(Community Matters) Nice write up about activism, insiders and perspectives in LGBT equality
lessons learned:
- Rules are created by those in power to keep power, not to create change. BREAK ALL THE RULES, UNTIL WE ARE EQUAL.
- In politics things can be as simple or as complicated as they want those in power want them to be — it just depends on whether they want to do them or not.
- You need to pick a fight to win a fight — the religious right learned this long ago and the conservative right really adheres to this rule, even when the facts, science, reality and everything else is not on their side.
- Time is no guarantee for progress, the fight and the struggle is what moves us forward. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about this and warned against the false hope of being patient and just waiting until attitudes soften or change. Equality will never come to the community if we just sit around and wait for it.
- Chaos and crisis are very strong political motivators (next to money and votes.)
- Tomorrow never comes.
- We need to act like a civil rights movement and stop acting like a political movement. We have to relentlessly demand our rights everyday at every turn, regardless of what political cycle or election cycle or legislative window we find ourselves in.
- Secrecy is necessary to hide failure, change has never come in secret.
Community Matters 