankful Rosemary spoke in depth about DOMA and how she is working with him in the coming days to bring him up to speed on GLBT legislation. Rosemary seemed very interested in having us all be in contact with her and Senator Bennet in the future and sharing our personal stories with him. Preferably, she would like as many stories as possible of how DOMA has adversely affected the GLBT community in Colorado. It is her hope to have these stories to share with Senator Bennet when the meet in the coming days. It is his belief that it is very important to share the stories of Coloradans when he is speaking on the Senate floor and touring the state. If DOMA has had a negative impact on your life please email your story to Rosemary Rodriguez.

There were many other questions asked and topics covered, but these are what I found most compelling. Hopefully, in the coming weeks we will have the opportunity to again sit down with Rosemary and discuss these issues in more depth, after she has had a meeting with Senator Bennet. It is our hope too that he will be present.

Thank you to Senator Bennet for sharing Rosemary with our community, and thank you to those in the Human Rights Campaign that made this meeting possible.

You can read more about this forum on HRC Backstory.