The Center’s chief executive officer, Delores Jacobs, spoke Monday night at the local Log Cabin Republican chapter’s monthly meeting, outlining The Center’s primary goals and emphasizing the need to increase GLBT community presence in all political camps.

The third largest GLBT center in the nation, The Center operates with a $3.8 million budget, of which approximately 55 percent comes from government grants, contracts and loans. The Center’s 40 employees, 400 volunteers and 20 board members serve 15,000 people a year through professional services.

Issues of importance the organization has outlined this year include efforts to combat the reintroduction of the Federal Marriage Amendment in Congress, as well as a proposed ballot initiative seeking to roll back the Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities Act (AB 205) and a proposed state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“What The Center does about that is attempt to form coalitions with like-minded organizations and allies, however unlikely they may seem, particularly if they’re unlikely alliances with people interested in not seeing a marriage discrimination amendment in California,” Jacobs said.

Amid the current lack of full marriage rights, Jacobs said The Center wants to help GLBT families secure their rights until marriage equality is achieved, educating and clarifying AB 205 and other legislation that impact GLBT rights.

“For example, the County of San Diego is one of very few counties statewide who is refusing to honor the [State] Board of Equalization’s ruling last year that when someone dies who is a domestic partner, that their house not be reassessed,” Jacobs said. “And San Diego has a county tax collector who doesn’t believe that they need to follow that guidance. Those are the kinds of issues that have to be explored and unwound… and some pressure has to be brought to perhaps view it a different way. Our way.”

Without getting into the big government/small government debate, “the comment is on the fact that we don’t have a box that we check on our tax forms that says, ‘We’ll be paying less because we get less.’ That’s not an option,” Jacobs said. “So since we’re a tax-paying community, we believe in equal access to government dollars, which by the way is not the case.”

Jacobs said the last four years have seen increasing scrutiny of new GLBT organizations applying for government funds. “That’s just gotten worse in the last six months. While there may be good reasons to have a very heated and spirited argument about big government versus small government… there is no question that equal distribution needs to be the fundamental, whichever government we have, at least from our position.”

The Center’s public policy department takes a nonpartisan stance in addressing policy issues that bear on the health, wellbeing and strength of the community, Jacobs said, including helping individuals and groups get active about GLBT issues, and help them combat hate crimes, discrimination, inequality and First Amendment violations.

One example of that is the effort the organization made to oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment last year. Several groups, including Equality California and their Marriage Equality Project and San Diegans Against Marriage Discrimination, worked with The Center’s Marriage Project to educate San Diego about the consequences of a federal marriage amendment banning same-sex marriage, as well as about the necessity for same-sex couples and families to have access to marriage rights.

Additionally, The Center launched a sizeable get out the vote effort prior to the November elections, which sought to increase GLBT voter turnout at the polls. Though successful at turning out more GLBT voters than ever before, Jacobs said 100 percent is the gold standard.

The Center’s nonpartisan stance is “a controversial position,” Jacobs said, but an important one politically for the GLBT community. “Only when we are forces to be reckoned with – Green, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian – will we all move forward,” she said.

Len Olds, chair of the state Log Cabin Republicans, said the Log Cabins Republicans are in a good position in Washington, D.C., despite denying President Bush their endorsement in last year’s elections primarily due to the anti-GLBT aspects of the Republican Party’s platform. “The administration has come back to us… they have said, ‘We understand what you did and we understand why you did it,’” Olds said. “An incredible admission from the Bush administration. … We still disagree with their social legislation, but they have opened the door to us to return.”

Olds said the state Log Cabins now have a full office in Sacramento and plan on working with the Schwarzenegger administration. They are engaging in the fight against bills introduced into the Legislature in December seeking a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

“It’s very important… to be aware of what goes on every day. This is the fight that we fought 20-some years ago all over again,” Olds said, adding, “It’s incredible that domestic partnership rights is now the litmus test where a few years ago it was, ‘What’s domestic partnership?’ An incredible achievement that only happens because you sit in meetings like this. That’s the bottom line.”

The local chapter’s 2005 officers are: Garrick Wilhelm, president; Matt Peterson, vice president; Clif Pait, secretary/treasurer; Ralph Denney, membership director; and James Bottoms, political director.

Three protesters stood outside the meeting holding signs saying “Traitors!” and “Queer Liberation Not Assimilation”. It was the first Log Cabin meeting the group has protested.

Log Cabin Republicans’ national convention takes place in New Orleans March 31-April 3. The state convention takes place in San Francisco May 13-15.

Ron Nehring, county chair and state vice-chair of the Republican Party, will speak at the March 28 San Diego Log Cabin meeting. San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis will speak at the April 25 meeting. All chapter meetings take place at The Abbey Café in Hillcrest.