Organizers at Equality Matters are planning a “Virtual March for LGBT Equality” from January 17 to 24, 2009. Here’s the back story:
On November 4, the nation broke an equality barrier and elected Barack Obama our first African-American President. At the same time, voters in several states cast their ballots against equality for millions of LGBT Americans. It was a painful paradox.
When we began to analyze what had gone wrong, it was clear that LGBT community wasn’t doing a very good job of reaching out to our straight allies to explain the facts. Just telling people that discrimation was fair wasn’t cutting it.
That’s when we realized that we needed a venue to help educate America. Rather than organize another protest, we thought it would be interesting to gather virtually and have an online protest. It seemed we could reach farther and deeper if we leveraged the power of Facebook and other social media sites. The idea was simple: reach out to our friends and begin to educate them about what the word”marriage”really means. While so many view”marriage”as a religious term, they often fail to recognize the powerful economic and legal rights that it infers. But that message has been sorely missing from the debate. Equality Matters is an effort to change that.
Here’s how to participate via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter:
1. Go to the Equality Now page on Facebook (here).
2. Post the event to your profile by clicking the “share” button on the Facebook page
3. Change your profile picture to one of the Equality Matters pix.
4. Update your status with equality message. Samples on the site.
5. Post the Equality Matters link to your page.
6. Invite your Facebook friends.
I’m 20th-century enough to say, “I remember when we marched on Washington . . . .” but 21st-century enough to join in.
-Bridget Crawford
