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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 2000)
January F orging A head Critics and strife abound, but the momentum is unstoppable: A national gay rights march is just months aw ay A fter two years of planning— and the departure of some high pro file leaders— details of the Mil lennium March on Washington, planned for April 30, are finally becoming clear. Three big-name celebrities will headline the entertainment, and the march now has an office and an articulated vision. The event, originally planned as only a rally, now also includes a march through the streets of the nation’s capital. “I think this is a crucial march at a crucial time,” says Dianne Hardy-Garcia, a Texas activist who was recently appointed co-execu tive director of the event. “The march is a tool for energizing our community, bringing them out and getting them politicized.” Actors Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche and singer Melissa Etheridge will he among the performers who will entertain gay men and les bians from across the country who gather on the National Mall. “Ellen and her partner, Anne, have served as inspiring role models tor a rising generation of lesbian and gay youth and have furthered under standing and acceptance in the larger society,” says Ann DeGroot, one of the march’s four national co-chairs. Former Portlander Donna Red Wing, anoth er march chair, adds that Etheridge will he mak ing her second appearance at a national gay and lesbian march. “Melissa’s music has been a powerful vehicle for social change and understanding," Red Wing says. The three performers, as well as Third Rock from the Sun co-star Kristen Johnson and other performers not yet confirmed, will also appear at Equality Rocks, a concert presented by the Human Rights Campaign the day before the march. (Tickets for the concert, to be held at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, are now available from Ticketmaster.) And the Millennium March will actually include a march, Hardy-Garcia confirms. Only a rally had been planned, but some groups wanted a march. Organizers had said recently they would attempt to get permission from the city to march. “I can say confidently that there will be a march,” Hardy-Garcia says. “T he permit is Millennium March co-chair Donna Red Wing Millennium March co-executive director Dianne Hardy-Garcia secure. That was a big concern. It’s kind of com plicated to get a march permit in Washington, D.C.” In addition to performances by entertainers, plans include stage presentations that address an array of march platfonn issues. Several hundred thousand ballots have been distributed to gay men, lesbians and allies in venues across the nation and online to deter mine the platform. Organizers had announced that during a December board meeting they would approve a platfonn based on the more than 40,000 responses received so far, but the group instead to donate proceeds ro organizations around the country. Ninety percent of proceeds from the march will he divided equally among statewide gay and lesbian organizations, national organizations for gay men and lesbians of color (people of color make up more than half the march’s board) and another yet-to-be-determined category. A U nited F ront . A IA i n h É É n iB h gt$gS 11 i G et R e .U h :> C by Gip P laster decided to adopt a “working vision” and is encouraging members of the community to con tinue sending in ballots by mail, e-mail, fax and through an Internet site at www.mmow.org. The eight priority issues that make up the working vision are: hate crimes legislation and protections; ending gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender discrimination in the workplace; racial justice; family values— including marriage and partner rights, adoption and child custody issues; health care concerns; legal protection for the community’s youth; overturning anti-gay initiatives and laws at the federal and state level; and privacy rights. March organizers plan to share the event’s registration list with state and local groups and riticisms abounded during a Millennium March on Wash ington board meeting held in early December in Washing ton, D.C. The board continued to refuse to release a financial state ment, something that Donna Red Wing, treasurer and one of four board co-chairs, had promised to do last April. “Because more events are being added, the board has to change the budget to reflect that new income and the alloca tion of that income to the community,” Red Wing said. Formulation of a platfonn, meanwhile, was deferred until the next board meeting, slated for February. Although the general tenor of the meeting was upbeat, there was a sense that the group was flying by the seat of its pants, with few documents to share and a tendency to defer issues until a later date. The board continued to be hounded by an ad hoc commit tee of activists opposed to the board’s decision making process. A dozen committee members dominated the public comment period during the board’s meeting. Mandy Carter— a longtime community organiser from North Carolina who has worked at the national level for sever- including the Human Rights ~ 7 . 2000 ' 17 Hardy-Garcia says she hopes the march will also help bring out the largest gay and lesbian vote in history for the presidential election. “W hat this march is going to do is unprece dented,” she says. “T here’s nothing like a national march to inspire people.” She has said she would like to have been appointed co-executive director at least a year ago, but now says she plans to “work her ass off" to make sure the event runs smoothly. She is in charge of community organizing, outreach and communication, and will also run a new Wash ington, D.C., office. “I make sure it benefits the people it needs to benefit,” she says. Malcolm Lazin of Philadelphia, the director of the annual gay festival and symposium Pride- Fest America, is in charge of day-to-day man agement, fund raising and financial reporting. “For us, this is going to be our Woodstock,” Lazin told The Washington Blade. Hardy-Garcia points out that gay men and lesbians are not allowed to marry and are denied many other ceremonies and rights of passage. “We have to create our own moments,” she says. “Marches are life-transforming for people. We have a whole generation who has never marched.” Hardy-Garcia says she is aware that feelings have been hurt by the management changes the march has undergone thus far. As recently as last month, former executive director Robin Tyler, the march’s founder, resigned because of “con ceptual and creative differences” with the board. From the beginning, the Human Rights Campaign and the Universal Fellowship of M et ropolitan Community Churches— the groups that first announced the idea for the event— have been criticized for attempting to design such a gathering without community input. Detractors have also questioned the march’s goals and timing. However, to all that Hardy-Garcia says: “In the end, what people will remember is what it feels like to be on that mall with thousands and thousands of people like them.” ■ GlP PLASTER is an independent journalist based in Fort Worth, Texas, who writes for dozens o f gay and lesbian publications around the country. Find his Ultimate Listing o f G ay & Lesbian Pub- lications and more online at w w w .gayscnbe.com . march. You don’t call a march in a closed room and then say 18 months later, lets vote on what our priorities might he.” Judy Garin, executive director of the Martina Navratilova, Ellen National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, DeGeneres, Ann Heche and offered her own concern: “There is tremen Melissa Etheridge— all white dous violence and discrimination against women, several of whom the leather-fetish community.” have been spokeswomen for She said a speaker at the podium of the HRC. 1993 march played an important role in “W here is the diversi obtaining more widespread acceptance of ty r she asked. “And why that community. are we looking at celebrities Millennium March naysayer Bill Dobbs The coalition, she added, has sought a before we even know what similar commitment for a speaker in the the platform is going to MMOW program but “did not get warm, fuzzy feelings of be?“ inclusion” from their contacts with MMOW. She added that HRC’s 1998 endorsement of New York This past fall, the coalition voted to withdraw its endorse Sen. Al D*Amato for re-election was “pivotal" in terms of the ment of the march. guiding principles behind the march. “Gee, this is a painful thing,” chimed New' York activist W hat message is being sent to queer, poor communities of Bill Dobbs. “I’m here to urge you to do the right thing and call color, she asked. this off. The way you at the table are using power is wrong.” Carter also criticized the list of issues circulated for the He criticized the hoard for not opening its process or its platform. books. “Other than immigration, there was nothing l could relate to,” she said. “Are we about justice, or are we about just usT “There is no buzz up arid down the East Coast. Our collec tive house is not in order,” he said. Activist Nancy Wolforth added: “W hen we built other marches on Washington, we had a purpose, we had an agen Reported by BOB R ochr , a free-lance writer based m Washing da. We were here to stop the war, or express our outrage. to ton, D .C . , Carter rattled off the ■ t