Losing Focus on Our Values

Have the recent discussions about illegal immigration triggered a reaction from CCGLA’s board of directors that now has this community organization discriminating against immigrants?

Recently the CCGLA board amended its’ bylaws to prevent anyone who is not a registered voter to be eligible to be a director or officer of the organization. To become a registered voter, a person must be a United States citizen. People who can’t become citizens include temporary workers (H1-B visa holders), international students, green card/permanent residents, and undocumented immigrants.

This action reinforces the widely held (and destructive) view that immigrants are second class citizens. While immigrants may not have the same protections under the law as citizens, they deserve the same levels of dignity and respect. How can an organization that advocates equality, dignity and respect, offer none of these to a group of residents in Collin County? Isn’t this new bylaw in conflict with the values for which CCGLA stands?

One of the original purposes of CCGLA was to bring together a community that reflected the diversity of people and their backgrounds that lived and worked within Collin County. I believe the founding CCGLA board reflected this diversity. I also now believe that the current board does not.

It is a concern to me that CCGLA now appears to support what many of us on the founding board were fighting against: discrimination. Discrimination is not just a GLBT issue. Everyone can be discriminated against for any reason. It happens every day, but should it happen within an organization that’s purpose is to fight against it? As one of the founding board members, I am disgusted that the CCGLA board has written such a discriminatory rule into their governing documents. I am equally surprised that the only founding board member remaining on the board supported this change.

With the annual meeting only days away, let’s hope the membership of CCGLA hold this board accountable for their actions, and refocuses the organization on its core values of advocating equality, dignity and respect in our community.

(Originally posted on my personal blog.)

CCGLA Amends Bylaws; Members Disenfranchised?

It appears that at the April 23, 2006 meeting of the CCGLA Board of Directors, an amendment was made to section 2.03(g) of the organization’s bylaws. This section now reads,

To be a candidate for Director or officer you must be a registered voter

Previously, the bylaw read,

To be a candidate for Director or officer

Given this change, the Board appears to have introduced a further membership level, and has disenfranchised many of its members who are not able to obtain voter registration, not to mention members who have deliberately chosen not to register to vote (a right people have in this country).

For an organization that advocates equality and “fights” discrimination, it seems to be doing a very good job of achieveing neither of these with this change.

Members of CCGLA need to ask their board why this change was made, and how they plan to address the inequity that this change has created within the organization.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Challenge Fails

The court challenge to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (Cook v. Rumsfeld) was dismissed today by the U.S. District Court forthe District of Massachusetts. According to the Service Members Legal Defense Network website,

The U.S. District Court forthe District of Massachusetts has granted the government’s motion to dismiss in Cook v. Rumsfeld, a constitutional challenge to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members.

Visit the SLDN website for more information.

Update: Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) announced on May 15, 2006, that it intends to appeal a court decision dismissing its constitutional challenge to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel.

Thank You and Explanation

I wanted to thank all of you who have sent me emails supportive of my actions against CCGLA. A couple of you have asked why I was pursuing this, and I thought I would post my response to this question here.

Firstly, I believe that the actions of members of the CCGLA Board was in direct violation of the CCGLA Bylaws. The proponents of the action against me have not produced one piece of evidence that justifies the actions taken. I have sought specifics, however these have so far alluded me.

As a board member I have a responsibility to myself, CCGLA members and the State of Texas to abide by the rules of our organization. As the author of the Articles and Bylaws, I understand these rules extremely well, and after providing advice on the violations of the bylaws that occured, I was met with a great deal of hostility (primarily as this was not the way the rules had been interpreted by the CCGLA President and Vice President). As I’ve stated in my lawsuit, I have done nothing to break the rules of CCGLA, and have always acted in the best interests of the organziation at all times.

It should be noted, that as I took on the task of writing the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws for CCGLA in 2003, many discussions took place on how CCGLA should develop as we grew. Our organization was to be about being inclusive and accepting of differing individuals (gay, lesbian, transgender, straight) and their opinions. It was recognized by the original steering committee that for CCGLA to be relevant in our community, we would have to rely on our community for the ongoing success of CCGLA. Many of these factors were then built into our governing documents, to remind us, and future boards of their responsibilities for our organization.

Secondly, and related to my first point, is that I have a personal belief that we should all value the contributions of our diverse community. This doesn’t mean that we agree with them, just that we support a person’s right to express them. Being different is what being gay is all about – at least that is what we are reminded of every day of our lives, and it should be no different within an organization that focuses it’s attention on the GLBT community. Many times, during meetings of the CCGLA Board, I felt that my presence or contribution was not valued, and that the rest of the board would be much happier if I weren’t there. This feeling cannot be quantified, but it was a feeling that I had; and if members of the CCGLA board were true to the belief that all opinions are welcome, then it was clearly not the case during some of these meetings. (It should be noted that this was primarily directed from one or two board members, but the failure of other board members to speak up, suggested that this was a generally supported view.)

Third, I believe that CCGLA needs to be a part of our wider community, as it provides an opportunity to educate our wider community and reduce the fear that is often experienced by individuals (an excellent example of this is the recent constitutional election in Texas). CCGLA should be challenging those fears, and providing opportunities to build our alliances with the straight community. This is one area that I had hoped to build on as a board member of CCGLA, as I feel that it is an major part of our mission that was (is) not being delivered.

Finally, after CCGLA President, Morris Garcia declined to meet with me to attempt to resolve any issues between us, I documented a number of contributions that I have made since rejoining the board in June. I also believe that I have done more than many other board members that have led, or will lead, to an expansion of role (and relevancy) of CCGLA within the general community. The fact that after attempting to resolve this issue, and then with the actions of the board, I was led to believe that the outcome of the meeting on November 20, 2005 had already been determined, and – as I said in my initial media statement – this kind of kangaroo court is not something that should be a welcome direction for an organization like CCGLA.

It is for all these reasons, and those that I have stated in the lawsuit, that I decided to take this action.

Dismissal Claims

When I arrived at the special board meeting this morning, I was presented with the following claims to support the actions of some board members.

Board of Directors
Special Meeting
November 19, 2005

In accordance with section 4.05 of the Collin County Gay & Lesbian Alliance Bylaws, notice is hereby given that the Collin County Gay & Lesbian Alliance Board of Directors will hold a special meeting for the sole purpose of addressing the agenda items listed below, on November 20, 2005 at 6000 Custer Road, Building 9, Plano, TX 75093, commencing at 11:30 AM.

DISMISSAL ITEMS

1. Pursuant to CCGLA Directors obligations and fiduciary responsibilities to the corporation, CCGLA will authorize the officers of CCGLA all monies necessary to pursue legal advise and pursue all legal actions to remedy and rectify Collin Equality Foundation board of trustees’ violations of Texas Non Profit Corporation Act (Art. 1396-2.28). The illegal and unauthorized amendments to the CEF bylaws on Wednesday, November 16, 2005 at a CEF special meeting commencing at 7:30 PM, 11436 Eaglebend Lane, Frisco, TX. As a result of the CEF Board of Trustees actions to remove and deny the CCGLA Board of Directors rights under the CEF bylaws sections 2.0 and for the CEF Board of Trustees illegal changes to CEF bylaw Section 8.1 which prohibits changes to CEF bylaw Section 8.1 and prohibits changes to CEF bylaw Section 2.0.

Additionally CCGLA will contact the Texas Secretary of State and the IRS to pursue any additional actions required as a result of the CEF board of trustees actions.

2. In accordance with section 4.09 of the CCGLA Bylaws, commence proceedings to remove James Nunn as director of CCGLA, with cause.

a. Failure to uphold the interests of the organization, as director, within the full meaning of the laws that govern the Collin County Gay and Lesbian Alliance.

b. Failure to perform duties, obligations, and fiduciary responsibilities to the corporation, by initiating and allowing unauthorized and illegal amendments and changes to the CEF bylaws which effectively causes, a loss of a CCGLA financial investment, and a loss to the CCGLA membership as the charitable arm of CCGLA.

c. For actions taken to dismantle CCGLA organizational structure by amending and violating the CEF Bylaws 8.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.7, and 2.15.

d. Poor conduct and judgment as a CCGLA board member, in contacting No Nonsense In November representatives to speak at the Main Event without regard or notification to the CCGLA Board of Directors. Further, the emails sent to CCGLA President regarding this matter and blind copying other organizations and recipients.

3. Notify the CCGLA membership, regarding CEF bylaw non-compliance and CCGLA actions to pursue any and all legal remedies to bring CEF back into compliance.

4. Exercise CCGLA Corporations rights under CCGLA bylaws Section 2.06 to appoint a committee to terminate and remove James Nunn from the CCGLA membership.

5. Convene into Executive Session (if necessary)

6. Action arising as a result of the Executive Session

7. Adjournment

Once the meeting had been called to order, I announced my opposition to the meeting being called, and Mike Agan asked that we move into Executive Session.

It was extremely clear that no amount of discussion would prevent those members in attendance from moving forward with my removal from the board. Attempts had been made to find a solution to prevent this from getting to this point, however these were not considered an option by the CCGLA president.