National Equality March and Harvey Milk Day

Towleroad has some great footage up of this weekend's National Equality March, as well as an interview with out Broadway star Gavin Creel, who attended the event along with the cast of Hair. I haven't seen any interviews with her, but I know from what she posted on Twitter that Kristin Chenoweth was also among the thousands who were at the March. All the more reason to love her!

It looks like it was an incredible moment in the LGBT civil rights struggle and I really regret that I couldn't be there myself!

You can watch Cleve Jones, the gay activist who fought alongside Harvey Milk in the 1970's and has kept up the fight ever since, and who called for this March to begin with, address the crowd here.

In a nicely timed moment, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill creating May 22nd as Harvey Milk Day in California, something that he'd previously vetoed. That, of course, was before they made a movie about Milk that won some Oscars.

A Conveniently Timed Appointment

David Huebner, an openly gay lawyer and founding board member of GLAAD, is to be named the United States Ambassador to New Zealand.

Call me cynical, but I don't believe it's a coincidence that word of President Obama's first appointment of an openly gay Ambassador (and the third such appointment in U.S. history) comes just days ahead of the National Equality March on Washington.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that the President decided to appoint someone from the LGBT community, but the timing of the appointment seems suspicious at best.

The fact is that this is coming from a President who promised so much on LGBT issues during his campaign and so far hasn't followed through on a single thing. His administration can barely even bring itself to pretend that they're still going try to repeal DOMA or end Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Then, just days before a huge march that is going to be highlighting every promise he's failed to live up to, the President seems to scramble to toss us a bone of sorts, as if appointing a gay Ambassador will make people think that sooner or later he's going to live up to what he said during the campaign.

I really wish I could be in Washington for the March. As soon as I heard that Cleve Jones had called for it, I wanted to take part, but it's just not financially feasible for me at the moment. I will be there in spirit, though, and I hope the number of people who attend (each representing countless more who cannot) and the passion and commitment they're bringing to the issues will force the President and Congress to stop with the empty promises and start delivering results.

A March on Washington

I've been meaning to post this for a few days but I haven't managed to do so before now. Human Rights Activist Cleve Jones has called for a march on Washington for National Coming Out Day (October 11th) this year, saying "We seek nothing more and nothing less than equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states."

After reading about Cleve in both The Mayor of Castro Street and And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts, seeing the portrayal of him by Emile Hirsch in the film Milk, and exploring his own website, I almost feel like he's an old friend. He's certainly done so much for the gay community, first at Harvey Milk's side and then on his own, including starting the NAMES Project Aids Memorial Quilt.

He continues to be an inspiring leader and last weekend at the Utah Pride Festival he called for a national march and had this to say about Mormon Church's involvement in passing Prop 8 in California:

"I've got a message for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," Jones shouted. "I've got two words from California ... I've got two words for the prophet ... Thank you. Thank you for uniting us. Thank you for galvanizing us."

I'm not sure if I'll be able to attend the march or not, but I'm certainly going to try! It would be amazing to be a part of something like that on such a national scale.