When I posted on Monday about a gay couple's push for the ENDA executive order at the White House Easter Egg Roll, I was initially disappointed with the non-response from the community. Then, thanks to our wonderful Rescue Rangers, the diary was published in the Community Spotlight, where it received a much larger response. Unfortunately, the response I received was worse than the non-response. I want to address some of the concerns presented by commenters in that diary and take the opportunity to make a broader statement on "appropriateness" and civil rights activism.
But first, in case you missed my original diary, here's the gist:
It hasn't gotten nearly the attention that it deserves, but there's a very important executive order awaiting action on President Obama's desk. It has been rubber-stamped by the Departments of Justice and Labor, and all it needs is the President's signature. Dubbed the ENDA executive order, it would build on Lyndon Johnson's order "prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against employees based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected categories. Despite Candidate Obama having supported this executive order in 2008, despite widespread popular support, and despite numerous calls for action from the halls of Congress, where ENDA continues to choke, there continues to be deafening silence from the White House.
Well, one gay couple hoped to change that today. And, of all places, at the White House Easter Egg Roll.
Jarrod Scarbrough and Les Sewell, a couple from New Mexico, attended the Easter Egg Roll today with their 8-year-old daughter. In the process, they hoped to make a statement to the President about the importance of taking this albeit small, yet monumental nevertheless, step toward ending employment discrimination against LGBT people.
There are the basics. A gay couple, both of whom are organizers for
GetEQUAL, in a move supported by GetEQUAL, accepted an invitation to the White House Easter Egg Roll and planned to ask President Obama about his position on the executive order. That's all. Armies of gays and lesbians didn't descend on the Easter Egg Roll and kill the Easter Bunny in front of thousands of children. The event was not disrupted, nor did activists plan to disrupt it. We're talking about a respectful two-on-one encounter with the President. Nothing wild and crazy.
And here are some of the responses my diary received:
I agree with getting ENDA through Congress and then I am sure that the President will sign it.
So -- in my opinion -- a misplaced protest against the President.
Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to protest Congress??
So -- I have no problem with this getting little notice at the Easter event for the kids -- Easter Egg Roll...
There is a time and place for everything.
And, in response to the above comment:
ITA [I totally agree] and now for the incessant tantrum by the usual suspects.
Yep, "tantrum" and "usual suspects." I'm thinking that comment would have featured slightly different wording in another era, if you know what I mean.
And then:
I think it was bad taste to bring the issue into the Easter Egg roll. It definitely politicizes the event no matter how much the couple think it doesn't.
What does the Easter Egg hunt have to do with ENDA? What's the logical connection?
Flip it around and imagine how it would look in an analogous situation: for example, a White House event celebrating Jazz, attended by some right-wingers who use the event as a platform to urge the president to sign legislation banning all abortions. That would be weird, no?
This is why I disagreed with Pres. Obama changing the Easter Egg Roll from a local thank you to the residents of the DC area you had to wait in a line in the wee hours of the morning to get, to an online and who-you-know hot ticket to get for anyone wealthy enough to fly in for it. It was bound to make it a political target at some point. It also meant that after 15 years living in the area when I finally had children and could go I could never get any tickets to go. I think this was not an appropriate venue, but it won't stop here.
Your tactics hurt the cause, not help it. We aren't saying you can't discuss civil rights, we are saying those two protesters picked a really bad time to do it.
I'm not sure what a better "time" would have been. It's not like Scarbrough and Sewell could have set up a meeting with the President in the Oval Office.
But Jesus...I had no idea so many people cared so much about the sanctity of the White House Easter Egg Roll. Apparently pushing around Easter eggs with spoons is of more importance than the fact that thousands of LGBT Americans are needlessly being discriminated against while an executive order that would greatly alleviate the situation sits, unsigned, on the President's desk. Talk about priorities. Follow me below the fold.
The major complaint seems to be that this protest action was not "appropriate." Or, in the words of this comment:
Both Gandhi and MLK Jr. were VERY strategic about when, where and how they staged their protests and demonstrations, and made their demands.
As a 23-year vocal and activist member of the GLBT community, I too have learned a lot about timing and about strategy.
Obviously, a gay couple can use an opportunity to talk to the President about anything. The press, though? In all of our name? One question is, how effectively would the opposition use the move against the greater effort?
I think it is a strategic fight, and I don't think making an Easter Egg Roll about ENDA would have been good for the President, nor the fight for ENDA. Just my opinion.
Civil rights movements are made up of all types and strategies. The African-American civil rights movement relied on traditional, more mainstream groups like the NAACP, in addition to groups such as SNCC and CORE. Lawyers pursued a legal strategy, while direct action and civil disobedience strategies were also pursued. The African-American civil rights movement cannot be boiled down to one strategy, with one leader (or even one group of leaders) and one specific goal in mind. Social movements are extraordinarily complicated phenomena that defy that kind of simplification.
We see the same patterns in the movement for gay civil rights. Just looking at the time period immediately following Stonewall, the more timid Mattachine Society continued to exist for a time, but the radical and militant Gay Liberation Front also took root on many college campuses. Want to talk about "appropriate"? I'd love to hear the GLF's response to that. Then, the Gay Activists Alliance formed and targeted (or "zapped") politicians and organizations in much the same way that GetEQUAL does today. Thanks in large part to this in-your-face direct action, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, a monumental victory for the gay movement. And again, you want to talk about "appropriate"? I give you, Anita Bryant:
As far as I know, no pies were thrown at the Easter Egg Roll.
Today, we have a host of "mainstream" gay rights groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, many of which serve important functions inside the Beltway. But let's not forget how influential the GetEQUAL protest at the White House, in which our own Scott Wooledge played a role, was in getting DADT repeal back on the Senate's agenda after Democratic leadership and the President had dropped it from the list of lame-duck priorities. Was it "inappropriate" for the protesters to chain themselves to the White House fence? It sure as hell got the message across.
So let me be perfectly clear: In general, I reject the notion of an "appropriate venue" for civil rights activism. The publicity that Scarbrough and Sewell raised with their action is every bit as important as the lobbying Gay Inc. is doing inside the Beltway.
There's still no news as to whether or not Scarbrough and Sewell actually got face-time with the President (given the number of people at the event, it's doubtful), but they were interviewed by MSNBC's Thomas Roberts, bringing this relatively unknown issue to a national news program. That's a pretty big fucking deal.
And that's not all. The publicity generated by this couple's action also spurred a question at the White House press conference on Monday from NBC News, marking the first time a non-LGBT reporter pursued the issue of the ENDA executive order. Again, a pretty big fucking deal. From the e-mail I received today from GetEQUAL:
Since 1878, the White House has been inviting families to the annual Easter Egg Roll. GetEQUAL has been offered these tickets before, but normally we decline them -- until we're fully equal, we'll choose the White House fence over the White House lawn. But when we were offered tickets this year, we knew exactly how to leverage our recent petition to President Obama.
We gave our tickets to GetEQUAL organizers Jarrod Scarbrough and Les Sewell, who flew with their daughter from New Mexico to DC to use the event as a platform to advocate in favor of an Executive Order that would protect their family (and millions of others) from workplace discrimination. By taking their story to the mainstream media airwaves, they helped to highlight the discrimination that millions of LGBT Americans and their families suffer under on a daily basis. And Jarrod and Les' story actually prompted a question from NBC News in Monday's White House press conference about the Executive Order -- the first time a non-LGBT reporter has asked a question about it!
While Jarrod and Les may not have had the opportunity to speak directly to President Obama, we know the White House is talking and that they're making a decision right now about whether to sign this piece of paper. We also know that decision means the White House will be weighing whether taking a stand for LGBT equality is good or bad politics.
So, in short, this action served a purpose--and a very important purpose at that. Not many people outside the LGBT blogosphere even
know about this executive order. To those complaining about a lack of strategy--this
was a strategy, and it seems to have succeeded in its goal of attracting publicity to the issue. Which is no small feat.
I understand the political dimensions of this discussion. Had this been Bush's Easter Egg Roll, I think the criticism would have been much more muted. But this is not an issue of politics. This is not an anti-Obama screed. Christ, I just slapped the newest Obama-Biden sticker on the back of my car today. I'm an enthusiastic Obama supporter. This isn't about politics. This is an issue of civil rights. It's time for the President to sign this executive order, and it's time people realized what exactly is at stake--the livelihoods of thousands of LGBT Americans.
I think we'd be a lot better off not second-guessing every single act of civil rights protest. It is always time to demand equality. The more pressure, the better.
And, yes, the Easter Bunny lives on.
P.S. If you haven't signed the petition urging President Obama to sign the ENDA executive order, please consider doing so. Maybe this is "appropriate" enough.
UPDATE: Huffington Post is reporting that the Obama administration, not long before I finished this diary, announced that the executive order likely won't be signed. This is an extremely disappointing and wrongheaded decision. The pressure, I think, should remain on the White House.