Nashville, April 17, 2006: Once a week the volunteer members of the marriage subcommittee of the Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) gather in an otherwise empty office building after the business day in downtown Nashville. Ten people are on the committee, though not every member is always present, and the meeting tonight is an unusual one: it marks the end of the first official week that their newly hired campaign manager, Randy Tarkington, has been on the job.
Before the meeting begins, Tarkington engages in light chit-chat with all the familiarity of a longtime friend with committee member Jared Davidson, who is a college student taking the semester off from his studies. Davidson is seated in a classic leather button-tufted chair at the corner of a long glass-covered conference table with his laptop open.
“I’m still going through all these contacts in my phone,” says Tarkington, “telling everyone about my move. Some of these names I don’t even recognize.” A 12-year resident of California, he moved this past February home to Tennessee.
“I know,” says Davidson. “You know, when you’re at a bar or something—“
“—yes! And you meet a possible business contact or something and get the number. You just put the first name in, and then you think later, who is this person?!”
In a few moments we’re joined by uber-activists Pam Wheeler and Marisa Richmond – two of the hardest working volunteers in our entire community – and the room is alive. Committee member John Snyders joins in by phone. The meeting begins.
“One thing I’ve found, just talking to people the past while,” says Tarkington, “is that no one knows this election is going on.” Heads nod in agreement.
“We have a lot of work to do.”
Randy Tarkington was raised in Centerville, Tenn., which is about 50 miles southwest of Nashville, “the home of Minnie Pearl,” he told me later. “That’s our claim to fame.” He earned both his Bachelor’s degree (in journalism) and his Master’s (higher education administration) at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville.
“I worked four years at Mississippi State and then five years at Vanderbilt before I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area,” he said. At Vandy he was the associate director of residential and judicial affairs, a position he shared coincidentally with Linda Welch, who is now publisher of the GLBT entertainment weekly newspaper, Inside Out Nashville.
As with many in our community, Tarkington’s looks belie his age. Though all of 45-years, his short, erratic, naturally curly hair, matched with a slight five o’clock shadow and the relaxed outfit of a college student, juxtapose disarmingly with his fast, quick-thinking conversational style. Today he’s in a well-worn white linen short-sleeved shirt, light khaki shorts and a pair of brown sandals. The ubiquitous yellow “Live Strong” armband rounds out the look.
“I came back to Nashville to be closer with my family,” he said. “I loved the Bay Area but I wanted to be here, which is ironic because there’s so much talk on the other side about family values.”
Pam Wheeler was charged by the TEP leadership to head up the steering committee that would get the “Vote NO” campaign off the ground and hire the campaign manager. “There were eight people on the hiring committee,” she said, “and each person was a TEP board member, except for me and Mark Lopez.”
The job listing was posted nationwide on grassroots political Web sites, as well as off the beaten path sites such as craigslist.org, the online flea-market-style localized portal that seems to thrive just under the radar in each of the cities where it exists.
“We received about 15 serious applicants,” she said, “and after some phone interviews and some meetings we were able to make our selection.”
A volunteer and activist in the Middle Tennessee area for the greater part of the past decade, Pam Wheeler lacks the seemingly aloof wherewithal that can sometimes be found among the oft-noted leaders in this community. Her “calls ’em as I sees ’em” demeanor is not always out for display on the NewsChannel5+ television show Out & About Today, where she is a host, but is always a welcoming and refreshing jump step from those who feel the need to toe a line.
“Of course, all the references we talked to before we hired Randy said he’s the best person, he’s a wonderful person,” she said. “Finally, I was like, ‘Okay. Now tell me something bad,’ and even then they were still complimentary. One guy I spoke with said Randy sometimes works so hard on a project that his personal life will suffer. I said, ‘We’ll take him.’”
“That he used to live here in Nashville was a big help,” she said. “When we spoke to some people who’ve been active in the community for a long time, they remembered him and had a favorable impression.”
Sitting at the head of the ten-foot-long conference table now, Tarkington has taken hold of tonight’s meeting and kicks it off with an update on the Web site.
“We need for it to be a continually updated, alive tool,” he tells the committee members. “Be sure to tell as many people as you can that we need more personal stories, more people, couples telling their stories about why they plan to vote no.
The Web site, www.VoteNOon1TN.com, should be up and running by the time you read this, and should have more detail on volunteering opportunities, including the chance to tell your story, host a fundraising house party and other ways to donate to the cause.
Fundraising will play a big role over the next few months. Ideas are bandied about this evening, from the small – “we could see if the bars will allow customers to add, say, five dollars onto their bill,” someone says – to the very large. Tarkington is thinking big: “There are only three states that have a constitutional amendment on the ballot this November,” he says.
“That gives us a better chance of getting someone like Marc Cherry (the gay creator, writer, and executive producer of the ABC television show, “Desperate Housewives”) to donate, for auction, a visit to the set, or even a walk-on role on the show.”
The merging of marketplace wants and desires with philanthropy on nearly every level is indicative of Tarkington’s interest to get everyone involved. “Each time I drive by a business I think to myself, ‘how can we tap into these businesses to give people – contributors – some value for their contribution instead of just asking people to give?’”
“There are four things I’m asking of this community,” he told me later. “For one, this is kind of tongue-in-cheek, but still … this is the one instance where we need to recruit people to our cause. In this case, the Religious Right is right. We need allies who can talk to 2, 3, 4, 5 friends and encourage them to vote no also.”
“We need volunteers,” he said. “Our first canvas will be on May 6, and our goal is to have 75 volunteers.”
“We need money,” he said. “I called WSMV to look into advertising. I thought it would be great to place an ad during the series finale of “Will & Grace,” which is about a month away. Turns out it’s only a couple thousand dollars to do that. The real expense is in actually making the ad and we need money to do all that.”
“And we need people to vote no on Election Day.”
Tarkington has met with veterans on this topic from other states who’ve watched their constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage pass. “The weekend before last,” he said, “I was in Milwaukee for what they called a Power Summit. I talked to people from Oregon. They were the closest race. They got 43 percent of the vote. And I talked to people from Kentucky.”
“The biggest advice they said was: don’t be afraid to talk about marriage,” he said. “In those states the theme had always been ‘Don’t Amend.’ There was a focus on the constitution, instead of any mention directly of marriage. And it didn’t work. Don’t be afraid to talk about marriage.”
In speaking with both Tarkington and Wheeler it became clear there is a significantly outspoken minority within our community made up of people who don’t support any kind of marriage initiative for gay people. Both stole a moment within our one-on-one conversations to mention this community-wide internal disconnect.
“Financially speaking, yes,” said Wheeler. “We may run into instances where people will want to give money to us and not TEP-proper and vice versa. There are people who don’t think marriage is a priority but they’ll want to support the work of the lobbyist, Jenny Ford, at the capital.”
“Some people have said we should be pushing for civil unions,” Tarkington said. “But the fact is that marriage is on the ballot in November. Once you write discrimination into the constitution, you’re starting down a slippery slope. If we lose this vote by a wide margin, it could give ammunition to those who want to take away our adoption rights and stop civil unions too.”
“We know that when we talk about this issue, people move to our side,” he said. “Same-sex marriage is already illegal in Tennessee. By voting no, all we’re asking is to have the discussion. We want people to vote no, and then we can continue to have the discussion.”
Tonight’s meeting has taken a little over an hour and everyone involved is delighted at how efficiently the time was spent versus previous meetings. Just before we close, Tarkington brings up the idea of a pledge form people can fill out. It would entail a promise to vote no on Election Day and a vow to solicit five people to do the same.
“It wouldn’t have any binding, legal effect, of course,” he says. “It just seems like when people write it down they’re more willing to vote.”
“I like it,” says Wheeler. Heads nod. “I like it a lot, because it’s always hard to—.” She hesitates. “It’ll take some…effort for people to get other people, to solicit—”
“But you never know,” he says. “One night me and John (committee member John Snyders) were at Bongo Java and these two guys, members of a band, came up to us and said, ‘Will you come to our show?’”
“And I said, ‘Sure, but tell me this. Did you know there is a proposed amendment to the Tennessee Constitution to define marriage between one man and one woman?’”
“They said, ‘Yeah, that’s how it should be. It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’”
“And what’s interesting,” Tarkington says, “is that a couple women sitting at a nearby table just leaned in and spoke out to them on our behalf! It turns out they were a couple Vanderbilt law students. They said to the guys, ‘what century are you living in?!’”
At this point, Schneider piped in from the speaker phone and added, “What’s funny is how willing the two guys were to avoid the conversation at that point. They just got their ‘Adam and Steve’ line in and they were ready—or wanting—to move on.”
“It was kinda’ fun to watch them squirm a little.”