Bringing out the vote
At stake, according to gay Democratic activists, is whether gay voters will turn out in force in the 2006 congressional elections to help Democrats win back control of the House and Senate. Exit poll data has shown that between 75 percent and 80 percent of the gay vote goes to Democratic candidates in presidential and congressional elections, but that the size of the gay vote varies from election to election.

Eric Stern, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, would not comment on Deans changes.

"I see it as a restructuring because thats the chairmans prerogative when he or she comes in to take over the DNC," Stern said.

Stern said that while Hitchcock was doing a good job in helping the DNC reach out to gay voters, the NSD believes he needs at least one additional staff assistant to help him.

"Donald needs support in the form of a staff person, and weve certainly voiced that opinion," Stern said.

He said the Stonewall Democrats also have asked the DNC to hire more gay field workers to help with Deans initiative to more aggressively support all 50 state Democratic Party operations during the 2006 election.

Stern held the DNC gay outreach directors position from 2004--during the presidential campaign--until February 2005, when he resigned to take the Stonewall Democrats directors post.

Gay Democratic activists praised Stern for vigorously promoting the partys support for gay rights in appearances throughout the country during the 2004 campaign.

When Dean campaigned for the DNC chair post last February, he stated in a questionnaire prepared by the DNC gay caucus that he favored retaining a full-time gay outreach directors post. He received strong support in his quest to become DNC chair from gay Democrats, many of whom had praised Dean for his support in 2000 for a civil unions law in Vermont during his tenure as Vermont governor.

Dean, who has long supported gay rights, disappointed some gay activists in his unsuccessful campaign for president in the 2004 Democratic primaries when he said he opposed gay marriage because marriage should be remain a union only between a man and a woman. He has rejected criticism on the topic by arguing that civil unions provide gay couples with the same rights as marriage.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who won the Democratic nomination for president in 2004, also expressed opposition to gay marriage and instead said he favored civil unions like Dean.

Dean carried his message of opposition to gay marriage into his role as DNC chair last February, after winning the post at the partys annual winter meeting in Washington, D.C. At the time, Dean told the Associated Press that the Democratic Party is "not for gay marriage," although it has always and continues to believe "in equal rights under the law for all people."

In appearances before meetings of the DNC gay caucus and the NSD that same week, Dean pledged to continue the partys support for gay rights. But he said the party lost the 2004 presidential election to George W. Bush because, in part, it failed to communicate its core principles and allowed the Republicans to falsely define the party as being beholden to a litany of constituent groups.

Integrating minorities
A DNC statement describing Deans reasons for replacing the constituent desks with the new, "integrated" American Majority Partnership program does not specifically mention the gay outreach post but suggests that Dean believes the gay and other constituent "desks" may have hurt the party.

"To ensure all voters are respected, we no longer act as a series of disconnected silos," the statement says. "We will never be greater than the sum of our parts or as effective as we must be to win if we maintain a series of separate operations unable to achieve integration of effort and unity of purpose. Instead, we must have an integrated, elevated and cohesive approach to working with the communities that comprise the
Democratic majority."

"To that end," the statement says, "Governor Dean has insisted that every staff member at every level must be aware of the needs and priorities of all the communities the party represents, must reach out respectfully to those communities, and must build bridges between and among communities based on our shared values and priorities."