Quote:
Originally Posted by antonyh
L
When are we going to get off our complacent butts and demand full equality now? When are we going to march on Washington in the millions and demand equality now?
Maybe it is easier to just subscribe to the HRC cell phone alerts and visit their email web form and send our representatives an email from the comfort of our homes.
|
This, unfortunately, is too simplistic. There is no single foundational scaffolding on which a cohesive nationwide LGBT rights movement stands. Who could plan or organize demonstrations on that kind of scale? No organization I know of has the resources to mobilize anything like that. Rather than asking when, I think the better question, if we could answer it, would be to structure a step by step answer to "how?"
When I finished undergrad, I was very interested in possibly switching career gears to LGBT rights activism. I wrote over a dozen letters to organizations and made about a dozen phone calls asking how to become involved. I received one response: a letter telling me to become involved by reading the newspaper and voting for candidates who are friendlier to gay rights issues. Not a single opportunity did I find in a decade of trying - in fact, the message I kept getting was that there was no desire for activists or volunteers. I was just supposed to mail my yearly membership to the HRC and then sit around and do nothing.
In my experience, the single biggest obstacle I have faced as an activist, is a lack of opportunity to be active. That's why once I finally got an opportunity this past year or two, the floodwaters spilled over.
Now, I would be delighted to march for equality. Come to think of it, I have, with a few score other dedicated activists in the Phoenix area. But a more important issue is why, with a rights movement that is 30 years old, are so many of our marches and demonstrations still so small?
Vanessa raised issues of self-worth and by extension, internalized homophobia. Very definitely a part of the problem.
So what can we do, aside from marching or demonstrating in tiny little groups of a dozen or there?
(tired, cranky, and frustrated at the moment, sorry everyone.)