Milk.

Last night I hosted a little movie night to watch The Times of Harvey Milk.  It was something we planned with my friends Brian and Bryan a few weeks back during our hiking trip, I think originally as an outgrowth of a conversation about the upcoming movie Milk based on the life of San Francisco's openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk.  Even though it wasn't the original intent, it turned out extremely timely due to the passage of Prop 8.  It was amazing how so much hasn't changed since the 70s.  But it was also incredible to see how passive we have become, relatively speaking.  I was already fired up about trying to do something about Prop 8 but after watching the documentary, I am on fire.  

The day after the election, I expressed my hope that Obama in the White House could be a good sign for gay marriage, and two friends reacted:

"He's not going to advocate for gay marriage. He's just not going to get in the way of it. I doubt it'll be on the Dem Congress' plate either. No one is gonna want to touch it."

"Yeah, everyone's going to want to avoid 2010 being another mandate-squandering 1994. We're years from further meaningful gay rights legislation at a national level."

Even though I don't necessarily disagree with those conclusions, it dawned on me yesterday that if we ever want to see some progress with gay rights, we have to stop giving up so easily before even fighting for them.  It's really a horrible vicious circle.  Surrender feeds inaction, inaction feeds stagnancy, stagnancy feeds surrender.  In reality, no progress can be done without reaching for things that are seemingly unreachable.  The vicious circle needs to be broken.

With that in mind, I am planning to attend the protest at the Mormon church on Wednesday and the City Hall protests on Saturday and I am encouraging everyone to do so.  We are not going to overturn Prop 8, but it is about time we took a stand.  

Image source: http://against8.blogspot.com/