OnLine With Zoe

Service is Leadership and Leadership is Service

Over the last few months I have been asked, I have written and I hold steadfast on the subject of privilege.  I hope that I have not participated in the singling out of one person but rather have held the conversation on a general plane; an applicable plane.  I realize there may be a lot to say about an individual on this issue but not by bystanders and not in the public square.  I believe and I live that I am accountable for my life, I demonstrate with my life, that is the purpose of life.

While working on a new memoir, when I got to 1975, I wrote about my year teaching at an all-girls high school in Echo Park which was 90% Latina.  After the chapter was done, I realized that I had demonstrated what I think about privilege even back then.  To me it seemed obvious and not some heady philosophical theory at all.  It was the organic response to empowering the disenfranchised.  If I am a senior in a meeting of young feminists, if a straight person comes to a meeting of LGBT people, if a White person comes to a meeting of People of Color; the right thing to do is to support the emerging group in service to their empowerment. 

In a recent interview, the journalist asked, “So you think that Mr. so-in-so had no place at a women’s march?”   Oh, yes I do: Fundraising before the march.  Arranging for city permits.  At the end of the march, picking up litter.  At the landing of the March checking the sound.  Along the route with a First Aid kit.  But never leading.  The interviewer was not interested or, maybe, lost his verve as I did not give him the answer he wanted.  Pity.

This what I think about privilege and how I demonstrated it. 

Early in the year, when I was having a meltdown about no one doing any homework, one of the Sisters told me that many of them have no time for such things.  They worked or they were the primary adult in the household making dinner for their younger siblings.  I had to get hip to all that pretty fast.  Many times, maybe most days, someone was missing and it was because of a funeral, a gang funeral; a brother, a boyfriend, a tribe mate.  These girls knew things I could not imagine.  Try as I might, love them as I did, it was clear they needed a Latina standing in front of them not a privileged white girl, wearing a navy linen dress, driving her red beetle from the beach.  They needed a woman who knew their lives, their family life, their future possibilities and could demonstrate how to push onward.  On Holy Thursday I gave my notice with one caveat, asking Sister Jeannine to hire only a Spanish speaking Latina to teach junior and senior religion.  It made me really sad but right is right.  I was given the “Most Liked Teacher” award that year.  A treasured pearl.

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.

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.

Rep. Maloney to Introduce the ERA into the 112th!

 New York, NY – On Monday, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) will be joined by Lilly Ledbetter and women leaders in declaring that the House leadership’s continuing war on women has gone too far and that it’s past time to make clear that the Constitution guarantees equal rights to women.  Accordingly, Maloney will announce her plans to reintroduce the Equal Rights Amendment.   Lilly Ledbetter's historic fight to simply receive equal pay for equal work put a spotlight on the substantial economic damage that sex-based discrimination has caused women in the labor force.   The Supreme Court decision in her case made it clear that activist, conservative judges can overturn decades of precedent and laws protecting women from discrimination.

Earlier this year, Justice Scalia opined that the 14^th Amendment guarantee of equal protection does not apply to sex discrimination.  His comments alone make a powerful, compelling argument that a Constitutional amendment is needed to protect women from discrimination.   A Constitutional amendment would be an unassailable guarantee of equality and a symbol that attitudes toward women have changed.

WHAT:  News conference to announce the re-introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment, also known as the Women’s Equality Amendment.

WHEN:           Monday, May 23^rd      10:30am

WHERE:         Pace University Midtown Center, 551 Fifth Avenue, 8th Floor, Room 814, videoconference center

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!

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 BIG and the small of it.

Being a Buddhist, we believe that everything is always reaching for the higher good.  Trees, giraffes, beetles, people, cities, countries, movements, entire planets.  It is almost impossible to keep in mind, to maintain in the face of the Phelps, the 112th Congress, the anti-choice movement but regardless of how one might see it, it is always true.  Maybe that is why we are so attached to information, demonstration, congregation, in hopes of raising the bar of perception of what is good which is how things change.

Reading the signs of the times, here in the USA, it seems that the macrocosm is being called to make the  next advance in social justice.  It has been freedom of religion, the vote for women, interracial marriage and reproductive autonomy.  Now society is considering equality for Americans who are LGBTQAI.  One step forward, one step back, backlash, lean forward ~ ultimately it will not be denied as many/most now know it is the higher good.
   
The microcosm of the individual soul is always reaching for the highest good and in the context of the LGBTQAI movement, everyone is doing what they perceive to be the highest good.  Once achieved, the opportunity for another notch is uncovered.  People stretch a bit, achieve the place and when the next step is revealed they stretch again.
 
From closeted to standing with a bullhorn, there are a thousand steps on the labyrinth.  Big toe first, full foot second, maybe a leap to the next step; breathe.  Ahhhhhhhhhhh.  Next possibility and another stretch.  There is no reason to be impatient, judgmental, exasperated.  The way to move someone is to offer information, demonstrate another step toward the higher good, congregate to support taking that next step.  From HRC to getEQUAL from MCC to PFLAG, from Queer Rising to OCEC, there are many choices and those choices demonstrate all of the places where people are reaching for the highest good they perceive.  Making a sign and standing with a group, making a sign and stopping traffic, making a sign and standing sentry, being a sign and chaining to a fence; each is doing what they are called to do.
 
The national time schedule for change is about 150 years from idea to integration.  The individual finds it maddening – tick tock – it cannot be done in a single lifetime.  Just ask Moses, Alice Paul, Malcolm X or M.K. Gandhi ~ what they wanted to achieve they did not live to see.  How ever every person who holds the line, holds a sign, advances the tide, moves the marker in that 150 years is just as important as the one who crosses the finish line.
 
Lets not waste one more minute demanding anything; not one more minute disapproving of anyone; not a single second pouting that everyone doesn’t want to do it your preferred way.  Even better ~ do it all, approve of it all, figure out a way to make everyone right.  Pick your area, hold your line, stand and resist – irresistibly.  Do what is in front of you and skip judging other forms of activism as those activists are doing exactly what they are called to do.  PLUS ~  it is a moment lost in your activism.
 
So here’s the deal, some people boycott American Apparel and some people love their legalize gay & legalize trans campaigns.  Lets not sort it all out into good and bad.  Lets celebrate where everyone is and create some ease so each of us can DO JUST ONE MORE THING.  All hands on deck.

Change is Entering the Fast Lane

Political fasting has a long and international history.  It is different from spiritual fasting which is far more famous.  It has no relationship to cosmetic / weight loss diets or “cleansing.”  Today, it is generally misunderstood and somewhat bound up in celebrity; famous people stop eating to draw attention to an issue they have embraced, for example Mia Farrow and her true calling about Darfur.  Ms. Farrow posted from her home on youtube and, because of her fame, was able to cast a bright light on the tragedies in Dafur.  Upon her break-fast, Sir Richard Branson took over and continued several days. 

People fasted at the G8 and the G20 and the WTO Trade Conference.  They have blogged, posted video and gotten the attention of the media.  Recently, here in the US, Lt. Dan Choi and Captain Jim Pietrangelo  fasted, stating their demands to end the military firings on the grounds of homosexual conduct, stop the Pentagon study and repeal DADT.  Another type of fast, 90 solid meals over 30 days, was held by Gloria Allred in regards to the Equal Rights Amendment culminating on August 26, 2010, Women’s Equality Day. 

Generally, political fasting does not result in death, with the notable exception of the Irish men who fasted in 1981.  They were actually unknowingly harming themselves with prison toxic tap water and salt pills; neither advisable.  In 1982, I sat next to Dick Gregory for 5 days in the Illinois State House.  He explained that wherever fasters fast, he offers support and he was very well versed on the circumstances of Bobby Sands, et. al.  Mr. Sands fasted to death in 66 days while in a Belfast prison.  It was a terrible tragedy, mismanaged with many warning signs along the way; including blindness. 

Why do people hold political fasts?  It is not emotional blackmail, as Speaker Ryan of Illinois accused in 1982.  It is not a “hunger strike,” which sounds a lot like, “I am not eating until you buy me a dirt bike.”  Who can really say what is in the heart of a political faster, most likely they have reached a point in their journey where fasting simply arises as their organic choice.  Interestingly it is often the most radical, outspoken activists who take it on and quickly find themselves wanting to be extra quiet both in sound and movement. 

Generally there is an issue that has not gotten traction and is approaching resolution, maybe even defeat.  A champion surfaces who wants to influence the outcome, change the trajectory, convert the opposition and fasting, as an option, seems not just reasonable but inevitable.  Let there be no doubt that there will be many conversions along the way.  People may begin with scoffing and unfold in loyalty.  People may roll their eyes at first but shortly become promoters of the cause.  Opponents may feel singled out and, in fact, they may be right.  But the point, at the intersection of issue, faster, opponents and supporters, is always conversion.   From Chavez to Gandhi, from unions to Great Britain, fasting creates change.  It is as if the stasis melts and things move.  As Gandhi put it, the hearts of the onlookers melt. 

At first people panic and react.  That is natural, eating is the most fundamental human activity and who would willingly deny it.  Everybody can feel it.  That initial reaction demonstrates exactly why fasting is so effective.  Everyone reacts.  The hope is, the plan is, that those who are in agreement with the political position of the faster will aim their reaction to those who can deliver the demanded outcome.   Gandhi’s last fast was his appeal for peace in Delhi.  It would have been a waste of time to simply implore him to stop, the only effective thing people could do was to work to end the violence.  When the last knife was dropped, Gandhi broke his fast. 

This week another fast will begin in America.  As I am apt to say, Angels will bend low from the clouds to get a better look.  Or as Apache Chief Magnus Colorado said, “Only people with empty heads feast while their hearts are heavy with grief.”  When I fasted, supporters would either eat everything in sight or not be able to out of guilt.  Mr. Gregory told me that only the correct side can fast, as it is a prayerful thing, a holy thing, a moral thing.  I am not so sure of that but in any event, when people fast change escalates.  Humanity is the better for it.

The Movement Marches On

On September 14, 2009 I noticed a post on facebook by a woman who was looking for people going to the National Equality March.  She was going to be making a documentary about it.  I rang her number to tell her about a friend of mine, Melinda Tremaglio, President of Palm Springs NOW, dyke extraordinaire, who had filmed the 1987 March.  Melinda and I might have been the two oldest broads going but we would not miss any march for equal rights.  As the story goes, after two and a half hours on the phone, Laura McFerrin hung up believing that I would be one of the principles in her film, March On. 

Armed with my flip camera and a todo list I took pictures of packing, flying, landing and walking in the National Equality March.  I stayed at the Washington Court as it was the closest to the Sewall Belmont House, my favorite building in DC.  Melinda stayed there too, as did several of my feminist sistas.  Night one, I met with the director, Laura McFerrin, for the first time.  We all crammed into my studio room; sound boom, film crew, interviewer.  It was bloody late, we talked for a very long time and off they went.  

October 11, 2009, meeting ten feminists who move the world, we gathered at Alice Paul’s house, walked her halls and touched her desk.  And, poof, it was off to the March.  Meeting with my NOW friends at a specified address, we collected, we wrapped ourselves in rainbows and embraced our shared mission; equality.  I “flipped” walking and flipped again when I got back to my room.  Late that night I met with the crew to drop off my flip footage and de-brief on camera.  A bit of sight-seeing the next day, a long flight home and all of it was just a mark on a square on my desk calendar ~ and It was back to the daily minutia of building equality, one minute at a time.  For two months I didn’t hear from the crew of March On and thought c’est la vie.  There is plenty to do and that was that.  In late December a member of the crew, in whom I took a particular interest, called to ask about visting on the 26th.  To my surprise, she brought a tripod with a list of questions and told me that I was not cut out at all.      

And now I have flown home again, this time from the world premiere of March On.  Opening with Melinda’s footage from the “1987 Great March,” ending with the 2009 National Equality March and a call to action, March On tells the story of the Movement, the longing, the people who simply cannot settle for second class citizenship.  Original music and diverse stories by current day families who “flipped” their lives as well as filmed by Laura McFerrin, March On is the movie I want the movement to see.  The Movement needs to see.  Families and communities need to see. 

We cannot go to Arlington in 25 years asking the president for equality.  We cannot ask our queer youth to just hang on, live in the streets and survive while we party.  We cannot deny full equality under the law for any American.  Want to understand what this movement is about?  Want to show your family and friends what this movement is about?  Want to see the laying Quilt to the bravery of Dan Choi and witness how long this has been going on?  Want to meet couples whose lives demonstrate what it is we are marching for?  Then you will love March On.  It is your documentary. 

Don't be Scared But It is Always a Long Haul

I woke up this morning feeling very similar to how I felt on November 4, 2008.  That day, as is the case with the last few days, I have been congratulated and celebrated by several people.  They call or email to say, job well done and isn’t it all grand.  I am instantly torn with a desire to receive what they are giving but feel that it would be a betrayal if I do.  How do I respond authentically when they are making it clear that they do not share or understand where the equality movement really is.  They are happy, believe that something changed and believe there has been a victory.  The teacher in me wants to kick in, the friend in me wants to share points of view and the polite thing to do is say thank you.  Crap, I really hate that intersection.

As I walked around the Orange County Day of Decision rally and hugged some of the county activists, I quietly, hesitatingly said congratulations; they stepped back, lowered their heads and said quietly, “The work is just beginning.”  Sweet relief, they know.  As Lt Dan Choi pointed out in regards to the Congressional committee vote on DADT, no one has NOT been fired because of that vote.  The firings could stop with a pen stroke by Executive Order.  Judge Vaughn Walker, David Boies and Ted Olson have advanced the Equality Civil Rights Movement but it is not a signal to rest, to get a tattoo; mission accomplished. 

Big picture, big picture, big picture.  I hesitate to chant it for fear of losing LGBTQAI activists.  So many marchers are short term, single state (i.e. California), one issue people.  One man wrote a very moving post this week about the cocktail revilers at the Abby.  “As much as I dislike Cleve Jones, I admire him for the scene in 'Milk' where he ran into the bars yelling ‘Out of the bar and in to the street’.  That's what I felt like doing, but I know the response would have been very different than it would have been in the 70s.  People would have remained there, cocktail in hand.“

Reading a few tea leaves this week, it concerns me terribly that President Obama said next to nothing, his press secretary made it crystal clear that he is not in favor of marriage equality and his appointees to the Supreme Court may be making a permanent decision about it.  Yes, there are more conservatives judges, but the presumptions about Sotomayer and Kagan, have no legs whatsoever.  Why are we not presuming that they will support the ideas of their appointer?  One day progressives will label Barack Obama as shrewd, the sooner the better in my opinion.
    
I know that on the road to full victory, we can be glad when ease shows up.  We can lift a glass of good cheer when one of the obstacles is vanquished.  I am truly dazzled by the heart and content of Judge Walker’s ruling.  It is a great document that advances full equality; that is not to be diminished.  But can one more couple marry today?  Are we prepared for the backlash?  And will it stall like the ERA has for women with an ERA in 22 states only.  I, for one, cannot settle for marriage equality in anything less than all of the states.
 
How can you tell the truth without sounding like Debbie Downer, Smarty Pants, or really ungrateful?  Frankly, I do not know ~ just ask my friends who put up with my persistent chorus of Margie Adam's “Long Haul.”  How can those who know that it takes more than a century to go from idea to integration be simultaneously a beacon of truth and not squash the short term hands on deck.  I am working on it – really.