Dan Savage vs DOMA

I make no bones about Dan Savage being a major hero of mine (and a total heartthrob having met him a few times now)  but this is brilliant on another level. This actually makes far more sense than the March for Equality, which admittedly I want to attend.

As a Obama supporter I am furious at the Obama White House over the DOMA Brief and it's repugnant homophobic language. I am fed up with my friends who are gay serving YEARS of their lives in silence for the military, a calling they love, living in fear that if someone discovers their partner, or even if they attempt to date they can be tossed out, pensions lost , and in increasingly  frequency  asked to repay the money spent on their training. SHAME on America.  I'm tired of peoples reactions being , well the economy is bad and he's better than McCAin/Palin. That thinking is is a fool's errand. Think of all the money "gay" marriage (I prefer the term marriage equality these days) would put into the economy, both locally and nationally. Dresses, tuxedos, cakes, flowers, music, invitations, registry, hall rentals, vacations, airline tickets, cruise packages, hotel stays, catering, gifts gifts gifts! Hell  I'm a registered domestic partner and quite frankly that is NOT good enough. Every time we leave the state of Oregon where we live we run the risk of being denied access to each other if god forbid we end up in an accident in a hospital, We are forced to fill out federal forms stating single while wearing our wedding rings.  So I say it's time we stand up. I say we follow dan's plan or as I've alternately put forth EVERY LGBTQ community member and ally STOP PAYING your State and Federal Taxes. That should get their attention. Sure it's a bluff but if there was a MASS absence of Queer Dollars next April TRUST me some one would take notice. in the mean time check out our Danny boy's brilliant plan.

  Read Dan's full plan here!    

But here's a excerpt:

Here's the idea: one gay or lesbian couple—a couple currently denied their rights under DOMA—shows up at the entrance to the White House grounds. A different couple every day. They ask to speak to the president about DOMA. They're refused. They sit down. They refuse to leave. They're arrested, carried away by the police. Couples would be recruited from all over the country, demonstrating that gay marriage isn't just an issue in liberal California or godless New England, and the media in each couple's home city and state would be notified in advance of their arrest. The occasional famous couple—Rosie and Kelli? Ellen and Portia?—would participate to pull in celeb media. But most of the couples who come to D.C. to get arrested would be average folks. The couples would need support, legal and logistical, and we would need someone to organize media outreach and maintain a website. The website would include a photo and profile of each couple that comes to D.C. to get arrested, collect all the press, and be used to recruit couples willing to travel to D.C. and get arrested.

The action would be small scale—it would be human scale—and it would go on and on and on. It would demonstrate better than another gay march just how seriously we take this issue: we take it seriously that we're willing to travel to D.C. and get arrested. It wouldn't be a one-day event that the White House could ignore or bluff its way through with some lame statement about its "commitment" to ending DOMA. The couples would keep coming. Every day an arrest. Drip, drip, drip. Members of the White House press corps would see couples getting arrested every day on their way to work. Gibbs would be forced to address DOMA on a near-daily basis. The president would be asked about the issue again and again.

(Via the Stranger)