APRIL 17, 1998

COMMUNITY FORUM

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11

State effort needed

To the Editors;

Recently the community at large has begun a debate about the merits of organizing a national "Millennium March" or demonstration in Washington, D.C. [in spring 2000]. I hope this debate moves further and further

and support generated at the service.

So, the marches create opportunities, but they also create false expectations. The planners need to have a clear sense of the consequences of this proposed event.

Wade Mayberry Shaker Heights, Ohio

towards more localized efforts in state capitals Woefully out of touch

and away from a D.C.-based event.

In the past we have had great success in gaining recognition for our movement by marching on Washington. Now our movement is maturing and we need to take it to the next level. That level is the creation of large, strong, vocal and active local and state organizations. Our inroads on a national level have been impressive and should continue, but states are being given more and more power.

If we are to make a difference and effect real change, we will need to be as strong in every state capital as we are in Washington. Just look at the clout of the many organizations of the radical right in state governments across the country. They gained that clout through local, grassroots involvement and they use that local involvement to influence the national debate. We could learn something from this as a community.

The Human Rights Campaign has said they would like to have one million members by the year 2000. HRC is just the organization, in cooperation with the other national organizations, to take the lead in building a strong stateby-state political base and lobbying effort. By doing so, they can expand their membership well beyond one million and provide a great service to the cause.

Let's drop the plans for a "Washington Millennium March" and put the time, energy, money and other resources towards more statebased efforts. When that happens, I'll be the first to volunteer.

John Farina Lakewood, Ohio

False expectations

To the Editors:

I do not want to diminish the efforts or the symbolic importance of the last marches in Washington. However, I think we must understand what the marches try to accomplishand more importantly what they do not accomplish.

A few months after the last march, I had a conversation with Rep. Barney Frank, who expressed his concern about the outcome of the march. His reasoning:

Rallies are so common in D.C., the march made little impression on legislators; many were not even in the city.

Most people did not stay for the lobbying effort on Monday, which Frank thought far more useful than the rally itself.

Of greatest concern to Frank, with the expenditure of time, money and energy, many left D.C. thinking that the march was their political action for the year, neglecting the important work at home.

As to the organization, I never did march. After standing in the sun for hours beyond the designated start time, my partner and I had to abandon the event.

All that said, I know that important connections were made at the last march. My own college now has an unofficial gay alumni association because alumni met on the Mall.

The highlight of my weekend was the Sunday morning service at All Souls Unitarian Church. In an exemplary act of support, the board of the Unitarian Universalist Associa tion ended their annual meeting early to fly from Boston to D.C. to participate in the march. I wished everyone at the march felt the energy

To the Editors:

I've spent a great deal of time pondering the recent turn of events that now has us grappling with what to do about the proposed Millennium March.

Because I was a national co-chair of the 1993 March, people have frequently asked for my opinion on this situation. I've taken time before responding publicly because I understand how casually critical some people can be and I have worked hard not to be one of those who would rather attack our own than focus on our enemies.

But now I've come to realize that there is much more at stake here than hammering out the logistics of a march. In fact, what is at stake here is the very heart of our movement.

Currently, a huge segment of grassroots community leaders and many national groups believes that this march is ill-timed, strategically weak and coordinated by people out of touch with the important work happening outside of Washington D.C.

Even U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, the most politically prominent openly gay elected official in the country called the proposed march "a diversion of resources" and "not a good idea." And yet, rather than set up a structure for meaningful dialogue to balance pros and cons and evaluate the strategy of such a march, edicts are delivered via press release.

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest group involved in advocating for the march, has publicly apologized for the ham-fisted manner in which it has approached the issue, and that is good. However, it is not enough to say "sorry" and continue to move forward on the same misguided course.

In the past, a critical mass of support has been established before committing the enormous resources that marches require. Now, it appears, instead of doing the work of building broad-based support for such an effort, the movement is being hijacked and strategy and coalition-building have been thrown out the window.

We must decide whether this is a movement for social and political change that will continue to build and grow and grapple with the tough issues. Or, will we be a product to be packaged and shaped according to the dictates of the latest focus group. We can't replace courage with marketing.

There is without a doubt tremendous power in marching on Washington. My first March in 1987 was a significant turning point in my life. But this debate is not about the value of marches. It is about whether we best serve this movement by going to Washington in 2000, a major election year, and how we decide when and if the time is right.

Three times in the past two decades we've come to Washington D.C. and the community was told go home and build. Well, we've built and built and built and back home is where it is all happening.

For over a decade the idea of a march on the 50 state capitals has been gaining steam and for the first time there exist enough organizations to make this a powerful event. To truly have a strong national presence that isn't merely a paper tiger, building local and state networks that can gain ground at home and feed the national effort is vital.

Talk to young people who are coming out. While they are thrilled to see Ellen and Martina

and Greg and other celebrities, what they really want to see are people in their own communities who have lives similar to the ones they imagine for themselves. A gay janitor or principal. An openly gay business person or reporter in town. They especially want to see couples whose relationships are lasting and loving right in their own back yard so they know that is possible without being a rock star, television actor or moving to some gay mecca.

People have called marches on D.C. glamorous and media-sexy events. That is perhaps our biggest problem. Too many people are wondering how they can become the Martin Luther King, Jr. for our movement, when we are in desperate need of a million Rosa Parks. We're mistaking style for real substance. We used to be a movement willing to demand full equality but savvy enough to occasionally settle for half a loaf. Now half is all we ask for and we seem grateful enough that we were granted an audience.

We've traded true activism for occasional access at the national level. I was part of the first gay delegation to meet in the Oval Office with President Clinton. Sure, it was a historic moment but I still came home to a state where I can be fired, denied housing and barred from adopting because of my sexual orientation; where sodomy laws remain on the books and gay kids are still threatened, beat up and harassed in schools.

At the brink of the next millennium, people aren't waiting to come to D.C. to come out. In fact, the people who are coming out in record numbers need local structures to provide real assistance not just symbolic gestures far away. IfENDA, the gay and lesbian Employment Non-Discrimination Act, is to pass nationwide it will come because the constituents back home sway legislators. We must have strong local groups, that form strong statewide groups, that support a strong national effort. Now is a great time to establish that priority.

As I think back on the 1993 March, I am proud of the diversity displayed throughout the organizing and the March itself. But I agree with those who criticize the presence of Lea Delaria and a few other performers, who lost sight of the March as a political act. It is however, astounding that having launched that criticism, HRC would then turn to the person responsible for putting that part of the March stage together to produce the next

one.

Criticisms of Robin Tyler as the producer of this proposed march cannot be dismissed as "dredging up old stuff." HRC and the other sponsors must address directly Tyler's reputation for racism, exclusion, and questionable business dealings. I have heard Tyler describe efforts at inclusion as the "tyranny of the grassroots.” I've witnessed her sabotage group decisions that she disagrees with. While publicly purporting to be supportive of the transgender and bisexual communities, I've watched her work behind the scenes to try and ensure their exclusion. With her installed at the helm, promises of a broad-based, inclusive decision-making process ring hollow.

Over the years, HRC has developed a reputation for pulling money out of local communities without giving back, for swooping into town, treating the local organizers like rubes and setting up parallel organizing structures without respect to the wishes, knowledge or insights of the people who must live with the fallout. Now HRC has an opportunity to demonstrate a new attitude that

supports those who work outside the D.C.beltway. I state all of this as someone who has supported HRC since long before they dropped the "F" from their name. e. I have attended fundraisers and urged people to open their checkbooks. I received the HRC's national award for activism and just recently traveled with a member of their field staff to help organize in South Florida.

I will support every effort to empower and strengthen local and statewide organizations because I believe it is the recipe for national success. I believe that good people work at HRC who are passionate about achieving the same things I care so deeply about.

While the organization provides an important and powerful voice in the national media, I think too many of its leaders are woefully out of touch with the pulse of this movement and the shifting political ground. I fear we are headed for a massive, strategically foolish, financially draining march, simply because a handful of people like the alliteration in the phrase "Millennium March" and their eyes flash dollar signs whenever they say it.

I have yet to hear a cogent, persuasive argument for a national march in 2000. I'm open to it. If I'm convinced, no one would work harder to bring folks to it.

But right now I believe our priority is back home. We need massive voter identification efforts so we can start winning elections for ourselves and our supporters. We need to lobby our elected officials in their home districts. We need to build our memberships and fundraise for the referendums we continue to face on the local and state level.

Those of us who believe that our movement should not be strong-armed have a responsibility to speak up instead of accepting this as a "done deal."

For HRC's own good, for our community's benefit, we need to make clear that this march will not go on as it is now conceived. HRC is the wealthiest and largest gay organization in the country. I hope that it is big enough to admit its mistake and begin to heal this divide. This is not the way for us to greet the next millennium.

Nadine Smith, National Co-chair 1993 March on Washington Executive Director

Human Rights Task Force of Florida Tampa, Fla.

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