Equal protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states. Now.

So I have been struggling with whether or not to post this post for over a week. For how could I talk about all the sweat and tears that went into getting involved with the Chicago’s chapter of Join The Impact and our hard work to get buses to the Equality March on Washington D.C. without pulling up a mixture of emotions. I am not talking about the bus issue, for that has been covered in a pervious blog of mine. I am talking about the disgust I felt toward myself for not getting involved sooner. I was a very sheltered guy from Cortland, Illinois who looked at the march on Washington D.C. thirty years ago as a failure. Don’t get mad at me, but that was my own opinion.

As I got to know different folks from Join the Impact Chicago I learned that the problem with the march in 1979 was that their list of demands were to specific. They demanded protection for all gay and lesbian people comparable to those in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the repeal of laws expressly discriminating against gay and lesbian people, an enactment of laws establishing gay and lesbian parents’ rights, and the protecting of gay and lesbian youth from harm. So as we and other grassroots organizations started to plan out the demands for the march that happened on October 11th, we came up with only one simple demand. We demanded “Equal protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states. Now.” This one single demand is a huge change from the state of gay rights activism thirty years ago. For this new message is one of unity.

Also before joining JTIC (Join The Impact Chicago) I was a member of HRC (Human Rights Campaign). I thought if I sent them my monthly check I was doing my part of helping the GLBTI community. But boy was I wrong. As I got more involved with JTIC I began to notice that it was these grassroots activist from around the country that are going to make a difference and not the established GLBTI groups in Washington D.C. like HRC.

I was also amazed to see that we had a lot of young grassroots activist whom were inspired by President Obama and outraged by the passage Proposition 8, California’s gay marriage ban out their fighting for equality for everyone. But what really amazed me the most was a specific member of JTIC. His name is Jerry Pritikin and he is one of the most fascinating people I ever had the pleasure to get to know. Just getting to know Jerry and the struggles he had during the gay movement of the 1970’s makes me have a more profound respect for the older generation of GLBTI activists who paved the road that made it possible for us to have our Equality March on Washington D.C. back on October 11th.

“Okay, get back on track MJ…”

As JTIC and other grassroots organizations’ worked on the Equality March we met with some infighting among larger GLBTI activist groups in our community. We were told that it wasn’t wise for us to hold a march on Washington D.C. this soon. That we would never pull it together in time. We were told we should wait till the timing was better. But we did not listen to those groups and we forged forward on our quest to pull together a march on Washington D.C. for equal rights for everyone.

Okay, I understand that all this infighting is part of political organizing. There is always going to be disputes when you decide to stage a national political demonstration that is going to portray a public face on GLBTI equality to America. Yet as a community shouldn’t we all be on the same page and demand this rights now rather then later. I mean aren’t we tired of being second class citizens?

Our little group of GLBTSA (yes I added S and A, but that is because we do have wonderful straight allies fighting along side us in JTIC) activist worked as hard as we could to get as many people from Chicago to Washington D.C.. When we first started planning this back in August we set our goal at getting one bus of 53 people to the March. We started off hitting the pavement running. We had people out on the streets flyering. We then got the great Cleve Jones to come out and speak at an event (which to this day remains one of the coolest days of my life). We hosted three wonderful fundraisers (Early to Bed, Glenwood, and Hydrate) where these local businesses allowed us to use their space to fight for Equality. And as time went by we went from one bus to two. Then two to three. And finally three to four. That means that we got two hundred and twelve people to decide to ride the bus and fight for equality. It is funny looking back on that first meeting and remembering how we were worried we weren’t even going to be able to fill that first bus.

To no ones fault only three of the four buses would make it to Washington D.C.. As I stated in an earlier post, emotions were running wild in Ohio and on the trip back to Chicago. Yet a group of the fifty-three returnees stuck out the cold of Chicago by hanging out at Union Station before heading to the solidarity rally being held in Chicago. During this time was when the fire within me got relit and I realized that even with this minor setback, nothing was going to stop me from achieving my goal of equality for everyone in all fifty states.

As my friends started to report back to me about the march I was well at first pissed because I wasn’t there, but then I was overjoyed to learn two really great things happened. The first was that it wasn’t only the GLBTI community that came out in force, but also our straight allies also played a large role in this march. But the biggest thing that cheered me up was when my friend told me that the rainbow flag had replaced the Human Rights Campaign logo that was popular at the 2000 march on Washington D.C.. This is more of a personal joy, because as a grassroots organizer of this march, I rather the credit go to the GLBT community instead of a group who claims to represent us in Washington D.C. but yet did nothing for this march.

Now onto my doubting Thomas part of my post. It still remains to be seen whether two hundred plus people congregating in downtown Washington will convince Congress and the White House to take action on a range of issues, from the Defense of Marriage Act to employment non-discrimination. We have to remember that the gay civil rights bill never materialized after the march in 1979. So I hope that this march will prove to be the one that helps GLBTI activists and the ordinary Americans to unite and thrive toward change in a way they haven’t before. Hell, it’s worth a try.

MJ