When Naomi Goldberg began working for the Movement Advancement Project, same-sex couples could not legally marry in more than half the states — including her home state of California — and LGBTQ Americans were banned from serving openly in the military. .
Now executive director of the nonprofit think tank, Goldberg is fighting to protect LGBTQ rights guaranteed over the past decade and prevent the nation from moving backwards as anti-LGBTQ policies gain ground in state legislatures.
Goldberg, a self-described “policy scholar,” began her career as a fellow at the Williams Institute, where she spent two years investigating the economic impact of policies affecting LGBTQ people, including employment discrimination and restrictions on adoption and orphanages. In 2010, she joined the Movement Advancement Project, or MAP, founded just four years earlier, as an LGBTQ policy researcher.
Goldberg describes her role as the organization’s newest head, a role she took on in March, as “her dream job” where she gets to marry her two passions: quantitative research and social change. This is especially apparent when she talks about the think tank’s “Equality Maps” that track more than 50 LGBTQ-related laws and policies in the US.
Promoting LGBTQ equality—MAP’s sole focus when it launched in 2006—is personal for Goldberg, a lesbian who has advocated for LGBTQ rights since its early years, when a wave of states adopted constitutional amendments and statutes banning intermarriage. of the same sex.
“I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity,” she told The Hill in a recent interview.
MAP’s second equality project, a campaign called “Open to All,” launched in 2017 in response to the Supreme Court ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In that case, the court sided with a baker who refused to design a wedding cake for a gay couple, raising alarms for MAP and Goldberg, then director of the organization’s policy and research teams.
“We recognized from the beginning that the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, even though it was about a gay couple and a wedding cake, really had the potential to blow a huge hole in non-discrimination laws for many people, including people of color, immigrants and women, as well as LGBTQ people and people who sit at the intersection,” Goldberg said.
The Supreme Court last summer cited its decision in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case in also siding with a Christian web designer who refused to create same-sex marriage websites, reinforcing conservative arguments that anti-discrimination laws can violate the First Amendment. Amendment.
The 2017 campaign by MAP, now a coalition of more than 200 nonprofits, is rooted in the belief “that businesses open to the public should be open to everyone,” Goldberg said.
In 2021, five years after MAP launched its “Open to All” campaign, the organization expanded its focus to monitor state election laws and policies, inspired in part by voting restrictions that went unchecked during the former administration. -President Trump. President Biden’s first year in office also passed laws restricting access to voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
“You cannot separate the experience of our democracy from 2016 to 2021 from the kind of crisis moment that we think we are in in terms of the health of democracy at the state level and at the national level,” Goldberg said.
Like the group’s Equality Maps, its “Democracy Maps” track state election laws in real time to provide policymakers and advocates with a blueprint for protecting voting rights. A state’s “democracy record” counts the number of laws and policies that promote a healthy electoral system.
“It’s really important to show all the different dimensions of elections and what it means to have a healthy, thriving democracy,” Goldberg said. “It’s really easy to point to misinformation or voter suppression, but we actually need to think holistically about what democracy means, and I think our maps of democracy allow for that kind of point of view.”
With each of its projects, MAP’s goal is “to be accurate, update in real time and provide this kind of overview of states and many issues,” she added.
The organization’s maps are often used by the media, advocacy groups and state legislators advocating for progressive policy changes, Goldberg said. Last month, a resolution introduced by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) referred to MAP by name.
Goldberg has big plans for MAP, including bringing on more communications and research staff and working more closely with lawmakers and the media.
“We know the work that needs to be done, and I think MAP, in particular, has a unique place in our theory of change,” she said. “We truly believe that through deep listening, through conversations, through careful and accurate policy research, we can change. We can create change in democracy and we can create change for LGBTQ people in this country.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
