Protest for gay rights

As they appear in the Central Florida Future: "Gay day strikes for equality" and "A Day Without A Gay plans for service".

Since the passage of Florida Amendment no. 2, California Proposition 8, members and supporters of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community seek to illustrate the result of their exclusion.

For those planning to skip work and saving money through abstaining to spend in protest along side the Day Without Gays boycott, A Day Without a Gay: Call in Gay hopes to open a positive discourse through community service.

On Nov. 15, there were national protests on the steps of City Halls in 300 cities across the U.S. organized by a group called Join the Impact: 1 Million Plus for Equality.
On Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, members and supporters of the GLBT community have been asked to boycott the economy by taking off work and forgoing monetary contributions to society.

“Strike!” states the Facebook.com event page prompting 68,523 Facebook users to participate. “Call in gay, shut down your business, or just take the day off. Boycott! Don’t buy anything, spend anything or support the economy.”

David Craig, a partner with Media Nation PMC— a production company based in Los Angeles, came up with the idea in 2005 while working for A&E television and produced the made for TV movie Wedding Wars featuring John Stamos, which aired in 2006. The movie involves a dispute between two brothers over gay marriage that fuels a nationwide strike when a governor refuses to approve gay marriage.

“After the passage of Prop 8 (in Calif.), I sat down and talk to some friends about what we could do other than protest and march, which I support whole heartedly, and discussed the day without gay idea and they all thought it was a good idea,” Craig said. “We posted the event on Facebook and discovered there were about eight other people on Facebook, MySpace and other locations that had the same idea and literally the same day. So we approached all the other organizers and we all agreed to come together all around Dec. 10.”

Sean Hetherington, a personal trainer in West Hollywood, heard about the A Day Without Gays boycott to be held Dec. 10 and wondered how effect it would be. Instead of staying home from work and not spending any money, Hetherington and his boyfriend Aaron Hartzler, came up with the idea of donating that time to community service.

The couple created a Web site, www.daywithoutagay.org, based off of the Join an Impact, a web based grassroots organization with a agenda, and since its Nov. 15 inception the site has generated more than 100,000 hits with postings of volunteer opportunities in every state as well as opportunities in Washington D.C. and internationally in Canada, Turkey and England.

The naming of the event is inspired by the 2004 film A Day Without A Mexican, where California woke one day to find all the 14 million Hispanic population disappeared and the productivity of the state collapsed. On May 1, 2006 a nationwide economic boycott with the moniker A Day Without Immigrants, which help fueled the debate over illegal aliens and the 700 miles of fence to be build on the U.S. Mexican Border.

“What if, just for one day, those who could take off work, DID?” said Hetherington, one of the organizers for A Day Without a Gay. “And instead of staying home feeling hopeless, they went out and did good things for their own LGBT community and/or the greater world to show America that we are compassionate loving people, even in the face of being outcast as separate but equal.”

According to the American Community Survey 2004, 1.34 percent of same-sex couples comprise of Florida’s population. In Orlando, 1.25% of the 1,644,561 population are same sex couples. Furthermore, in Downtown Orlando, 6.07 percent of the 7,979 population are same-sex couples.

“We are gay and lesbian Americans that pay our taxes and hold jobs; buy goods and defend our country and we deserve the same rights that everyone else has, that’s the message,” Craig said.

Amendment no. 2 passed with 61.9 percent of voters. Backers of the Amendment such as Florida4Marriage state the amendment will protect children in a blanket support of man plus woman equals marriage and to prevent children from being exposed to the gay community. According to Say No 2, the Amendment prevents health care and pension benefits plans for civil unions, pertaining mostly to elderly couples. A clause to the Amendment prevents judges from overturning the law.

“We read about the national boycott of the US economy and the work force, and support it, but wanted to add a service element to it so that efforts were still going back into the non-profit economy,” Hetherington said via e-mail. “Every time someone holds up a soup ladle at a homeless shelter on Dec 10, we hope a camera catches it for the news, and we hope that those images help change the hearts and minds of people on the fence about the LGBT community.”

Many groups in Orlando contributed to campaigning against Amendment no. 2 to no avail, but intend to continue to voice their concerns against it.

According to the Web site, there are “30 states where individuals can still be fired simply for being gay or lesbian,” and for those in fear of losing their jobs, the site offers other ways to participate, by spreading the word.

“The outcome of the election where a majority of voters voted yes for Amendment 2 was devastating for those who worked tirelessly to get people to vote no,” said
Dr. Joyce Hamilton Henry, director for the Central Regional Office of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Henry continued to say that the amendment has negatively affect thousands of people not limited to the GLBT community and those who those opposed will continue to work in hopes of broadened understanding and change.

“We recently formed a united coalition called One Orlando as a result of the passage of Amendment 2 as well as other anti-gay amendments that have passed across the county that are very harmful,” said Mary Meeks, Orlando attorney with Carlton Fields Attorneys at Law. “The GLBT community and its allies need a better strategy to defend (against) those amendments and for equal rights. We fully support the join and impact initiative.”

Meeks voiced some concerns about asking supporters to miss work.

“I think it’s great to get people to volunteer for a cause,” Meeks said. “I think it will be difficult for many people to not go to work. I don’t know how effect that will be. Many can’t afford to do it, financial or out of fear of exposing themselves.

According to the Day Without a Gay Web site, there are “30 states where individuals can still be fired simply for being gay or lesbian,” and for those in fear of losing their jobs, the site offers other ways to participate, by spreading the word.

“I prefer the idea of not just dropping out but doing something constructive,” Meeks said. “Instead of boycott we try to do the opposite of that by buying services and good from businesses that are friendly to our cause.”

The One Orlando Web site provides links to lists of supportive businesses.

For those wishing to participate, the Habitat for Humanity of Orlando is listed as a source for volunteer opportunities on the Day Without a Gay Website for those who will be participating on Dec. 10.

“We’ve gotten about six or seven people and we are expecting more this week and next wee that have signed up we gotten a lot of inquires form the Web site,” Jennifer Gallagher, a representative of Habitat Orlando, said. Volunteers will be doing general construction for habitat homes.

For more information go to habitat-orlando.org or contact Jennifer Gallagher at jgallagher@habitat-orlando.com