Introducing the Hudson Stonewall Democrats

by: Bob Zuckerman

Tue Apr 05, 2011 at 04:30:40 PM EDT

(Nice to meet you, too. - promoted by Jay Lassiter)

On a cold, rainy night last Thursday, two dozen people came together at the inaugural meeting of the Hudson Stonewall Democrats. Hopefully, this was the start of something big. more below....

Bob Zuckerman :: Introducing the Hudson Stonewall Democrats

First, by way of background, I am a native New Jerseyan - born in Newark and raised in Livingston. (Yes, I went to high school for one year with Chris Christie but please don't hold that against me!) For 14 years I lived in New York City. However, last year, after the seeing the light, I moved back to New Jersey permanently with my partner of almost 14 years, Grant Neumann. We now make our permanent home in Downtown Jersey City, although we have owned a summer/weekend home in Asbury Park for 4 years.

I looked around and saw that there was a political void, especially in places like Jersey City, Bayonne and Hoboken which have large LGBT populations, for LGBT Democrats and our allies, so starting a Stonewall Dems chapter in Hudson will hopefully fill that void. I love Garden State Equality, and Steven does amazing work there. But as a former president of the Stonewall Democrats in New York City and a former board member of the National Stonewall Democrats, I have great familiarity with the "Stonewall" brand, so starting a new chapter in Hudson County was a natural for me, and I thought it would be a good idea to have something locally that's more partisan.

At our first meeting, we discussed what we would like to accomplish as a group, and some of the goals that came up were electing more openly LGBT people to office, getting more LGBT folks involved in the Democratic State Committee and as local committee people, increasing the number of LGBT delegates to the convention next year, and building bridges with other minority groups and our straight allies.

Our inaugural meeting included such luminaries as Councilman Steven Fulop, DNC member Babs Siperstein, newly minted Assembly candidate (and hopefully new LGBT member) Jeff Gardner and Democratic operative Jeff Meyer, who drove 100 miles from Burlington County to show his support.

If people want to get involved with Hudson Stonewall or you know people who might want to check us out, please email me at hudsonstonewall@gmail.com. I hope to see many of you in Hudson County in the months and years ahead!

Bob Zuckerman
Hudson Stonewall Democrats