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This past weekend was historic. An unprecedented amount of media attention was given to the lack of civil equality for LGBT people because of the President’s speech at the HRC National Dinner and because of the National Equality March.
The big question following the weekend is whether the momentum will continue. Many critics of the march hold out little hope that they will be able to capitalize on the larger than expected turnout and turn it into concrete action to promote equality and pass legislation. That’s why I’m happy to announce a new effort that will help build on the momentum of this past weekend: Act on Principles.
Act On Principles is inspired by The Dallas Principles, which you may already be familiar with and is a call for full civil equality with ‘no delay and no excuses’. Act On Principles now gives us tools that put those principles into action. You can find it at: www.ActOnPrinciples.org
There is a video on the front page (and embedded below) that does a great job explaining the site. Here are the basics of what AOP has to offer:
- Blog for Strategy
- Action Hub (searchable by State)
- Public Whip Count on LGBT legislation in Congress (this will change how Washington works!)
- Widgets for websites with up to date Whip Counts (it would be awesome on your site!)
- iPhone compatability (work for equality on the go!)
- Built in social networking and news aggregator functionality (share what you are doing to multiply its effect)
- A daily digest email summarizing activity over the previous day
The AOP site is a resource for our movement and it will only be successful in furthering the Dallas Principles with large scale participation. Please go there, register, sign up for the daily digest email, and use the tools as much as you can. We are often told to do something to help achieve equality, but rarely given a specific thing to do. AOP provides the missing guidance and allows you to do something about it while sitting at your computer. You can do something every day or once a week. You determine your level of commitment.
Please share this with your networks. Facebook it, Tweet it, Forward it. Thanks for reading and thanks for helping to build on the momentum we are seeing in our journey to being full and equal in the eyes of our government.
PS – You can follow AOP on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ActOnPrinciples
8 Comments
Very exciting, great to see there’s going to be followup to all the energy and commentary this weekend. Hope everyone takes an opportunity to join up and check out the new site!
Very cool site, very useful indeed. Yes, I’m looking for the momentum as well. Here’s hoping we’ll get it.
What’s next? NOTHING. And here’s why.
Anything short of inclusion as a suspect class with conditions in the Civil Rights Act will be leaving people behind.
Even ENDA would leave behind folks who are discriminated against on housing, for instance.
I’d bet that the Dallas Principles people would accept a bill short of suspect class, just so long as it included transgender folks, so the notion of inclusion and leaving people behind is totally fungible. The problem is that the trans community has not taken up its own cause to speak of since 2007′s defeat of ENDA, at least as concerns asking for help from lesbians and gays to move the ball forward.
Not asking for our help and then asking us to hold off on our campaign for civil rights until they consolidate support is not an approach that has much credence amongst LGB folks.
I”m all for universal LGBT civil rights, but if that is not the case, then the solution is not one of “nobody gets any rights until everyone gets all rights,” especially when there is no real organizing going on in the real world to create the political space for more ambitious projects.
The Dallas Principles are a liberal guilt, shame-based approach that posits LGBT as victims in need of rescuing by the Veal Pen rather than as confident people Walking In Power. Solidarity is supposed to be people standing together to help each other win, not people standing together to help each other lose.
But this novel, flawed approach to civil rights advancement would have meant that there would have been no 13,14,15 amendments until women could be included, no 20th amendment until LGBT had civil rights, etc., and no ENDA until the ERA had passed.
The turn out for Cleve’s march was pathetic:
1993: 1,000,000
2000: 250,000
2009: 50,000
The coverage was about Obama promising to keep the promises he’s not yet kept, not to the substance of civil rights.
Here’s Michael Petrelis analysis of scant news coverage.
I’m not into water sports. Please do not piss on my leg and tell me its raining.
I thought it was just hetero women who thought that 5″ was big.
Actually, I disagree. It looks like there is some momentum since the administration, for the first time, is actively working with congress on the repeal of DADT.
You might consider writing a diary posting (and clarifying) your views. They are worth more than a comment on someone else’s thread. And they might be mor easily understood if you took time to write them up, actually.
Michael Petrelis relates Bill Dobbs analysis of front page media coverage for the 1993 and 2009 LGBT marches on Washington.