My plan, explained in more depth on my blog (link in my name) is basically that we need to all get ourselves on facebook, twitter, youtube, buy video cameras and start documenting our lives. Thus when the big things come, discrimination, we won’t be novices fumbling for our cameraphones, we’ll be seasoned video professionals documenting how our lives are being affected.
We then share those videos with everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in our lives.
The next step is to, as Rosa Parks did, make a date with discrimination and wait for it to punctually arrive.

Maybe a large group of the DADT discharges could put on their uniforms, and peacefully head over to the pentagon one faithful morning and simply state “sir, we’re reporting for duty, sir”. Imagine that on video!
Or if Kristin Orbin or her partner had caught the nurses discriminating against them on video….that’d be a whole different story.

But most of all, I think we ALL, ALL need to start sharing more with our non-LGBT friends and neighbors. I’ve been posting things to facebook for the last month or so and I get a lot of straight, gay-friendly people with NO IDEA what is going on in the world. They all sprang into action over that facebook “Kill the gays” group last week. Don’t wait for friends and family to ask how you’ve been discriminated against today, just tell them. There was a focus group, Nadine Smith was part of it, that found a lot of straight allies didn’t think we were being discriminated against half as much as we say we are. The reason why? Their gay friends never talk about it! So we need to talk, and not just about our stories, but the stories we read online or see on TV.

Imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr. had access to all of the technology we have today? What could he have done with it?

Many of us have the talent and creativity it takes to produce media that can change people’s minds and hearts.

Trying to organize tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands LGBT and their allies is simply not feasible under our current economic conditions.

So, let’s do it on the cheap!

Come out to everyone you know and everyone you interact with on a daily basis. Wear rainbow colored bracelets or pins, everyday, not just during pride or while at pride.

Since you can’t tell a person is gay just by looking at them, per say, then we need to be literally “visible” and “out”.

When someone at works mentions their “husband” or “wife”, I always speak similar about my “husband”. I display pictures of my husband and I on my desk, etc.

Now I would agree that a MOW while congress is in session in 2010 would be worth while. Hopefully the economy would be on the up and unemployment numbers dropping. We would know what little Obama and congress has done for the LGBT and the message would be, Act Now Congress or lose the LGBT vote.

1) Direct all available resources at prevention of qualification of the anti gay marriage ballot measure in Maine;

2) Should the initiative qualify, capitalize on the in-place messaging and grass roots progress made during the anti-qualification effort to push for defeat of the measure in November.

An unfocused, or poorly organized MOW is an expensive distraction. A march might make sense when Congress is in session in the first half of 2010.

Focus on the issues and places where actual progress can be seen and measured instead of some large “feel good” display that will do little more than spend vast sums of money and effort that should instead be targeted carefully on achievable goals.

We are our own worst enemies when we cant get ourselves solidly behind clear objectives and make solid inroads at the grass-roots level. Waiting to act until the Maine anti-gay-marriage measure is on the ballot, or diluting scarce resources needed to defeat it with an incompletely thought out MOW is not a winning strategy.

Frequent questioning at the White House press conferences has kept DADT and other gay issues front and center.

Protests at Obama’s speech in Beverly Hills drew attention.

Rachel Maddow’s interviews with those who are being kicked out of the military keeps the issue front and center.

Instead of some big march on Washington, we need a strategy to get gay issues talked about on the evening news, the talk shows, at the White House and Congressional press conferences each and every day. Now that would be activism that would lead somewhere and be far more productive.

Also, politiicans would not be able to be out of town on the one day that we were trying to make ourselves heard.

Can someone explain to me the point and desired outcome from marches?

Usually a protest is to highlight some injustice that is going unnoticed, or to call attention to one that is not commonly thought of as unjust. This march seems to be tracing the same ground that previous marches have already handled. I fail to see the point, especially under the circumstances.

However, I don’t think it will accomplish anything now. 1993 was a different story: Colorado’s Amendment 2; pre-DADT; sodomy laws, and so on.

We’re making much better headway than in 1993 and national non-profits (based in San Francisco, New York and DC– I might add) and left-wing bloggers are itching for a showdown with the Obama administration because they don’t think he’s moving fast enough.

Baloney. Let the guy get some points for fixing the economy first.

Then start with ENDA, followed by DADT. Leave DOMA for last, a few years down the road.

Crap, we just had several states legalize marriage equality in the last few months.

This country isn’t San Francisco. Push him too fast and he’ll be a one term president.

Save the money and direct it at your state for local gay rights laws and marriage equality, or civil unions, or domestic partner benefits.

Aim for what’s realistic.

Furthermore, I didn’t realize that the call was to hold a march this year. That to me sounds particularly insane in this economic climate. Flights would not be cheap. Hotel accommodations would not be cheap. Corporate deals would likely not materialize because (a) there wasn’t enough time to set them up and (b) corporations are less willing to give sponsorship money in any case because they are hard up.

A march on Washington this year is the wrong idea at the wrong time.