The Groundswell

On Tuesday, November 4th, the United States took a bold step forward when it elected Barack Obama to be our next President. But the day was bittersweet for gay and lesbian Americans and their allies, because ballot initiatives limiting the civil rights of LGBT Americans passed in four states. Three, in California, Arizona and Florida, targeted same-sex marriage, and the especially pernicious Arkansas initiative placed new barriers to adoption, not only for same-sex couples, but for all unmarried couples.

Since that set of apparently contradictory electoral outcomes came to pass, there has been a groundswell of response. Some of it has been useless and divisive, such as finger-pointing at various classes and communities of people who predominately opposed marriage equality at the polls, but much of it has been inspiring.

Tomorrow, Saturday, November 15th, at 1:30 pm EST, there will be simultaneous rallies in support of equal marriage rights in cities and towns all across America and overseas. An amazing new grassroots organization, Join the Impact, headed up by Seattle “search-engine-optimizer by day, activist by night” Amy Balliett, has gone from an email dialogue between two friends to an international movement for change in approximately one week.

In a profile published November 12th at 365.Gay, Amy describes the organic and explosive power of people spontaneously organizing their communities.

“For me it’s second nature,” says Balliett of social networking. “It’s my job. I think: Need to organize an event? Use the Internet. Throw a party? Use Evite. Technology offers a platform on which to hold the conversation. It’s also given a platform for us to rally together and organize.”

The story has also been picked up by Reuters, and MSNBC featured it in their technology section. I spoke with Brandon Williamson, who joined forces with Amy as publicist, and he confirmed for me that several major networks, local and national newspapers have signed on to cover the events. Press releases are blanketing local media everywhere a rally is planned, and CNN will have camera crews at three of the rallies.

I have joined forces with this nascent organization and will be contributing as much of my time and creativity as possible to see it grow. I am helping to coordinate the Sacramento, CA event along with a local group called Equality. Action. Now. We are staging our local event in front of City Hall in Cesar Chavez Park. I think Chavez would be pleased.

The Facebook event for Sacramento alone has 1,500 Confirmed Guests and over 1,100 in the Maybe Attending categories. I just hope the sound system I am renting will be powerful enough to reach all attendees.

The people with whom I have spoken so far seem to have a clear vision of what they hope to accomplish, and want the focus to remain forward-looking and inclusive, rather than dwelling on the past defeats. I encourage all Fieldhands for whom this issue resonates to consider becoming involved. And I will keep the Field community apprised of new developments in the ongoing struggle for marriage equality.