by Karen Ocamb

Matt Foreman is like a prism: when life hits him, he refracts an LGBT rainbow.

For the past five years, Foreman’s multi-color crystal vision has served the LGBT community from the perspective of executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. During his tenure, he grew the staff and budget, and became a highly regarded leading spokesperson for full LGBT equality while building grassroots strength.

In April, Foreman will become head of the San Francisco-based Gay & Lesbian Program at the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund, which provides more grant support to LGBT organizations than any nongay-identified foundation in the nation.

“I’m leaving the Task Force because this opportunity has come up at the Haas Jr. Fund, and it’s a way to continue my activism in a different way—in a perhaps more hidden but equally significant way,” Foreman told IN Los Angeles magazine during a recent trip to L.A., where he spoke on behalf of the Let California Ring marriage effort.

“Over the last five years, the Haas Jr. Fund leadership around marriage equality, around nondiscrimination, has really changed the way our movement works—and people don’t know that,” Foreman continued. “It was Haas Jr. who stepped forward with major funding that got Freedom to Marry off the ground. Haas has stepped forward with lead funding for Civil Marriage Collaborative, which grants over $1.2 million a year to local marriage organizations. It is a lead partner in the national collaborative to win nondiscrimination protections or marriage in six states. It’s a very focused campaign. It is the largest foundation funder of Let California Ring. What the Haas Jr. Fund is able to do—because it’s a straight foundation—is bring other people to the table who normally would not come.”

Asked why he’s leaving during an important election year, Foreman noted that the Task Force does not engage in partisan politics. “Our role is in working against ballot initiatives, in grassroots organizing, in training state and local activists in how to fight and win,” he said. “This is obviously a critical election for the country—certainly the most critical election in any of our lifetimes. But the one thing I love about the Task Force is it’s in it for the long run. We’ve been going up against the right for more than 30 years. So whatever happens with this election, we still have huge fights ahead of us.

“And even if a more progressive administration is elected, it’s going to be like pulling teeth to get anything done for our community,” Foreman said. “It’s the experience of our community that elected officials tend to promise a lot and then deliver very little. And the last session of Congress is proof positive of that, not only for our community but for so many progressive causes. I think, across the board, there’s disappointment.

“Even if there was a more progressive majority in Congress and a new administration, let’s not forget that there are literally hundreds of interest groups and causes that are going to be clamoring for action, [groups] that have been in the desert like we have been for a very long time,” Foreman said. “And we’re not at the head of the line and, frankly, I think many elected officials feel that we don’t need to be at the head of the line—that they’ll take care of us later.

“One of my biggest fears is that if we get a new administration and a new Congress, we will see ENDA [Employment Non-Discrimination Act] passed, and there will be a big signing ceremony in the Rose Garden in June of ’09 and then Congress will say, ‘OK, we’re done with the gays for four years.’ It’s going to be up to all of us to say: ENDA may be a big deal, but it isn’t the walls or ceiling of equality. It’s like one paving stone. And ENDA is only 20 percent of what we started out with—with the first civil rights bill 34 years ago. Elected officials do as little as they can, generally speaking, and even today there is a significant reluctance to take a stand for LGBT people—even for something as straightforward as nondiscrimination, for which there has been overwhelming public support for over 15 years.

“Even [in] the ENDA fight in the fall [over taking transgenders out of the bill to make it easier to pass], there was this squeamishness on the part of our own supposed allies—and even among our own,” Foreman said. “We are used to—particularly at the federal level—bowing and scraping and then being very grateful for a crumb. We’ve got to lift our heads up and insist that we be treated much more fairly, particularly by the Democratic Party. We’ve let them get away with it and, frankly, we haven’t had any other options.

“I do think that in recent years, our community—particularly our donor community—has become much more mature in the way in which it plays politics, and it’s starting to do what everyone else does, and that is insist on some return on our investment,” Foreman said. “You saw in the midterm elections how significant donors invested in state and local races and flipped the legislatures in key states. The result was the most successful legislative session we’ve ever had at the state level. New Hampshire passed civil unions. Washington state passed a non-discrimination law. Oregon passed essentially civil unions and a comprehensive nondiscrimination law. Iowa passed a nondiscrimination law.

“All of those significant wins are directly attributable to flipping the legislatures in those states. And that flipping was fueled—in most places, not all places—by gay money,” Foreman said. “So that shows you that we have not been there at all at the federal level. That has to change.”