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Vital Voice: EXCLUSIVE: Q&A with Tobias Wolff

BIO

Tobias Barrington Wolff is the Co-Chair, National LGBT Policy Committee, Obama for America '08 and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He writes and teaches in the fields of Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, and Conflict of Laws. He began his teaching career at the University of California , Davis Law School and has been a visiting professor at Stanford and Northwestern Law Schools.

Before entering academia, Wolff was a litigator at the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York and served as a judicial clerk for Judges Betty Binns Fletcher and William Norris, both of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Professor Wolff has also worked as a civil rights attorney for ten years and has participated in gay rights cases around the country, including marriage and relationship rights litigation in Alaska , California , Hawai'i and Iowa and litigation over the U.S. military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy in the First and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals.

Colin Murphy: Tell me a little bit about your role as LGBT policy advisor to the Obama campaign; how often to you speak to Sen. Obama on issues of concern to the community?

Tobias Wolff: I was first the chair of the national LGBT policy committee for the campaign starting in June of last year. So it’s going on about 15-months ago. And then with the transition into the general election, we expanded the committee to include—of course, a lot of the folks who had been supporting other candidates—and also to really expand its function as well as I suppose its title. So the committee is now called the National LGBT Steering and Policy Committee and I have a Co-Chair who is none other than U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) which to say the least, was at thrill for me.

Basically I have been the chief outside policy advisor to the senator and to the campaign on LGBT issues. And in that capacity I have either sat down with the senator in person or spoken with him one-on-one on the phone probably at this point about half a dozen times about issues surrounding our community.

CM: Many are familiar with Sen. Obama’s positions on GLBT issues but not necessarily with how he came to that world view; have you had occasion to speak to the senator about how he became aware of GLBT issues; was it early on, perhaps through friends or family, or later in his career as a public servant?

TW: It’s not an issue that I’ve spoken to the senator about, but I have spoken to some of the people who have known him for a long time in Chicago. And you know there is that wonderful story in the Advocate the other week, which I’m sure you saw, and at least a couple of the people who were interviewed there are people whom I’ve gotten to know through my work on the campaign. And it’s my impression—as is of course the case for a lot of people in the United States that Sen. Obama, before he was a senator—Barack Obama the individual citizen, just knew LGBT folks in the community where he lived and had gay and lesbian friends and always viewed them as a part of his larger community.

And when he got to a position as a policy maker when he was elected in 1996 to the Illinois State Senate, he actually right away began to give voice to that idea that LGBT folks are a part of our community and should be treated as a respected part of our community by becoming immediately a co-sponsor on the legislation that was eventually enacted seven years later that added antidiscrimination principles to Illinois state law.

CM: In 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush received approximately 25 percent of the LGBT vote. While the gay community is not monolithic, the Democratic Party has traditionally been the party to pick up the banner for LGBT issues. What is the Obama campaign doing this year to try to increase the number of LGBT voters and perhaps dip into the Log Cabin Republican vote which went for Bush?

TW: We’re doing a lot. The outreach to the LGBT community is a fully integrated part of the field operation that the campaign is running in this general election and there are several full time staff members and a larger number of full time volunteers in Chicago whose job it is to be coordinating the LGBT vote effort nationwide. And then we have a series of regional chairs of Obama Pride, which is the outreach and grassroots organization within the campaign that’s targeting the LGBT community.

Really, at the statewide level working with both advocacy organizations and community organizations—at the municipal level, the local level—we are doing traditional old-school organizing and we are having folks show up at local events and contact local community organizations. There’s been a big voter registration drive within the LGBT community. In every way from the local level to the national level we are making the LGBT vote a priority and a part of our field program.

CM: Sen. Obama supports Hate Crimes and Employment Nondiscrimination Laws which would include sexual orientation and gender identity protections. He also supports the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. If elected, there will be a Democratic Congress and president; has Sen. Obama pledged action on these three issues in his first term?

TW: Oh absolutely. He has said—we came very close, of course, this year to passing Hate Crimes legislation out of Congress and we came a little bit less close but still made important progress on Employment Nondiscrimination. These are the kind of efforts that require a number of things. They require legislative support and energy, they require a sense on the part of the public that it’s time for this kind of progress, and it requires a president who is prepared to put leadership behind it.

Barack has said that on issues of Employment Nondiscrimination, on issues of Hate Crimes, on issues of the military policy where the public opinion has been way ahead of politicians for quite some time now—he said that it really seems like we are ready to tackle these issues at a national level. And really moving those issues forward is definitely something that he’s talked about that he thinks will be something that we can accomplish during a first Obama term.

CM: Last year, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Law failed to pass but during the process there were efforts to omit gender identity protections from the bill. If a Hate Crimes or Employment Nondiscrimination Bill reached President Obama’s desk and included sexual orientation but not gender identity protections would he sign it or send it back?

TW: What Sen. Obama has said and has worked for is to get the best legislation possible enacted as a legislator. And I’ll give you an example of that—when he was working on the Illinois Human Rights Act in Illinois—the law that now outlaws discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity in not just employment but also housing and places of public accommodation—this very issue, of course, cropped up in the Illinois Legislature as well. The question of whether gender identity would continue to be a part of the bill because it would maybe be easier to enact if that were omitted. And Sen. Obama remained very firm on that and he insisted on keeping gender identity in that bill and if Sen. Obama is elected president he has said in public materials multiple times that he will put the weight of his administration behind fully inclusive legislation, and what he will work towards is getting the best possible legislation across his desk.

CM: Sen. Obama supports Civil Unions but not Gay Marriage and says that marriage is a state issue. At the Saddleback presidential forum many in the GLBT community were encouraged to hear Barack Obama frame the issue of the benefits of civil marriage as a civil right when he said, “I think my faith is strong enough and my marriage is strong enough that I can afford those civil rights to others even if I have a different perspective or a different view.” He seems to have found a way to talk about the debate over marriage equality and frame it as a civil rights issue and sort of defuse the other side’s argument that granting these rights are a threat to the sanctity of marriage. Have you gotten a lot of feedback on that?

TW: It’s interesting. The issue of civil unions versus civil marriage, of course, is one of the things that a lot of LGBT voters have focused a lot of attention on in this race. And I think that you’re right when you say that while Barack has a position on that issue that a lot of LGBT folks aren’t 100-percent in agreement with—myself included, by the way—I’ve always been very free in saying that. What is very clear is that it is not an issue that causes him anxiety and it is not an issue that he is afraid of dealing with in a serious way. For example, he has said many times that while he has his own set of views about civil marriage versus civil unions, he also is very skeptical of people who make arguments that somehow affording rights to gay and lesbian couples is going to threaten their own relationships or is going to threaten their own cultural traditions. And that people need to take a second look if that’s their attitude—he’s said that on multiple occasions.

He also supports the case that at the Federal level—for the things that the president of the United States actually has responsibility for—what Barack has very courageously been on record advocating, for years now, is the elimination of all forms of Federal discrimination against the relationships of same sex couples whatever state law allows those couples to do by way of celebrating their relationships. So if you can get domestic partnered in the state of Washington, if you can get civil united in the state of New Jersey or you can get civilly married in the state of California—Sen. Obama’s view is that Federal law should not discriminate against your relationship and should be treated equally at the Federal level. So it really is—as I think you suggested in your question—it is a very respectful and balanced way of talking about an issue that has previously been treated as very divisive.

CM: You mentioned that the issue doesn’t cause him any anxiety. A lot of people are very hopeful that Sen. Obama is movable on the issue but is just waiting for the country to come along. In four years the country has improved on the issue and you know, they say it is a generational thing—that it’s not a big deal for younger voters. Is there any sense that this is an issue where the senator is not fundamentally opposed—that he is waiting for the country to catch up with the times?

TW: I’ll say this about it and I feel very comfortable saying this because it comes very directly from things that Sen. Obama himself has said. On the one hand, people should not view his position on this issue with a wink and a nod. He has stated his views on the issue and they are genuine. At least I’ve never heard him say anything that would suggest otherwise. But on the other hand, when he talks about the issue of marriage in The Audacity of Hope, one of the things that he said was “This is where I’ve been on this issue, but I recognize that as with any issue that generates strong feelings and where one community feels that they are not being treated fairly, I always have to be prepared to revisit that issue….and at the very least to be prepared to be sure that I still believe what I believe and that I have good reasons for believing it.” I think that acknowledgement that no matter what ones position is on this issue, it’s an issue that a lot of people have strong feelings about and so it requires that mature willingness to always at least talk about the issue in a serious way. It’s very refreshing.

The other thing that I’ll say and this is a good thing for your readers to know about, especially since you all went through a state constitutional amendment back in 2004. You know, Sen. Obama has come out very strongly against all of these state constitutional amendments including the one in California on the ballot this year, the one if Florida, the one that’s just been put on the ballot in Arizona. His view is that you can have personal views about civil marriage versus civil unions but that to write these kinds of decisions into constitutions—whether state constitutions or the federal Constitution—is just divisive and not helpful and really not a good thing to do.

CM: HIV/AIDS cases are on the rise again among young gay men and in minority communities. The work being done in Africa needs to continue, of course, but there needs to be more attention paid to the epidemic here at home. What are some specific ideas that Sen. Obama’s has to combat HIV/AIDS in America?

TW: I’m glad you asked. This is an issue that Sen. Obama has been working on in a very serious way for a long time—for well over ten years. Let me just give you a couple of highlights of the policy issues that he’s put on the table in this election. First and foremost, he has talked about the need for a comprehensive and integrated national strategy to deal with HIV/AIDS that will involve all federal agencies; that will involve the setting of bench marks for measuring success and will really in a way that we have not done domestically; will mobilize and integrate the resources of the federal government to treat this as the national health crisis that it is.

Secondly, he has been a strong advocate for fully funding the Ryan White Care Act, which of course, is the federal legislation that makes money available to providers at the state and local level to help with the provision of HIV/AIDS services. And of course, one of the most difficult challenges that people who work on HIV/AIDS have confronted domestically is that there has really never been adequate funding from the federal government to deal with the treatment needs and the prevention needs of our people.

A third thing is a comprehensive approach to prevention and education—making condoms available to incarcerated people under the Justice Act, for example, which is a policy that has proven public heath benefits and that often has political risks associated with it; making age appropriate education available to kids in our public schools so that they can learn how to protect themselves at the time when they need to know how to protect themselves; making housing available to folks who suffer from HIV/AIDS and are falling through the cracks of social service networks; making research funds available—one of the federal bills currently working its way through Congress that is going to make much needed funding available to research for prevention as well as treatment at every level—from prevention services and funding—to sensible and proven public health strategies—to preventing the spread of the disease and educating people so that they can protect themselves from transmission of the virus—to providing services from people who are already suffering from the virus and need help—he’s really been a leader.

CM: Is there anything you would like to speak to that I haven’t asked?

TW: One other thing I’ll mention is I’m gong to be coming to St. Louis a little later this week and we’ll be meeting with a bunch of folks and holding at least one public forum and having a chance to speak to folks. And I’m very excited that part of this campaign and a part of Sen. Obama’s strategy to this national election is in fact to speak to a broad range of communities in states all around the country. And that really getting the LGBT community in the state of Missouri excited about this election and excited about the opportunity to vote for somebody who is such a proven advocate for equality and fairness for the LGBT community. It’s really exciting to me and it’s really important to the campaign and so I want folks to know that—I’m not quite sure how much attention the LGBT community in Missouri has gotten in presidential elections in the past—but they’re going to get at lot of attention from us.

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