Reflections on the National Equality March

It has been a very busy day. I was not up for walking, and DC metro confounds me, so I drove and parked as close to the US Capitol as I could - which turned out to be very close indeed. That was just a lucky break, but it made things so much easier! I walked up part of the mall, and the crowd was excited. People were carrying signs, mostly home-made. I took my place on the inside of the west lawn, and propped myself against the wall enclosing the lawn. Recorded music filled the air, as march volunteers wandered with last minute preparations. Slowly, the space began to fill with others who did not march but who wanted to be there.

It was really an amazing collection of people. There were many lesbian and gay couples, and some obviously straight couples. There were groups of men and women who had the casual familiarity of extended families. There were a significant number of children, more with the women than with the men, it seemed. There were other old, obviously out of shape folks, and a few who were frankly very wobbly and unsteady. There were, in both the early gatherers and in the marchers when they arrived, fewer men than there should have been in their 50s and 60s. These were the lost generation, the AIDS generation. A group of 4 in their early 60s came in, looking healthy, and I thought of all those who didn't make it to their age. The music began to pick up, and then it was announced that the marchers were about three blocks away.

I turned and looked west-northwest over the wall. You could see them in the distance. They were being routed up Pennsylvania Avenue and then right toward the lawn, but breakaway groups began cutting the corner, coming up the parking lot that is a direct path to the capitol lawn. And there they were: hundreds and thousands. At this point, I was really overcome, in a couple of senses. The loudspeakers interspersed enough 60s music - including We Shall Overcome - that I was taken back to the anti-Vietnam War marches of those years. There was that feeling of peaceableness in the crowd, and I was taken back to that time of my youth. I was overcome by the sheer joy and blessing of being there, and by the sadness of being there alone. And, I have to say, I was overcome by what began to resemble Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, as first one person, then another, then whole groups, jumped the wall I was leaning against. This was an easy entrance, rather than wait for the narrow way that the National Parks Service had planned - two small sidewalk entrances on either side of the lawn.

I abandoned my post, and wandered from the Senate side to the House side of the lawn. The music continued, this time with a person whose name I can't remember, and then the DC Gay Men's Chorus. At one point the announcer self-importantly said that "From the days of Stonewall until today music has played an important part our movement. I ask that you all listen carefully and join in singing the next song." Well, what would it be? The national anthem? And out rang "Somewhere over the rainbow........" and the crowd laughed and applauded. A perfect build up to a surprise, and a fun one at that. A bit of theater never hurts! The national anthem did eventually come, and the crowd stood respectfully. In the center of the lawn, everyone was standing. At the periphery, there was room to sit or even to spread out. Eventually speeches began, and the crowd thinned a bit. The real work was done. The real work was just showing up. Being there.

So who was there? Mostly, everyone seemed pretty normal, except that they were paired in arrangements that aren't usually seen in mainstream portraits of America. I didn't see anyone who looked too outlandish. The most outlandish were two women who were wearing wedding dresses (separately, not together). I saw no counter demonstrators, except when I was driving away a placarded truck had signs reading: "Obama health care will pay for sodomy. What is a moral wrong cannot be a civil right." At some point I should write about the last part of that statement.

It just felt so good. So good. So good to be there. It was affirming, and it raised for me questions that I need to deal with. I have not yet found a way to be truly who I am in an integrated whole in all the places I am and all the people I deal with. Tonight, just as an example, I spent some time with someone from another country who told me a few days ago that he "didn't believe in this homosexual thing" - he was not condemning, he was just saying that it didn't really exist. Tonight I refrained from saying that I had spent the afternoon with perhaps as many as 200,000 people he thought didn't exist. But I need some way of bringing all the pieces of my life together.

Driving away, I passed lots of folks walking, and some even in the neighborhoods where one wondered if it was a good idea to carry that sign, or wear those colors, in that place. Everyone seemed to be having a peaceful, good time. I certainly did.