Cindy Abel (left) works with Mandy Carter, the campaign coordinator for NC Mobilization '96, which is trying to unseat Sen. Jesse Helms.
BY CINDY L. ABEL
DURHAM, N.C. - The news of my arrival got here before I did. As early as late July, I was being featured by name in the fund-raising letters of Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina.
Stonewall Cincinnati should be proud. Thousands across the country now have seen it referred to as a "top homosexual power group." The photograph would come later. And according to Helms' latest stump speech, so will thousands of lesbians from the Midwest, to join this "radical lesbian activist" to campaign for Helms' Democratic challenger, Harvey Gantt.
Cindy Abel (left) works with Mandy Carter, the campaign coordinator for NC Mobilization '96, which is trying to unseat Sen. Jesse Helms.
Aah Jesse, we could only wish for thousands of any flavor, who care about fairness and dignity, coming to get the word out and tell the truth. Were only that dream to come true.
Less than a month ago, a kinder, gentler Helms was being pitched to North Carolinians. Images of a Southern gentleman just trying his best to return society to the romanticized good old days - images a lot closer to fantasy than reality - underscored by his granddaughter Jennifer softly drawling, "I don't know why people don't like my granddaddy." Jennifer, have you seen his voting record?
As power slowly returned after Hurricane Fran, we turned on our televisions and radios to an authoritative voice "simply stating the facts." Facts such as Harvey Gantt's support for a non-discrimination ordinance that would have protected gays and lesbians, "an ordinance so liberal even the voters in Charlotte rejected it."
How effective was the message? It's hard to say. The polls were showing Helms in the lead, 50-40 percent, with 10 percent of the voters undecided. The gurus also reminded us of the "Fran Factor." At the time, a lot of people were too busy getting trees off of and out of their houses and cars and reassembling the pieces of their lives. When there's no running water, who cares who's running for the Senate?
"Harvey Gantt: More liberal than Bill Clinton," were the closing words on Helms' late September TV commercial. The punch line follows out-of-context excerpts from year-old interviews. It's typical campaign-"sloganing" and opponent-slashing. It's distorting and deceiving. And it's escalating.
Helms turns it up a notch: "Gantt supports same-sex marriage and other unconventional values."
Gantt fires back - "Same old Jesse. Lying again. Tricking you to get your vote" - and in the process makes public the already growing distance between him and many of those who carried him through a tight primary.
Raising the bar yet higher, Helms "quotes" Gantt as having "no objections" to same-sex marriage, which makes him more liberal than the Defense of Marriage Act-signing Bill.
Actually, in the interview, Gantt said he couldn't support the act but couldn't give any objections to it and just didn't think it was a good idea.
"I never supported that," he said, slipping his arm around his wife of 35 years as his children gathered around.
Meanwhile, a Democratic Party poll showed the candidates virtually neck and neck. Helms' campaign staff agreed that an early poll was probably overstating their candidate's lead. One thing is certain: It's been a strange race.
Other than the TV advertisements and radio spots, it would be easy to forget there even is a Senate seat at stake. Until the first week of October, it was difficult to find Gantt bumper stickers, signs and pins. As for Helms, they are pretty much nonexistent. It's as if neither candidate wants to draw much attention to himself, at least in a loud way. After all, they are both playing for the middle and must act respectable.
Above and below the radar, it's fast and furious, and the "gay card" was being played early. With Helms' announcement of my arrival, he warned of the "gay menace" that is North Carolina Mobilization '96 (NC Mobe). Gantt refused fund-raisers in gay clubs, fearful they would show up as more "vote for Helms" twisted trivia TV advertisements. Gantt's handlers are scared and skittish, willing to sacrifice anything and anyone they perceive might factor into a rerun of Gantt's loss to Helms in 1990. And sacrifice they are. Not just gays and lesbians, but youth and African-American labor, too.
No matter how offensive Gantt's actions might be, he still is educable. Once in office, at least he will continue to support issues such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and housing non-discrimination, which he is not denying. And that's a place to begin. Helms, on the other hand, has made his views crystal clear on everything from AIDS to gays to African-Americans to abortion.
A recent CBS poll showed Gantt leading 47-45 percent, and Helms' resulting attack arrived right on cue. Visions of nightmares past, circa 1990: the "race card." Gantt is accused of using his minority status to purchase a television station, then turning around and "selling it for millions of dollars." According to the Federal Communications Commission, Gantt's group was the only one that applied for a license, and race wasn't a factor.
So much for truth in advertising. Meanwhile, we brace for the onslaught of slanderous advertisements that are sure to come before election day.
It seems to work, I am sad to say. A woman admitted to a telephone banker that if her preferred candidate enjoyed support from the gay community, that wouldn't bother her "enough to change my mind. But," she almost whispered, "I just couldn't bring myself to vote for a black man."
And then there's Johnston County, so proud of the sign at the county line that until very recently read, "Welcome: Home of the KKK." The Clinton-Gore campaign went there to meet with Democratic Party loyals, trying to recruit folks to head up different constituency groups, just as they have done everywhere. When they got to "gay/lesbian," the crowd roared: "We shoot 'em down here!"
Welcome to America, North Carolina style. Last season, Helms closed the campaign with an advertisement showing a pair of white hands crumpling a termination notice, as the announcer somberly explained that a well-deserved job went to someone else because of affirmative action. This year, perhaps it will be an African-American gay man getting the job as he marries his pedophile partner.
All this from a politician whose main strategist during his first run for Senate - as well as last time - was Arthur Finkelstein. Who? You know, the guy who lives with his male partner and their two adopted children. It's not a secret or anything. "The height of hypocrisy," snaps Mandy Carter, campaign coordinator of NC Mobe. "I just don't get Finkelstein, but Helms? This is the one who claims not to know anyone gay, swears he'd never hire anyone who is and opposes gays adopting children. And yet he retains a gay advisor. What does that tell us?"
The race in North Carolina, however, isn't just about North Carolina. Like so many other contests this fall, it's about America. Defining the America we want to live in and raise our children in: one of exclusion where only the "approved" need apply, or one of inclusion, recognizing our differences and celebrating them? The Employment Non-Discrimination Act barely failed, 49-50, in the Senate in September.
Today, those of us who live in the 41 states where it is legal to fire someone simply because they're gay still have no protection. That one vote would have made the difference - for all of us. Gantt matters.
By supporting Gantt through venues he and we can live with, we demonstrate our understanding of the importance of electing at least educable officials. We also demonstrate that we know our rightful place and will take it without apology - even if that sometimes means we have to invite ourselves.
NC Mobilization '96 is working to fulfill a goal of recruiting, organizing and mobilizing at least 1,000 volunteers throughout the state. Openly gay people are now serving on committees in several counties, and NC Mobe volunteers have registered hundreds of voters and are staffing telephone banks with others who care about the basic American values of fairness, working to turn out the vote. On election day, they will be at the polls, offering rides and making calls to ensure high voter turn-out, all because North Carolina cannot afford another term with Jesse at the helm. Nor can anyone throughout the country who cares about equality.
Our lives are at stake. We must find a way to play an active role in writing our history, in creating our future. Once Gantt is in office, we can walk in boldly and say, "OK, we've played on your team, by your rules. We delivered even though you turned from us in the light. Now, let's talk."
It's up to us to step up and step out and make sure we have someone to meet with in early January - in North Carolina and across the country. Regardless of who we are. Regardless of where we live. Because thousands of lesbian activists are not going to come sweeping down from anywhere to save us. Because, Jennifer, your granddaddy and too many others like him think my friends, memorialized by a cloth cemetery spread out on the Mall in Washington D.C., deserved to die.
And because Helms is right about one thing: "It all comes down to who turns out to vote."
CINDY L. ABEL, former exectuive director of Stonewall Cincinnati, is communications director for NC Mobilization '96. She is a member of the National Board of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and a Honorary Co-Chair of the NC Clinton-Gore Lesbian and Gay Leadership Council.
CityBeat, Issue 2, Vol. 49; Oct. 31-Nov. 6, 1996