ACT On Principles

This past weekend’s National Equality March was a triumph of grassroots.

I first heard that there was going to be a National Equality March on October 11 in DC when I was speaking at Netroots Nation ‘09 in Pittsburgh this past August. My first thought was that the lead-time was too short to get a turnout.

Flash forward to last Sunday. I attended the March and, not only did they pull it off brilliantly, they were completely on message. And the media coverage afterwards reflected that message. It wasn’t just about gay pride, it was about civil rights and equal protection under the law. The crowd was young. The crowd was diverse. There was passion without hate.

In the CNN coverage that I watched that afternoon, when asked about a quote from Sen. Saxby Chambliss saying Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a policy that works, Josh Gerstein from Politico, said that the issue is generational. In other words older people, like the Senator, have more difficulty accepting gay people in their lives by virtue of them being older. The generational argument is one we should make as often as possible. Politicians don’t like being told they are old and out of touch. And on our issues many of them ARE. Gerstein continued saying the younger people joining the military today have always had gay people in their lives. They have seen positive gay media images from childhood. It’s no big deal to them. But it is a big deal to them when ANYONE is denied their civil rights.

Over and over throughout the day I heard the words of the Dallas Principles spoken. (and – BTW great job Babs!) It’s time for civil rights for all Americans. The culture is pushing the politicians to catch up. Younger people are driving the movement. They are part of the grassroots that help elect the President. They were there in force on Sunday.

What a contrast from the Teabaggers of Sept 12 where there was hate, the rhetoric was fear and more hate. And they were organized by lobbyists and spearheaded by the FOX television network. Proving yet again that the right is a windbag filled with hot air — very loud hot air. But the right wing noise machine with all its loudness and millions of lobbyist dollars doesn’t move votes.

Yet somehow the loudness of the right scares our politicians. It scares them into thinking that the money train won’t stop at their campaign anymore. Well, let’s send a loud and clear message to our elected officials that if they don’t do what we elected them to do, if they don’t stand and vote for change we can believe in, our votes and money won’t support them and our grassroots organizers will primary them out of office.

For me, the truly exciting part of the National Equality March was the demographic. They were mostly young, very family friendly and very mixed in terms of gender, race, and age. Straight and gay. I saw signs that said, “I’m not queer and I’m here.” The chants as we went by the White House were not hateful vitriol. They were fun — “Obama, Obama, Let mama marry mama” and ” Two, Four, Six, Eight — Love does not discriminate.”

And they weren’t there – over 100,000 of them — because a TV network told them to show up. They were there because of grassroots organizing. They were there in solidarity with their LBGT brothers and sisters. They were there with their friends and their families. These were the kind of grassroots organizers who were on fire for the election of 2008. This is the face of the new march on Washington, a march started online and lasting online long after the event is over.