National Equality March Organizers Launch New Activist Group
The former directors of October’s National Equality March on Washington have created an online community for LGBTQ activists – just months after leaving the grassroots gay group that put on the event.
The new online community is called ‘GetEQUAL.’ Co-director Kip Williams told OutQ News he and Robin McGehee left ‘Equality Across America’ to unite smaller groups that “feel isolated” into a national movement.
Williams: “This effort is really about giving the opportunity for grassroots activists at the local level all over the country to plug into a national strategy so that the work and efforts that we put into our communities are part of something bigger than ourselves, too.”
Williams says online communities are important because individuals and groups often “don’t have a place to have the types of conversations that are important to them”.
Williams says previous energy has been focused on local and state battles that don’t produce full equality or lasting results.
Williams: “We believe that those local and statewide battles are really important, but when Prop 8 passed in California or Question One in Maine we saw that no matter what we accomplish at the local or state levels it’s imperfect and it’s impermanent. It’s imperfect because it doesn’t really include all the rights and protections our community needs and it’s impermanent because those things can be taken back away from us.”
Williams said he hopes the new group can continue the momentum gained by last October’s March.
-Chance Dorland
