The EAA Midwest conference was held last weekend at Columbia College in Chicago. Activists from around the Midwest gathered for the 3-day conference which included keynotes by spoken word artist, Staceyann Chin, Lt. Dan Choi, and tons of workshops to drive conversations around equality. The conference was a followup from last fall’s National Equality March in Washington DC. Many of the organizations who gathered people from around the Midwest were present at the weekend’s events.

Staceyann Chin signing her new Memoir

I attended several workshops throughout the weekend. The first one was led by Staceyann Chin and discussed “The Fight for LGBTQ Civil Rights in the Americas.” It was a lively workshop that included a discussion on how to further ignite our community and keep everyone engaged in the fight for equality. One point that seemed to stay with me was about the lack of activism shown by the GenX community. Being a part of that community, I know that many of my friends are not out there “fighting the good fight.” As it was  said in the panel, the 60′s had the Stonewall Riots, the 70′s had Harvey Milk, and the 80′s brought the devastation of AIDS into the community. We were the  generation that really didn’t understand how to fight,  as there hasn’t been one big event that seemed to bring our part of the community together until now.

Adam Bouska of The NOH8 Campaign and attendees

Adam Bouska, co-founder of The NOH8 Campaign led the second workshop that I attended. The NOH8 campaign was created to be a “photographic silent protest” of the Prop 8 ruling in California. They have over 4,000 photos in their archives that include people from all walks of life.  It was interesting to hear how the campaign began with a few friends and has generated interest not only from the Queer community, but our straight allies as well (surprisingly enough including Cindy McCain.)

Lindsey Dietzler, who was on the conference’s organizing committee led a great discussion about the word “Queer.” The discussion was about ideas to bring our community together, using “Queer” instead of the “alphabet soup” more commonly used to describe our community.

Ed Reggi of ShowMeNoHate.Com

Show Me No Hate founder, Ed Reggi showed his short film, “Heartland Transport,” later that afternoon. The story documented his trip to Iowa with 17 other same-sex couples from Missouri to cross the border and get married. It was a touching film which showcased many couples who were together for many years.

On Sunday, many of the people who helped organize the event, and activists who were at the event, voted to form the Unite + Fight Midwest Equality Network. According to the website, ” This new entity, to keep midwestern activists in touch with one another and coordinating actions, also voted unanimously to affiliate with Equality Across America. All the individual activists and groups in attenance remain independent and self-governing, but Unite + Fight Midwest Equality Network and EAA will help us coordinate on a regional and national level to make our actions more effective, and to ensure that even those who come out for a ten person action in a tiny rural town know they are part of something bigger.”

The conference, in my eyes, was a great success. As with the National Equality March, this conference was pulled together as a grassroots effort by organizations throughout the Midwest. I look forward to the next big event.

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Congratulations Washington, DC!

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I have seen women hit by their parents because they came out to them. I have seen people struggle to figure out what “God’s plan” was for them since at once God gave them feelings of attraction to the same sex and also, according to their faith, calls their feelings an abomination. I have seen people get fired from a job because of perceived sexual orientation. I nuzzled noses with a girlfriend in a restaurant and was asked to leave because I was in a “family-oriented” restaurant. I know veterans of our military who were kicked out due to “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”.

I am pretty lucky. I live in a major urban area in a state that prohibits discrimination based on perceived or actual sexual orientation in all the usual areas: housing, employment, etc. I’ve not had the troubles many have in life with regards to my sexual orientation. So, when I fell in love and wanted to get married to my partner last year, it hit me hard for the first time: I’m a second class citizen. All I want to do is marry the woman I love but I can’t. We realized that, yes, we could go to Massachusetts or Iowa to marry, but as soon as we crossed that state’s border our rights as a married couple would vanish. Our loving, committed relationship had no status outside of a few states and certainly not on a federal level.

When I was recently laid off, I qualified for COBRA at a great subsidized rate for 9 months but my partner is ineligible for the subsidy—because it’s a federal program. She was added to my health insurance as my Domestic Partner originally because she had been laid off and needed insurance. Guess what? She STILL needs insurance and because of the high cost of unsubsidized insurance, she will be without until her new job’s insurance kicks in.

Many people say they don’t need a piece of paper to prove their love and commitment. I don’t either, but that piece of paper gets 300 or so state benefits afforded a couple and approximately 1,100 federal benefits. In other words, people who cannot marry or who choose not to marry are denied 1400 or so benefits. Among those include the right to visit your spouse in the hospital, the right of inheritance and the right to collect survivor’s benefits from Social Security. Some of these things I think are ridiculous and should be available without having to marry. But for same sex couples, the right to visit our partners in the hospital is often denied us because our relationship is not recognized. Imagine that your partner of 30 years goes to the emergency room and you are told since you are not married or a blood relative, you get no information or no say in treatment decisions. You can’t so much as peek at the person you’ve spent half your life with. Is that right? Imagine that you live 40 years in the same home as your partner. You helped pay for that house, though it was in your partner’s name. Your partner dies. Some nephew you last saw when he was in diapers can swoop in and claim that house because he is the closest living relative. You have to move.

We have had small victories in a large handful of states and that’s wonderful. That’s why the time is now to shift these numerous little fights into a national movement. Enough of this piecemeal stuff! We matter or we don’t matter. We are equal citizens or we are not.

We need everyone who believes in people’s equality to stand in solidarity with us. This March on Washington will catapult our movement to a national level and we need to show the outspoken few that a majority of people support LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer) equality. It is no longer okay to just scoff at the TV when you see the religious right ranting about the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. Straight and gay alike must show a force in D.C. in October. The time is now because it’s the right thing to do.

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Cleve spoke with us about the struggle to keep our community together after the failure of overturning Prop 8, the need for our straight allies to join us, and why the march is so important this year:

Main Photo from JIT-Chicago from their National Equality March blog, I’mGoing09.com

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Cleve Jones (long-time activist, and founder of the AIDS quilt) called on the community to gather and march for our equality. Now, grassroots efforts are being created across the US. Groups of LGBTQ activists will travel to Washington DC October 10/11 to march in this historic event and march in the National Equality March.

Join The Impact Chicago welcomes Cleve Jones on Saturday, August 29th to talk about the current state of LGBTQ Civil Rights, the National Equality March and how you can get involved. Here’s more info:

An Evening with Cleve Jones: The History and Struggle for LGBT Civil Rights

Date: Saturday, August 29, 2009
Time : 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: Victory Gardens Theater – 2433 N Lincoln Ave

From the early days of Harvey Milk’s activism (as portrayed by Emile Hirsch in the Oscar-winning movie Milk), to the founding of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and today’s struggle for equal marriage, veteran activist Cleve Jones has been at the center of the LGBT rights movement for the last thirty years.

Now, as the promise from the Obama administration to be a “fierce advocate” for equality for gays and lesbians continues to go unfulfilled—with both the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell upheld since the administration took office—Jones and other activists from across the country are planning a National Equality March as a show of mass support for LGBT rights.

Join the Impact-Chicago, a grassroots organization leading the local planning for the Equality March will be hosting Jones, along with Young Chicago Authors and local progressive publisher Haymarket Books in order to discuss the history and current state of the movement for equal rights in the run up to the national demonstration. The evening will feature Jones and

•    Include performance pieces from Young Chicago Authors on the theme of LGBT rights, including winning poems from Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival
•    Serve as a fundraiser to provide buses from Chicago to the upcoming National Equality March to take place in Washington, DC October 10-11th

Buy Tickets Here

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