Jacques Speaks

Now this is interesting. Cheryl Jacques, the recently-fired former Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign, has launched her own website.

Sez Jacques:

While many committed leaders are continuing the long march toward full equality, including equal marriage rights, others are arguing that we have gone too far, too fast, and that we should wait for society to catch up. In determining our path going forward, we should look to the past and learn from the leaders of the civil rights battles that have come before us.

…The lessons of history are clear – equality cannot wait for a convenient time, society only moves toward equality when challenged to do so. Change does not come through cautious inaction, but through principled insistence. A backlash isn’t a reaction, it is the surfacing of long-standing resentments and misunderstandings that can only be addressed if brought out into the open. And the most important lesson is this – civil rights battles are never easy, and they are never short, but throughout our nation’s history, these battles have resulted in the expansion of equality to people who had previously been denied equal treatment under the law.

Read the rest. It’s very interesting, coming from someone who was an “insider” in terms of the national leadership of the gay & lesbian equality movement. The folks still at HRC are swearing that there’s not going to be a retreat or slow-down on marriage, but Jacques’ words seem to suggest something different. Of course, it’s impossible to know what doesn’t filter down to the rest of the community (HRC is after all a pretty “top-down” organization), if you don’t walk those corridors. Hell, I did walk those corridors, and I’m sure that what I don’t know about what went on during my time there could fill volumes.

Anyway, it will be intersting to see where Jacques shows up next, and what her next move is.