It's Tuesday and another day closer to our Big Bingo Night with hottie Bryan Slater to benefit Out of Bounds/Team New York.
And even more exciting there seems to be some excitement growing 'out there' as we approach the 100K mark! And of course why shouldn't it be a cause for celebration?? A lot of people have worked hard over the years to get to this point so I couldn't be happier!
But that's tomorrow. But today, there's something I've been meaning to write about and that's the Equality March this weekend in DC.
I'm sure it will be a huge success and people will pour in from all over to walk down the street and to hear all sorts of speakers talk about equality. There's also the news that Obama will speak at a big fundraising dinner the night before. Naturally the common hope is that he announces the repeal of DOMA or DADT but I dunno, after his clear stated opposition to gay marriage during the campaign, how can we expect anything other than .. well, opposition? Some in the community are surprised by this, but I'm not. And I voted for him anyway because there are bigger things to take care of at the moment, like health care, the economy, those little wars over yonder. And the only other choice we were presented with (McCain/Palin) was, to me, odious and frightening.Now, I was kinda excited by the March when I first heard aboutit during the summer ... but I have to admit that over the past few weeks, especially as I've heard the organizers cook up a song competition straight out of American Idol to decide what the theme song for the weekend should be. That's a cute gimmick and gets people texting like mad (is the community in bed with Verizon now?) but I don't know how much weight it really carries when you're talking about a National Equality March. I mean, do I like song A or song B? Who gives a fuck? If we're not taking a political march seriously, why should anyone else?
And that's partially what's at the crux here for me. I'm all for fun, I produce and host a weekly fundraising event that, in an underlying way, tackles some supremely difficult subjects: AIDS, homelessless, teenage runaways, discrimination, etc.... but I opposed the 2000 March because it became a circus of 40 platforms (most of which had little to nothing to do with GLBT rights) and a bevy of circuit party dances that overshadowed the importance of the weekend.
And yet, if we can't dance, is this a revolution that we want to be a part of?
So I've struggled whether to support it or not.
I think one of the tipping points for me was that for all the talk of inclusion, the sex worker industry isn't represented on the speaker list or in any of the official endorsements. It simply reinforces an uncaring attitude that the public already has (and for all my carping about the industry over the years both publicly and privately, the one thing that I can say about the gay porn industry at least is that these are a bunch of people who will drop everything to do fundraising for important causes. I guess that's not sexy or anything which is why it tends to be under-reported even by our own entertainment writers, but it is, in fact, a fact).
And it isn't that they don't think we care, it's that the organizers are nervous about calling attention to the dirty little secret that gay porn and escorts and go go dancers exist. Don't you know, you have to keep us out of the spotlight because we might hurt the chances of equality... and this has been a chronic problem for the GLBT community - we want to be sexual, we want to express our sexuality but we don't want our sexuality to be broadcast. WTF?
So, over time I realized that the Equality March is just another corporate machine ... like Prides have become -- political action without any real bite, but enough bite for a soundbite or two (if they're lucky).
I predict what will happen: the organizers will say that twice as many people attended, the National Parks Service will report that half as many people attended and lots of people will return home with buttons and stickers and probably a few phone numbers... but I don't expect our rights to be handed to us on a silver platter on Monday morning, just because we schlepped ourselves to DC. And I think that's what is being promised: that this will change everything. I don't think it will.
Let me take it from a different perspective - when I heard others that oppose the spending on the March I just thought they were killjoys. These people in our community were asking the tough questions -- like, are celebrities paying their own way, staying on a friend's couch and getting nothing for standing at a podium and addressing the March? (dream on, Mary!) Is the audio and stage equipment being donated? (hah!!) How much are the permit fees? How many thousands are being spent anyway? I thought they were making trouble just to be cranky.
But over time, the more I heard about the March and the more the above things crept into my head, the more discouraged and conflicted I got.
I now think it would have been better for us to have individually donated the money that it will cost us to get there and would have spent there (probably easily a thousand dollars per person) to struggling local GLBT non profits. For every thirty people, that's a staff position for one year at most non profits (outside of New York City.. but here it's not much more frankly).
A party is good. Saving lives is better. Naturally you can argue that by coming out in force in DC, we ARE saving lives, but I think it's a more mystic intangible but only possible outcome than supporting struggling non profits in a difficult economy; non profits that are vanishing day by day. Granted, in a capitalist society such as ours, if a non profit doesn't succeed, I guess it ought to vanish... but try telling that to the people who depend on it's services to stay alive.
In any event, the party train is set, DC will be a blast I'm sure. I wish it well, and will spend my time elsewhere with my boyfriend -- which is pretty much about the best thing I can think of to spread equality: and that is, simply being equal.

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