OnLine With Zoe

The MOVEMENT needs us to prioritize and study leadership.

My plan was to avoid the conversation all together but my plan has evaporated.  About a week ago I saw, on facebook around 9 PM,  a picture of Hugo Schwyzer with a red circle and strike on it.  I opened the page, “Feminists Against Hugo Schwyzer“ and watched the “like” tally roar.  I think I went to bed when it was at about 160.  Now it is at 566 and the debate has bled all over the pond, small pond but one of the ponds I frequent.  I am not certain I want to get in the fracas but my thinking is mine, I own it and offer it. 

It seems that there are a lot of very strong opinions, strong like coffee or a scent is strong.  There is little that is subtle or mindful or aware or refined or worthy of many of the writers.  I am choosing to believe that many of the voices around this pond are gifted thinkers; by that I mean I would like to hear from them on the actual subjects of privilege, gender, leadership; the entire oppressed/oppressor paradigm.  I am sincerely flummoxed that the conversation always includes names and never takes a leap to arching lessons, tenets, ideas, general social conclusions, etc.

My unfolding in activism has always been parallel with expanding my understanding of humans, of organic physics, of the science of leadership.  I have to admit, this keeps me sane in the face of Roe eroding, Prop 8, unforgivable suicides and so much more.  I do not use it as an excuse but as a shoring up of my heart in terrible bloody waters. 

I want to talk about the role of a white person in racial civil rights.  I want to talk about a rich person’s responsibility to the economically depressed.  I want to talk about the best place for a senior when surrounded with young people, young legs, young minds and new ideas.  I want to talk about straight allies and their fundamental necessity in the LGBT movement. 

Most of what I have learned on this subject is from Robert Greenleaf and Margaret Wheatley.  The finest leader I have read about is Leo in Hesse’s Journey to the East.  He meets a group of western pilgrims and builds them a fire, cooks their food, arranges their passage through the Himalayas while never mentioning that he is the Abbott they are searching for at the monastery which is their final destination on their treacherous trip.  They think he is their servant, their Sherpa, their inferior and all the while they are traveling; warm and safe.  They are becoming independent and Leo knows that his invisibility is integral to their mutual success.

I think Malcolm X is another powerful example.  He did not want privileged white people anywhere near his movement until he circumambulated the Great Mosque seven times, found his own higher self and, then, considered the place of blue-eyed people.  And we have to see that Branch Rickey brought up Jackie Robinson but Robinson ran the bases.  I believe that HRC should have a straight ally on their Board of Directors because there is no movement without expansion out of our queer ghetto but the majority, the leaders must be queer.

All of this seems to me to be a worthy conversation.  It would be a worthy conversation for anyone who is interested in the matrix of domination, who cares about the empowerment of the disenfranchised, certainly anyone who has studied The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  Not only is this a conversation that the current circumstances could benefit from but our intersected futures as well.  Instead of keeping the conversation so puny as to be about one human this could have been about the physics of change. 

 Oh I have opinions about Hugo’s past, his teaching, his writing, his devotees.  As a member of Alanon for almost 40 years, I have opinions about addiction.  I have a boatload of opinions about rape culture, violence against women and men, about the mis/use of the word feminism.  However, what I really care about is the rising of the oppressed which will release the oppressor from our shared cycle ~ advancing all of society.  Hugo and you and I are just a few players who have a lot to do that is way beyond personal, beyond name-calling, beyond defenders v. attackers.

The MOVEMENT needs us to prioritize and study leadership.  Settle for nothing less.  Learn to build your own fire, to travel your road and pave it wide enough for all of us.  These two pictures are all I have to say about this individual controversy ~ now I gotta get back to work.

Who is our Harijan?

Happy Birthday, Gandhiji

October 2, 1869 our lives were changed forever.  Not that Mohandas arrived fully enlisted in the liberation movement.  He was privileged, wore western clothes, studied in London.  He wandered British society looking for non-meat eaters and found a group of Russian mystics and self-proclaimed magicians.  He was in training to be a barrister and his interest in women’s rights brought him to Royal Albert Hall to hear Mrs. Pankhurst talk about suffrage and direct action.  He sat in the same audience as Alice Paul and, even then, his sensibility was to leave when violence was promoted.  Breaking windows was going too far for Mohan.

It was the famous train ride through South Africa when M.K. Gandhi, graduated attorney, refused to move to second class and was thrown off, that his world shattered.  He had always traveled first class, we know that included the liner to Britain and getting around London.  Makes one wonder if he had no real consciousness of class before going to London.  Much like Siddhartha who knew he had to escape the palace wall to see true life in his country.  It was a real world encounter that created change.  But once realized, both these men were called to tell the world.

Looking around their worlds, the Lord Buddha, Jesus Christ and M.K. Gandhi all came to the same conclusion; that a person of conscience relates to the most oppressed.  Siddhartha encountered a sick man, an old man and a dead man; something he had never seen inside his father’s palace.  His response was to sit in silence until he could solve these newly discovered puzzles.  Once solved, he entered the working class.  Upon his death, he asked his students to destroy all likenesses of him; so much for obedient students.  None the less the inference was and remains, that Buddhists relate to and concern themselves with, the oppressed. 

Jewish fisherman, Joshua ben David was not born a wealthy man however he came to a similar conclusion.  To earn eternal peace, one would have to care for the poorest of the poor and when the middle class made inquiry, he said that when you see such a poor person, you would be seeing him, in fact.  As you do for the least, you do for him.

The complexity of Gandhi is so varied and rich, maybe even out of reach to the Western mind.  Raised as both a Hindu and Muslim in an upper caste, he was able to get a very wide view of his Mother India, eventually the world.  No only did he respond to the poverty imposed by British occupation but he also combined his response with his spiritual practice.  Refusing to wear western clothes, he put on the clothes of the poorest of India; the untouchables.  It was simultaneously a political and spiritual response for Gandhi.

Just as Gandhi was taught direct action by a woman, Emmeline Pankhurst, he adopted a term used centuries before him by another woman, Gangasati.  She was a Bhakti Yogini and writer in the 13th Century.  To counter the terrible oppression and status of women, Gangasati called them Harijan which means Children of God.  Gandhi renamed the untouchables Harijan, He even went on to name one of his newspapers, The Harijan.  He believed we are all, “Children of God.”

Today who is our Harijan?  In the Queer Movement is it transgendered people?  In the Women’s Movement is it those seeking safety from violence?  In the Immigration Movement is it the children of parents split through deportation?  In the Reproductive Movement is it the poor?  Regardless of who it may be, it is you and it is me as we are all Children of God.

Get me a Piece of Vanilla, Milquetoast, BS Pie

Imagine if the film industry took every meaningful, inspiring, insightful and incite-ful story and made it G-rated, a box office success and shaved off every bit of thorny truth or multi-layered complexity.  Imagine if a writer misrepresented a real person and retold a historic event to suit themselves.  Maybe it is their right to do that, to show one side of a life, but a tragic loss occurs when a generation believes that the sanitized version, the mischaracterization, the fantasy re-telling is the actual reality.

Every year around Women’s Equality Day, the best of people advise us to watch Iron Jawed Angels.  Every year I comment that Alice was so much more.  Not only was she more than the movie character but the striking inaccuracies reveal a warped bias on the part of the movie makers.  They made up a male interest.  They made up a Congress member’s wife.  They imply that Alice had some kind of melancholy about not having children (the fictional boyfriend is a widower with a son who charms Alice).  But, more importantly, what is lost in this fantasy?  What is the viewer robbed of?  That is the real tragedy.  Who was this strong, mouthy, brave, relentless, sometimes divisive woman?  It is my position that the fluffy interpretation negatively impacts every American woman who would have found camaraderie in the true fire and soul of Alice Paul.  I would go so far as to say that the pink hat wearing, gum chewing, bumbling character is held up to be an example as to how far an acceptable woman can veer from lady-like behavior.  Read a book and you will see what it actually took for her to accomplish the 19^th Amendment, how she stood trial in 1917, her demanding leadership style, she did not suffer fools, she was not anything near the Hillary Swank edition.

Now the identical thing will be happening around May 22, Harvey Milk Day.  Oh yes, the movie Milk won an Oscar, starred Sean Penn, was truly moving.  I have watched it 6 times, at least.  But if you watch The Times of Harvey Milk and then watch Milk - ask two questions: What is the difference in these two representations of Harvey and what is the impact to future generations if they believe the man portrayed in Milk is the whole picture.  The fictionalized Milk epitomizes the very thing that is a terrible problem in the LGBT movement; it shows a single issue man on a single issue mission.  The Times of Harvey Milk shows Harvey working with labor, with women, with seniors, with people of color and imparts to the viewer that being gay was one facet of Harvey - he was the Mayor of Castro before it was a mecca for gays.  He was inclusive and open; something the LGBT movement could surely use today.  My hope is that high schools that do celebrate Harvey Milk Day will watch BOTH movies and have a real lesson plan that identifies the differences in these movies.   

Most recently I sat in a theater and watched, The Help.  Loved it.  Loved the casting.  Loved the poster.  Loved the sets, the clothes, the chotchkies, the music.  But I am 63 and lived through that period and I know that the entire movie from start to end was one vanilla, milquetoast, BS pie.  It has nothing to do with the facts of prejudice, poverty, politics of that time.  Madger Evers murder was some little wispy mention, a black woman leaving her abusive husband was a flick solved with some deep fry and what’s more fun than not allowing a woman to use the loo – a knee slapping good laugh; pass the popcorn.  Hollywood will surely have a 5 minute reprieve from sexism during Oscar season, as The Help gets a dozen nominations.  Can’t you just picture all of the bigotry and anti-woman business of the industry being whitewashed on the red carpet.  And what of this movie being used as a teaching tool?  Gee, wasn’t the 60’s just a lot of good music and silly women acting all clique-ky.

Notable exceptions validate a wish that non-documentary films can tell the truth.  Sir Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi was meticulously scripted and shot.   In fact, the book, Gandhi, A Pictorial Biography shows the shots side by side; Patel, Nehru, Kasturba, Jinnah, the ashrams, the courtrooms, the jails – all painstakingly accurate.  Certainly Gandhi the man was infinitely more complex than this movie but it is not dishonest, sanitized, fictionalized and offers the viewer genuine inspiration. 

Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, portrays the life of the 14^th Dalai Lama from ages 2- 24 with astounding accuracy.  Particularly significant is that many of the actors are direct blood relatives of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.  You can be sure that the ceremonies and traditions are accurately portrayed.  

I love movies.  I love social justice.  I worry that cute is painting over pure.  I worry that polite is being advanced as possible.  I worry that women, in particular, are being corralled by darling little shots of Ben teaching Alice to drive.  I worry when Hollywood makes a movie that implies that the Civil Rights Movement was a wonderful success and, golly, wasn’t it just a lot of fun.    

Walkers Honor Us

I have spent 40 years studying Mahatma Gandhi.  He was not the insane man that the most recent piece of fiction suggested but a very complex man, a man of India, a man of Hinduism+Islam, a father and a spinner. He studied with Emmeline Pankhurst, a student with Alice Paul.  He entertained royalty and sat with Margaret Sanger.  You would be mistaken if you thought that the Quit India Campaign was his project most dear.  He was obsessed with digestion and nutrition.  And, spiritual seekers know what happens when you sit in silence everyday, spinning or doing anything redundant while holding a high intention. 

 The fact that Gandhi walked great distances was not so odd, for the poor.  He was born very privileged and could have traveled first class but, in doing so, would have missed the poetry and poets that a walk calls near.  And it would not have collected the attention of the on-lookers, the readers, the curious, even the naysayers.  In his last years he simply stood up and began to walk to Pakistan, to see if he could garner attention about  the tragic segregation that was tearing apart Mother India. 

 Last summer, a New York Blogger wrote a disparaging piece about me and, in it, called me a Gandhian.  I don't think I have ever heard anything so wonderful in all my life.  Of course you know I care very little about nutrition or spinning; I care about experimenting with truth.  I am devoted to all who use their lives to test and adopt the truth, their truth. 

  Some of the heat I took was because I had mentioned Dan Choi's fast in the context of Gandhi's fasts.  Last week we all saw that Dan and others' took a beating by anti-gay people while in Moscow; never hitting back.  And, again, I have no hesitation to say that this is in the direct lineage of Pankhurst - Gandhi - Paul - Kramer - and now maybe you.  I have no second thoughts about separating the activist from the action - as I would the painter from the painting (yo - Caravaggio).  It is these actions of independent bravery - performed for a collective outcome - rising from the heart and soul that defines this lineage. 

Walks have a long tradition.  Have you ever walked the perimeter of Walden?  Or read about Malcolm X's walk on his pilgrimage to Mecca?  And today there are two men walking across American on behalf of Equality.  Alan Bounville, (http://www.intothelightwalk.com/) is just beginning today in Seattle and Richard Noble (http://walk.usfreedomring.com/) began on March 12, from the Golden Gate Bridge.  These are the standard bearers  for the Equality Movement.  From The Equality Bill to Immigration, every American seeking equality is being both carried and lifted by these two men.

They are taking on the weather, the road, the accolades and the possibility of disapproval manifest.  How effective they are as our representatives is entirely up to us.  The news circling out like a rock in a pond, the importance will be realized as much as we make their story our story.  They are offering their feet, their focus, their very life for the American Equality Movement.  We have a responsibility in this.  To shine our light, donate a few dollars as the weeks peel by, to tell others in the tribe that this is happening for them but, more over, tell a wider circle that our movement has come this far, become this NOBLE and hopeful. 

Indians and the British made Gandhi's walks important.  Now it is our turn. 

Happy PRIDE, Richard & Alan. 

We are so proud of you.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Mayor

 Every year around this time my thoughts turn to Harvey Milk and the Briggs Initiative.  In those years many queer people only met in homes, in very discrete bars often on a dark alley, or in safe closed meetings. I remember that the queer AA meetings were the only place where you could meet where alcohol was not the lynch pin.  Lipstick dykes met at dinner parties and plaid flannel dykes met at The Women’s Building; readers spent hours at Sisterhood Bookstore just to be near the tribe without caution.  Holly Near sang our songs, Rita Mae Brown wrote our stories and there was the faintest whisper, out in the distance, that one day we could find one another without risk. 

There was a frail suggestion that queer people might be seen as fully developed, multi-faceted people who were capable of caring for far more than just the gay agenda. The elections of Elaine Noble (1975) and Harvey Milk (1978) were beacons of light for those of us who wanted to live and work openly in the world.  Now there were known homosexuals in state and city legislatures voting on budgets, education, housing ~ for all people in their districts.   

Then along came John Briggs, a California State Senator, who got traction on the unsubstantiated idea that queers teaching kids would make children queer.  It was a shocking time, suggesting that teachers would be outed, not just from their jobs but to their families, to their landlords, to their churches. Frankly, I don’t think anyone believed him, per se, but it was a blatant attempt to tell queers to get back in the closet, that society will not tolerate integration.  Of course, activists know that the opposite actually happens when confronted with such a proposal  and so the 1978 Pro6 6, calling for the firing of teachers who were believed to be homosexual, actually threw us out of our privacy and into meeting halls. 

You would be wrong to think that Prop 6 had anything to do with Harvey Milk directly, except by default, as he was the crowned BMOC homosexual in CA as he was a public figure and a politician.  You would have been more apt to find him working with labor unions, with senior citizens, with community organizers, planning street fairs or in his camera shop ~ home to everything from the DOB to local teamsters.  He was not a beloved figure by the gay inc. of his day; then call “The Machine.”  He was an everyman; loving neighbors, kids, the circus, public transportation and changing society to be open to all diversities.  Let there be no mistake, he was the Mayor of Castro, not the mayor of queerville.  Ascension to prominence as a queer was not his mission and not achieved in his life time; that path was too narrow for Harvey.  His vision was freedom for everyone not the construction of a queer ghetto. 

I have The Times of Harvey Milk on my TIVO, my ipad & my iphone.  I am not a fan because he was gay.  I am not a fan because he was assassinated and declared a martyr for LGBT.  I am a fan because he was the epitome of the most dangerous activist on earth; he wanted everyone to have freedom and liberty, a fine job with a fair wage, and a safe place to call home.  His world would have been my idea of community where all its inhabitants could be who they are with no fear of reprisal. 

When I am fortunate to be asked to speak about Equality, I often leave a little homework.  I tell people to watch The Times of Harvey Milk and then to watch the movie, Milk; asking what is the difference between the two portrayals of Harvey Milk.  For me it is in the difference that you really meet him, see him, get an idea of who he was.  He was my Mayor; your Mayor; a Mayor for men, for women, for kids, for Italians, for Teamsters, for Catholics, for seniors and more. His neighborhood would have been a place where we would all be saying, Howdy Neighbor.  Happy Birthday, Mr. Mayor.  You are so very missed.

Activists Throw a Happy Fizzie Party

Activists are just plain folk who add a dash of carbonation to society.  Within the Women's Movement, it is any one from a sixth grader presenting her science project on Sally Ride, to Lily Ledbetter taking it to court, to demonstrators risking arrest outside of a women's health clinic.  In the LGBT movement it is a kid who doesn't go along with a joke using the words, "that's so gay," to Log Cabin people testing the justice of DADT, to people walking across America.  An activist is anyone who steps off the curb of convention and takes a chance in the context of their lives.

In 45 years I have known many activists.  Some are brilliant, patient, steadfast and plot the long distance.  Some are headstrong, narrow-minded, prefer risk.  Some have carried the oppression of their tribe to their own personal breaking point and just want relief.  Personally I am a fan of them all.  I really adore the crazy ones who push the bands of convention and make room for everyone else to make their next move.

Non-violent direct action activists take a lot of heat.  Obviously the mainstream has no idea what would inspire them but the real pain happens when tribe members rise up in opposition.  Over the last year to hear the more conservative LGBT organizations question the tactics of getEQUAL is maddening.  I want to tell them that they don't have to agree, don't have to promote but, at the very least, they need to understand that the loony tune people who arrive by land, air and sea; who carry handcuffs, who fast are actually expanding the limits of social convention.  It just might be easier to talk openly at dinner about being gay after 5 people face arrest at the White House.  

I am privileged to be hosting the Dallas premiere of March On; February 24, 7 PM.  Dallas is the home of the director, Laura McFerrin and her family, and several of the people who made the National Equality March possible.  Less than a year after the march itself; the documentary, March On both debuted at the Austin LGBT Film Festival and began winning awards. Shown in Los Angeles and New York City, Washinton DC and San Francisco, March On is just beginning to set hearts on fire for the American Equality Movment. 

In addition to the magic of March On itself, it is inspiring to show it while raising funds for local and nation equality organizations. It has raised funds for the LGBT Center in San Francisco and New York Marriage Equality.  The Dallas screening is a fundrasier for getEQUAL, our real convention breakers who demand national attention through their relentless non-violent direct action for civil rights. 

Here is your opportunity to be a part of the March On legacy, support getEQUAL and advance the Equality Movement.  Please consider donating today and join in the March to Equality.
 
SPONSOR LEVELS:  
Rainbow   $2,500
Red          $2.000
Orange     $1,500
Yellow      $1,000
Green         $500
Blue            $250
Violet         $100

All Donations are tax deductable.

ONLINE DONATIONS http://getequal.org/marchon

MAIL DONATIONS
Check made out to getEQUAL Action to:
Heather Cronk
c/o GetEQUAL Action
6304 46th Avenue
Riverdale, MD 20737
     
Thank you for your donation; you make it possible that this is NOT a ticketed event.
Everyone is welcome.  See you in Dallas!

The Tragedy of Lost History

This last weekend I went to the San Francisco premiere of March On which was shown at the LGBT Community Center.  It was a fantastic time with the convergence of friends; old and new.  We went to many places in the Castro, from Dolma to the Sausage Factory, a Ken display in a residential window to the erased Castro Camera shop which is now HRC.  My friends told me that the change was made over night; presumably to avoid pushback and/or media attention.

  Of course you and I know the address 575 Castro Street.  You can see the cardboard figure of Harvey in the second floor window and the plaque in the sidewalk.  But I hope the next generation tells their AI kids that it was once the magnetic, radiant  meeting place for women, labor, queers; all disenfranchised people who made plans for a brighter tomorrow.

I suppose tourists can walk down to the next corner, turn left to 4127 18^th Street find the LGBT History Museum.  There they can see Harvey’s bullhorn, Mary Ann Singleton’s dress from Tales of the City and the NOW program from 1976, when dykes were only welcome if they did not mention their orientation.  

I went to the History Museum with a gaggle of young people who stood in awe; pointing and conferring with one another, respectfully chatting about those who went before them.  It felt so peculiar to me because what they see as history, I think of as current.

 

But when I saw the pastel suits of Martin and Lyon, I almost got light headed.  I glanced around for a bench with none to be found.  (I guess old people are to be honored but not seated).  I made it through walking around the room and asked the cashier if I could sit in an empty chair behind the table.  I mourn the terrible loss of Harvey’s true legacy of inclusion of all people as falsely portrayed in the Oscar winning movie.  I am sick to my stomach that there is news TODAY of the possible closing of the Martin-Lyon Clinic.

I am not ready to step away, to become an empty black suit with a scarf or round black glasses in a box somewhere.  No, you may not have my torch, get your own torch.  You can light yours from mine.  BUT do know this, nothing is ever accomplished without a lot of energy, confrontation, midnight meetings and sacrifice.  The true stores, the real story is never as sanitized as dry cleaned suits in a museum or movies with big name stars. Change the awning, rewrite history, misrepresent sexual orientation; it seems so tragic to those who know the truth of it.  Make the queers appear straight, make the edgy people seem easy going, make it all cute as a bug.

Let me state clearly ~ the truth will set you free ~ not a sanitized history.

ERA Rally Washington DC

Senator Menendez (D NJ) & Rep Maloney (D NY) call for the introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment into the 112th Congress.  Finally we have a champion in the Senate, continuing the legacy of Senator Ted Kennedy who always introduced it into every session he attended.

We must all join together, all the disenfranchised people, women, LGBTQAI, immigrants and breathe continued life into this roaring equality movement.  Yes, there has been a shift in the House but the reality is that now there is true conflict, true push and pull, it is in our advantage. 

EQUALITY OF RIGHTS UNDER THE LAW SHALL NOT BE DENIED OR ABRIDGED BY THE UNITED STATES OR BY ANY STATE ON ACCOUNT OF SEX.  Written in its original form in 1923, edited to its current form in 1948, it is time for the US Constitution to explicitly include all Americans for full civil rights.

 

Its a Solstice Miracle ~ Thanks to a Lot of Heavy Lifting

Apparently I finally have something in common with Rachel Maddow as I, too, did not think that the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell would happen in the lame duck session of the 111th Congress.  Last night I set my alarm for 5:45 AM and woke up to watch the Commander in Chief sign into law the commitment to fully repeal DADT within a reasonable amount of time.

The room was full of amazing men and women who have served in the military and/or served in the equality movement.  I am so very happy that Robin McGehee, of getEQUAL, and her son, Sebastian were there.  It seems to me that Robin has always made it clear that she works tirelessly because of her children.  Taking her son to the White House, in his new suit, means so much to her and to many of us who believe that risking arrest, publicly rocking the boat and making noise is integral to making social change.  She went in the front door along with all the polite people who demonstrated patience, elegance, fine dining, fund raising and legislative doggedness.  She was not asked to come the next day, to see an assistant and offered a gesture, rather it was full citizenship. BRAVA.

If you follow the tweets of Lt Dan Choi, you would know that he invited, as his guest, Autumn Sandeen.  She is a brave, outspoken, passionate woman who is out and proud about her being a Trans woman.  You saw her standing at the White House Fence, handcuffed.  If you have not read about her experience being arrested, you should definitely look at her writing at Pam's House Blend. She is very generous with her life stories, sharing the specific problems society foists on trans people.  

The picture above is something many of us dreamed of but wondered if it would ever happen.  Lt Choi asked Senator Reid to hold his West Point ring until DADT was repealed.  Today, December 22, 2010, Dan got his ring back.  Nothing makes me happier than this photo and all that it represents. 

It makes me wonder what the women in 1919 felt like, when they knew they would be able to vote in the next election.  It makes me feel cautious that equality activists, working over these last several years since the overt failure of marriage equality in California, will think that two years is a reasonable amount of time to expect results. This is a miracle. From Stonewall to now, just over 50 years, is a lightening round to see a diverse community rise up, call for change and the federal legislation to respond. 

Maybe things are going to go faster, as fast as the speed of light traveling on an electronic highway.  I sure hope so. Its a wonderful day, a miraculous day.  I hope we see many more miracles.  We deserve miracles.  Lets just expect miracles. 

The Queer Movement will not be Deterred or Defeated

On the heels of Secretary Gates statement today , in reference to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, “I’d have to say I’m not particularly optimistic that they’re going to get this done, I would hope that they would,”  I am taking inventory.  At this moment I am listening to the Ninth Circuit Court hearings on Proposition 8 and, lets face it, Ted Olson is wicked, crazy, razor smart. Who on earth could not agree with him?  He even won the election for hanging chad Bush.  However, I want to state publicly, unequivocally that no matter the comings and goings of LGBTQAI markers, issues, legislative battles ~ THIS MOVEMENT WILL NOT BE TURNED BACK.

In a Q&A, at one of the recent showings of March On, a young man asked me if the gay movement could fail, just give up and disappear.  Moreover, he was asking what is different from this current day liberation movement from when the women’s movement faced losing the Equal Rights Amendment on the arbitrarily imposed deadline of June 30, 1982.  I told him that I hold no parallel whatsoever based on one enormous thing ~ we have found one another.  In the light of day we have found one another.  We don’t need to drive to a meeting, rent halls, march on the capitol to see our numbers, our passion, our intention and our commitment.  From black tie to handcuffs, from Glee to Ricky Martin, from marriage to military, we will not be denied. 

In the movie, Milk, Harvey tells a young man, who is living a tortured life in small town USA, to get to a big city – get to any big city.  Certainly today it is easier to find community support in large cites as opposed to small ones but one thing has changed, changed forever; sexual orientation and gender identity is in play everywhere.  From facebook to youtube, from cell phones to television the genie is out of the bottle and it will never be collected and corked.  It is everywhere, it is available, hands are held out, arms are open and seekers can find agreement, even comfort if they can get on the electronic highway.

When the ERA deadline expired, the collected women's movement virtually dispersed. Most women I knew at the time went home to heal and rest.  Yes, the most radical and most political started a renewed, reorganized effort, but the numbers never collected again.  With the 1972 ruling of Roe v Wade being a settled matter, the particularly volatile issue of reproductive autonomy was not in jeopardy at the time.  Many feminists just needed to take a break.

Had you been at the Washington DC Rally of June 30, 1982, you would have seen signs and heard chanted, "We will remember in November,"  Looking at the elections of 1982, and in particular the state legislatures of those states where the ERA was in consideration and failed that June, you would see that no one actually carried out that threat.  Smart liberal voters always know they must keep the most conservative legislators out of office regardless of complaints with the liberal candidate’s record.
 
I believe that most of the 1982 rallied women went home exhausted and defeated, never to return to the streets again.  I can state without hesitation that most of my older sisters in the movement have not planted both feet on the electronic highway and spend precious time lamenting that the old ways are not being lauded and reenacted today.  Due to that action, or lack of action, they believe there is no movement today, they say that young women are doing nothing and, sadly, they miss what is actually happening today. 

However, that disintegration, that dramatic split of waves, that reverberating defeat will not be repeated in the Queer & Allied Movement.  The LGBTQAI Movement will not give up, will not give in. We have found one another, we are bound to each other & losses are temporary obstacles to be vanquished.  We will never stop working until sexual orientation and gender identity becomes universally accepted as part of the great diversity of humanity.