Lobby Day for Equality Maryland

So I showed up for the 5th annual lobby day for Equality Maryland on Monday. I wasn’t surprised that less folks were there than showed for the rally in front of City Hall (post-Prop-8) earlier this fall. Although I’d be interested to discuss why the discrepancy. Is it: less energetic publicity for EQMD? (I talked to more than a few people about Lobby Day who were like: “What? When? Really?”) More intimidation factor? (“I’m going to go where, and do what?” There IS something about going to Annapolis, and this isn’t the first time I’ve been down there, that still is a little intimidating. It’s like Colonial Williamsburg, but not just for show.)

Part of what’s getting me interested is, I read an interesting interview with Barney Frank in the Advocate after Prop 8 passed (1-13-09 --wow! I can actually find it on my desk! Damn! This never happens!) Here is the paragraph that interested me:

“It’s great that people feel passionate about this,” he says 10 days after the election, when I ask whether the upswing in gay activism pleased him, “but do you really think a rally on the Boston Common does one thing to change anything? I would prefer people channeled that energy--whether it’s for marriage equality or employment nondiscrimination--into mobilizing and trying to persuade those who disagree with them. Notice that the NRA never marches. This is my continual debate with people in the gay community, many of whom want to hold rallies instead of doing political lobbying.”

I have been chewing on that quote for a while, “Notice that the NRA never marches.” Hard to improve on that as an observation. He seems like a pretty savvy guy, so I plan to take his advice about how to proceed, at least for now. Not like I have any great wisdom of my own about how to change things.

Anyway, a few other notes on things that were interesting that day : First, I don’t know if this reflects demographics generally or just the district where I live, but of my fellow lobbyists, I was surprised most of them were straight. Lots of parents of gay kids. I’d guesstimate only about 30-40% of attendees in my group were GLBT. I would have expected more.

I was also surprised to learn that out of the 3 representatives and one senator from my district, the 3 representatives already were cosponsors of the marriage bill from last year, so there wasn’t much lobbying to do there. The senator, however, is brand new, and, well, he stood us up! About 20-25 of us showed up for our appointment to meet with him and he was a no-show. So, I sent him a letter with cell phone photo attached of us sitting in his office without him. It’s sort of difficult to figure out how to word the letter in a way that’s persuasive when what I really want to write is, “DEAR DICKHEAD,”. I guess I have some work to do on my lobbying skills. . .

We were also lobbying for the transgender antidiscrimination act. The new representative who’s sponsoring it seems like a real firebrand, she was very impressive in the way she presented her commitment to supporting the act. But perhaps the best reason for going to the rally beforehand was to hear Gene Robinson (the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, from NH) preach. Oh, my gosh. They said he was just going to ‘speak’ to the crowd but in fact he really kinda took the opportunity to sneak a small sermon in there and it was a really good one, about Exodus as a coming out story. It was a wonderful way of talking about how scary it is to make change, how hard it is to pursue a promised land, and how easy it is to want to turn back or give up trying. . .