One wonderful friend that I have come to know from my activism is Don Davis, a former board member for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force ("NGLTF"), who I first met at the 2003 Creating Change Conference in Miami. I had been invited to attend as a workshop presenter due to my work with Wayne Besen to expose prominent ex-gay for pay, Michael Johnston, as a fraud. I still remember a fun evening in the lobby of the hotel as Don entertained a group of us from Virginia with his war stories. On a local Hampton Roads blog Don recently added his endorsement to the National Equality March scheduled for October 10-11, 2009, in Washington, D.C. With his permission I am setting out some highlights from his post in which he explains why the NEM is important and why he will be attending:*
Next month’s Equality March promises to be one of the largest, most dynamic, and most controversial events in the contemporary movement for LGBT equal rights and liberation. I will be there. I haven’t come to the decision to be there lightly. While I missed the 1979 LGBT March on Washington (I was a teenager in 1979 and no where near being out), I was there in 1987, 1992, and 2000 for each of those national marches. Indeed, I served on national planning committees for the 1992 and 2000 marches.
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This march is different than any before it. Cleve Jones and David Mixner have been credited with delivering a kind of “ready, fire, aim” approach to make the march happen. Drawing from the new energy many (especially younger) members of our community brought forth in reaction to our loss of marriage equality at the ballot box in California, many will argue this march lacks the kind of organization, message, and outreach of our past national gatherings in DC. I think they are correct.
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This march has been mobilized almost exclusively on the Internet. Only in the past few weeks have our national LGBT organizations made statements generally supportive of the march. Our federation of state-wide LGBT organizations publicly opposes the march. My journey with the march has been transitional. I made hotel reservations in DC three times and canceled them twice. To go or not to go…
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The final decision was made easier for me a couple of months back when I attended the first meeting of a local group forming to make sure our community gets bus loads of people to the march at an affordable price. I sat among about 40 folks most of whom were half my age and younger. The group sort of knew what it was doing, but mostly didn’t. It wasn’t a group of us seasoned salty dawgs. Instead it was a room full of idealistic people who were simply trying to make a difference in the struggle for LGBT equal rights and liberation. How could I not support their idealism, activism, and goal?
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I will be at the Equality March on October 11, 2009. I will be there for many reasons. I’ll be there because of that wide-eyed group of inexperienced local youth activists who are determined to get buses filled with people to the march. I’ll be there because I have dedicated my life to the movement for LGBT equality and liberation and I view this march as a “rite of passage” for the next generation of LGBT leaders. I will be there because so many members of my chosen LGBT family can’t be there—for financial reasons or because they were murdered by AIDS or neglect or homophobia or because their life is too busy or their priorities are too skewed. I’ll be there because NOW is the time to advocate most strongly on behalf of legal equality for all lesbian, gay, bi, and transgender people. I’ll be there because this community is my community and we demand equality in the eyes of the law!
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The Equality March promises to be a spectacular event and I promise you, if you miss it, you’ll regret it for years to come.
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