You’ve paid your dues and through the nose. You’ve heard and said it all. You’re done with all the drama. You did your part.

But what did you do it for?

One of my oldest friends is still in the grassroots game. He’s even coined the new phase: Stonewall 2.0.

But he’s taking a pass on “federal activism,” having seen the demise of the National Equality March organization and lived through the tortured takeover of Equality Across America by the International Socialist Organization (ISO).

Understandably scared away, his focus now is on “building a [state-level grassroots] activist network that can respond ad hoc to developments of concern to our community.” To me this sounds like activism for activism sake; a reactive army, without strategy or focus. And it sounds like a different person.

Really, dear old friend? Really? Is that your intention now?

That wasn’t your motivation when we started. You were driven by your childhood suffering (in a state that recently created a decoy prom for the gays and misfits). You were intent on changing the laws and government culture. You took on city police commissioners over entrapment. You forced hate crimes reporting and enforcement. You lobbied law after law for state equal rights and fought marriage referendum. You helped elect Mayors and Governors and Senators and Presidents. But for what?

Here we are with a President that is a direct product of the black Civil Rights struggle and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which made it the U.S. public policy not to discriminate based on race. And yet, here we are with no federal Civil Rights protection for our community. No hope in sight of ever having an openly gay or lesbian or transgendered President. And no end game in play. Is that what we’ve worked all this time for? No.

But you don’t want to be involved in “federal activism.” Well old friend, that’s not good enough.

We can’t count on your new ad hoc responder network. We can’t count on new edgy activists that go mainstream in minutes. We can’t wait decades to make insider contacts. And we can’t do this without the veteran experts.

We need our use-to-be activists to resurrect and those still in the game, like you, to reconnect to their youthful intentions. Because a narrow window of opportunity is now open and the time has come to protect our community with America’s civil rights laws. Now.  In Obama’s 1st term. We cannot count on a 2nd and should not have to wait anyway.

For this, there is a new proposed bill called The American Equality Bill, created by EqualityGiving and written by Karen Doering (former Senior Counsel for the National Center for Lesbian Rights), which seeks to just that. It puts SO+GI right along side “race, color, sex, national origin and religion” where we’ve belonged all along. It’s ready to go and sponsors are being sought for filing in November, with an impatient and ambitious view toward public hearings by May of next year, and passage by June of 2012.   But it’s all grassroots and it needs you.

Filing it alone will ignite a conversation long over due about homophobia and civil rights. In fact, filing the bill will represent a statement about our own dignity that, by itself, will start to free our youth from the 2nd class reality they continue to experience.

Because filing it says: “We are entitled to the same protections the President had as a child. We are equal.” It will show your ad hoc response team that there is a prize we deserve greater than anything they are aware of, and much more than we have asked for so far, or they know to seek. This is what the elders are supposed to be doing.

But to file and pass this legislation our community needs you working exactly where you are – in your state, not just building networks, but engaging them. This is not federal activism. It is state activism. The Congressional sponsors and Senate sponsors will come from the states. The votes will come from the states. And the activists needed to make this dream a reality will come from the states.

This is what we have prepared ourselves for our entire lives. This is the struggle for which we honed our politics and built our organizations. This is the civil rights struggle of the millennium and it needs you.

It is not time to stand down, old friend. It is time to stand up.