When thousands of gay rights activists march to the Capitol at noon today for the National Equality March, they will be looking for more than speeches from the White House.
"Last night, President Obama made that speech [at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner in Washington]. He had no intention of addressing our community and he took the bully pulpit, and he got up there, and he expressed very beautiful intentions," march organizer Sherry Wolf said. "It was a very beautiful speech. [But] what is he going to do? And when is he going to do it? That’s the question."
[For the full article, see here.]
The Equality March, if nothing else, will present a concerted voice from the grassroots that rhetoric (especially empty rhetoric) is no substitute for action!
Hopefully, this march will not only put pressure on Obama and other "liberal" politicians to back up their rhetoric with actions that give LGBT people full and equal civil rights, but will motivate the grassroots within local jurisdictions to lobby their legislators and agitate for equal rights under the law as currently accrue to all heterosexual citizens.
As you know, at the local levels, I feel that one of the best tactics is to choose one homophobic church and continuously peacefully picket that church each and every Sunday when they have services, carrying signs and forthrightly stating how their rhetoric of hate and discrimination is antithetical to the Gospel of Christ!
We cannot underestimate the impact that homophobic religion has had in denying full and equal civil rights to LGBT people, including, of course, the right to same-sex marriage.
2 comments:
Well, Jerry, the march was a success in one respect: Cleve Jones proved you can mobilize thousands of people quickly using mostly online resources. The turnout did not disappoint. However, it remains to be seen if the politicians (and that includes Barack Obama, who is nothing but a politician to me) will be at all moved by this show of numbers. The coverage I've seen in the mainstream media has been subdued and spotty. No speakers are identified. No speeches are quoted. No crowd estimate tallies are given.
Thanks Don Charles. As we've already seen, Obama was not moved! And I very much doubt that he ever will be moved to initiate the steps necessary to acquire equal rights for LGBT people. Best wishes, Jerry.
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