Awhile back, I did a piece looking at the map of results in Maine, and noted the results in small towns where we lost badly. Mike Lux asked me what the campaign did to organize in some of these towns. I wrote at the time:
In truth the campaign did a great deal to organize in smaller towns, but there is one tactic no political campaign can fully execute with money or resources or organizing. Part of the reason these small towns are so hardcore against marriage equality, Mike noted, is because in many of these communities, there are no gay people, or if there are, they are usually closeted. To some extent, no amount of TV advertising or direct mail or surrogate work will work as well as person-to-person communication with gay people in your community.
The more I think about this, the more I realize it's true- but it's greater than just gay people coming out. That was Harvey Milk's perhaps most central organizing tactic to win the Briggs Initiative in 1978. But that was 1978.
In 2009, coming out is just as important, but our side has to do more. We need to talk about marriage. And it can't just be up to the gays. I need to ask many of you- straight allies- to help as well. I wrote about this in a magazine piece last week:
Our movement needs more people involved in these fights, needs more people to heed Harvey Milk's call to come out of the closet and more straight allies to tell stories of their gay family members, friends and colleagues.
We have to have one-on-one conversations about marriage equality, and the holidays are the perfect time to do that. There is no better way to reach your friend or family member, and there is nothing better- not direct mail, or TV, or any campaign tactic- to win people over.
To that end, Courage Campaign, which did a lot of work in Maine, has set up a Courageous Conversations tool. Make a pledge to have a conversation with a family member who is opposed to marriage equality. If you're straight, you can even pledge to do it in the name of an LGBT person you know. Your first name and that of the person you're talking to will appear on an interactive map next to the thousands of other people who are doing the same thing. If you don't have any idea how to start, they have a great How-To guide to get started and help you through it. And you can report back on how it went, which will help Courage Campaign learn lessons about what kinds of conversations are best.
You can also Tweet about it:
Give the gift of equality for the holidays with a Courageous Conversation http://bit.ly/79FrlC #LGBT
I made a pledge. It's the least I can do- in between football and eating- to move the ball forward. I hope you'll join me. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for helping our movement.
We know what's going to happen almost from the very beginning, because the film tells us: Dianne Feinstein, long before she becomes a Senator, back when she was President of the Board of Supervisors for San Francisco, will speak at a press conference on November 27th, 1978, and announce that City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man in the United States elected to a major public office, has been shot and killed by former City Supervisor Dan White, along with the Mayor, George Moscone. The crowd moans in shock, disbelief, anger. Cameras flash. This use of archival footage occurs maybe 90 seconds into Gus Van Sant's "Milk," and it's followed by a shot of Milk himself (Sean Penn), maybe a week before the shootings, sitting at his kitchen table alone, recording a tape to be played in the event of his assassination. Cue title card.
"Milk" somehow manages to balance the needs of two very different films for its running time. It is, first of all, an absolutely superb biopic which allows us to feel like we knew Harvey on a first-name basis, helps us to understand what others found so important about him and his work beyond the permanently-earned title of First Openly Gay Office Holder; and a very different film, a meditation on the responsibility activists have to the people who elevated them to position of influence, whether it be via the ballot box, the work of a concerned group of citizens or just the readers of a blog community.
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