Gay Rights March 2009

Whatever happened to activism? The 1960’s is known as one of the most revolutionary decade for human rights. During this time Martin Luther King Junior fought for rights for African Americans. Marches were held and speeches were made. It is because of this brilliant man and all of the work he and many others did that African American’s have the rights they do. It was also the time that feminism became a big deal. You can’t think of the 60’s without thinking of women burning bras. College students were the main fire behind activism, housing sit-ins, teach-ins, demonstrations and marches. They protested the war, unfair human rights, and was influential to the way we are today.
A few days ago there was a National Equality March on Washington. Around 250,000 people arrived at the march. This is the same amount of people that were present at Martin Luther King’s famous I have a dream speech. One would think there would be a lot of news coverage for this but surprisingly there was not. In fact, Barney Frank, the first openly gay member of Congress says it was a waste of time and they should be putting effort instead into Lobbyists. For those of you who don’t know who Lobbyists are they are people who try to influence politicians in any way possible, mainly by raising money.
What kind of world do we live in where money speaks louder than knowledge? The whole point of activism is to educate others and tell them, “Hey, guess what? We are human.” It is to show people that we are worth their time and effort. Most people don’t take gay activism seriously because they say that there aren’t enough gay people to be concerned. Obviously there are if we can stage a march of this magnitude! Yet no one was really covering it. We are being shut down and I don’t understand that. People say that we have more pressing matters to attend to with the economy and the war. I would be happier though if I saw some progress being made. I don’t see Obama doing anything! What is it that he is working on that is so important? I know he’s not going to legalize gay marriage, he believes that should be left up to the state, but DOMA should be revoked.
Activism isn’t just a cry to the President. Activism is about making your mark on the world and saying that nobody can ignore you. What I would want this march to mean is for us to be taken seriously by other people, to open up room for debate so that people can learn more about us and we can abolish the myths of the gay community. It should make politicians think about us, and think about the changes they could make for us. They shouldn’t need to be paid to do this, they should always be thinking of ways to make our country better for the citizens. We are citizens, we pay taxes, we live and we die here, we vote for our leaders and we should be given the same rights and the same respect as every other American.

-Willow