Cover Letter to Council Chair Questionnaire

June 1, 1997

Dear D.C. Council Chair Candidate:

To elicit your viewpoints on issues currently of importance to lesbians and gay men, I have enclosed your copy of our questionnaire for all candidates in the July 22 special election for DC Council Chair. The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA) is proud of our title as the nation's oldest continuously operating gay and lesbian civil rights organization. In every election since our founding in 1971, we have sent similar questionnaires to help educate our community about the choices facing us at the polls.

The District of Columbia has endured an unprecedented series of challenges to the most fundamental principles of self-government in recent times, especially within the last few months. Lesbians and gay men remain at a particular disadvantage because the Religious Right can exploit the District's financial and management crisis by stampeding Congress into gratuitous assaults on our basic human rights and dignity. Our City Council members must become much more aggressive in confronting both the District's self-inflicted wounds and the demagoguery of the Religious Right and others who hope to score cheap political points by indulging in irresponsible District-bashing.

As you may know, GLAA does not endorse candidates in partisan races. Rather, we give numerical ratings to all candidates on a scale from +10 to -10, based upon each candidate's written responses to our questionnaire, combined with our assessment of each candidate's past record on behalf of lesbians and gay men. Our candidate ratings are released to the media and are advertised and circulated widely. We believe our quarter-century of service lends our candidate ratings considerable credibility.

We encourage you to do more than give a simple "yes" or "no" response to our questions. The depth and completeness of your answers play a major role in determining your final rating. To help you understand the background for the issues raised in this year's questionnaire, we would be glad to provide you a briefing (probably about an hour long) before you send in your replies. Just call us on (202)667-5139 to request a briefing. I have taken the liberty of enclosing a copy of GLAA's Agenda: 1997. Please take the time to read this document for our perspectives on a wide variety of issues and concerns.

The deadline for submitting your questionnaire responses is Tuesday, July 1. We ask you to sign the bottom of each of your answer sheets. You may mail or fax your replies; however, we can not accept e-mail transmissions. If you would like to fax your answers to us, please call us so we can set up the arrangements with you. Also, if you send us a black and white "head shot" photo of yourself, we will include that photo in our ratings ad in The Washington Blade on July 18, and in the Election section of our world wide web site. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Rosendall
President

Enclosures (2)