Students Show Support for GLBT Rights

By Kyle Lawson

On Sunday October 11, members of Allies, Gettysburg’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Straight Alliance went down to Washington D.C. for the National Equality March. The sixteen students who went down as a group and the other students and professors who went on their own were just a small part of a crowd of 200,000 individuals of all sexual orientations from across the country who came to the nation’s capitol to show support for the GLBT rights movement.

The Gettysburg students went down carrying signs expressing sentiments from the standard “gay rights are human rights” to the religious “Catholic for equality” and “Pagans for equality,” to a sign that challenged intercommunity bias “Challenge InvisiBIlity” adding them to thousands of others. During the march Gettysburg students led multiple chants, and showed an enthusiasm that was not matched by other larger college groups.

After the march, which passed by the White House, there was a rally held in front of the Capitol building. Over thirty speakers offered messages of never giving up, telling the crowd that this was only the beginning and that the energy put into the March must then be taken back with them, and used to organize. Speakers included Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard, who was brutally murdered because of his sexual orientation. Another speaker was Staceyann Chin, a Jamaican poet and performance artist who was sexually assaulted in Jamaica because she was a lesbian. Her speech, one of the most passionate of the day was of how she left Jamaica hoping to find acceptance, and how that dream has yet to be fully realized. Lt. Dan Choi an Arab linguist and founding member of the West Point GLBT support group Knights Out, was discharged under “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” He spoke of how despite the way the government treats gays and lesbians those soldiers who served and still serve do so out of a love for their country.

The National Equality March was the result of a grass roots campaign begun after the anger and frustration over the passing of Proposition 8 in California, which overturned same sex marriage in California, and the subsequent upholding of Prop 8 by California’s Supreme Court. This anger, coupled with what many in the GLBT community saw as an unenergetic response by President Barack Obama to address their concerns was the driving force for the march. Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner—the HRC is the self proclaimed largest GLBT rights organization in the U.S.—did nothing to satisfy the energy felt by the crowd. His speech was considered by the GLBT community to be nothing but empty words, and until he delivers, that energy will not subside.

The march was meant to do more then to show Congress and Obama that the GLBT community is getting impatient. It was meant to form connections between people and groups to impress upon all those attending that this was the beginning. It was meant to remind people that shouting and waving signs is pointless unless everyone went back and began organizing and pushing for their rights.

Not only was the National Equality March the result of a grass roots effort, but it was undertaken originally with no support from any major GLBT rights organization such as the HRC. It was only after it became clear that the march would happen with or without the support of these organizations that they signed on.

In addition to attending the march, Allies, in collaboration with Peace Club and Students for a Democratic Society, decided to raise awareness about the lack of GLBT visibility on campus. The inverted pink triangle, used by the Nazis to identify homosexual men, was reinterpreted with an inverted black triangle over a pink armband. The idea was to invoke both a symbol of oppression in the pink triangle and a protest icon in the black armband.

There were also plans for the students involved to hold hands with someone of the same sex. This was added as part of the demonstration after it became clear that out of everyone who attended an Allies meeting only one person had ever seen a same sex couple holding hands.

Many of those involved believed that this small demonstration was a success, despite a few homophobic incidents. One student overheard another telling his friend that the armbands were just “some fag thing.” This and other comments were a reminder to the GLBT students on campus of the present if passive homophobia that still exists on campus.