(Into the Light Walk) My response to Huffington Post article about full TBLGQ equality bill!

by Alan Bounville

Below is my extended response to the article titled “The LGBT Grassroots vs. HRC: Fighting for a One-Bill Equality Strategy (And Our Lives)” posted on February 12, 2012 by Todd Fernandez on The Huffington Post. (Huffington limits responses to a certain character count, which was well under the characters I used in my response.)

Every action each of us takes is another step towards the day when we will be equal under all the laws and seen as such by everyone. Though full equality is never actually achieved by any act of legislatio n, dreaming big, which a single bill allows us to do, both simplifies and humanizes TBLGQ and allied people in this struggle. Pragmatism will not galvanize. Simplicity will. So I say, lets simplify the message around one bill, one call for full equality and see those who want to compartmen talize our struggle to acronyms like DADT, DOMA, ENDA have to defend the belief that we are only worth one piece of equality at a time.


A challenge for everyone who reads this – call one of your local, state or federal elected official’s office and ask – Does elected official so-and-so support full civil rights and full social equality for people based on their gender expression, gender identity or sexual orientation? Yes or no. – and watch them squirm. Don’t let them off the hook either. When they try to switch the topic or talk about one piece of legislatio n that may be on the table right now, insist on an answer to your incredibly simple question. All but a few of our elected officials have ever been asked this simple question. They are used to us being led by a piece-meal agenda fed to us by organizations like HRC or the Task Force. And they are used to themselves driving the agenda for our equality.

But before calling anyone, ask yourself – Do I deserve full equality? Do I deserve to wake up tomorrow and be treated as an equal in every way by everyone and by every law? – I’ve posed this question to thousands of us – queer and allied folks. And I’ve learned that there are many of us who haven’t yet asked ourselves that seemingly simple question.

So each of us can do some soul searching. Then we can from an empowered place start asking others about their feelings on our full personhood. And from there the impossible can and will become possible in ways we can’t see today. That’s transformation. And that’s what will build our movement towards its crescendo.