Plans for March Unveiled

David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign said the 1993 march, and the previous two Gay marches, brought "enormous" numbers of Gay people into the political process. (by Doug Hinckle)

In a statement released in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 4, the two groups said the march will be called the "Millennium March on Washington for Equal Rights."

The two organizations have retained Lesbian comedian and events promoter Robin Tyler to produce the 2000 march, the statement said. Tyler played a key role in producing and organizing the past three Gay marches on Washington, which were held in 1979, 1987, and 1993.

According to the statement announcing the 2000 march, eight of the nation’s most influential national Gay groups have already endorsed the march. They include the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum; the National Latino/a Lesbian and Gay Organization; the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; the National Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; the National Center for Lesbian Rights; the National Youth Advocacy Coalition (which assists Gay youth); the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund; and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

"This march will set a new tone for a new century," said Elizabeth Birch, HRC’s executive director. "Equality under the law will be our achievement in the new millennium," Birch said.

HRC spokesperson David Smith said the idea for the 2000 march came from Tyler, who approached HRC and the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of MCC churches, which consists of more than 300 predominantly Gay Christian congregations in the U.S. and 14 other countries.

"She suggested that HRC and MCC sponsor the march, and we agreed," Smith said.

Smith said the two groups will soon put together an organizing committee which will help Tyler carry out the day-to-day planning and organizing for the event Smith said the two groups have yet to develop a budget for the march. Organizers of the 1993 march released a finance report showing that event cost $1.8 million.

The fact that the planned 2000 march is being sponsored by two established, mainline Gay organizations and the fact that its title does not include the words "Gay" or "Lesbian" will likely please some and offend others in the Gay movement.

Each of the past three national Gay marches were proposed and organized by ad-hoc committees of Gay activists who were independent of the more established, national Gay political groups. Critics in the Gay movement have charged that the committees that organized the past three marches were dominated by left-wing oriented activists who did not represent the majority of Gay people in the United States. Leaders of the three marches disputed this assessment, saying they went to great lengths to elect members of the organizing committees from "grassroots" Gay communities throughout the country.

All of the established national Gay groups eventually signed on to endorse the past three Gay marches, even though members of these groups said they did not agree with all aspects of the events, especially the march platforms or lists of political "demands." In the 1993 march, for example, a 90-member steering committee adopted a 55-point platform which included planks calling for bilingual education and an end to "English only" laws in school districts, "equal economic opportunity and an end to poverty," "free substance abuse treatment on demand," and an "end to genocide of the various indigenous peoples and their cultures."

Organizers called the 1993 march the National March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation." Transgender activists and their supporters criticized the title for not including the word "transgender" and threatened to boycott the march. Talk of a boycott subsided after organizers agreed to add language calling for equal rights for transgendered persons in march literature.

The decision by HRC and MCC to leave the names of Gays and other minorities out of the title of the 2000 march comes on the heels of a decision last year by organizers of D.C.’s Gay Pride festival to remove the words "Gay" and "Lesbian" from that event. The Whitman-Walker Clinic, which sponsored the event, called, "Capital Pride Festival," said it chose that name to avoid a heated controversy over calls for adding an ever-expanding litany of categories of groups in the title.

Smith, the HRC spokesperson, said HRC and MCC have decided on the name "Millennium March on Washington for Equal Rights" because "keeping it simple adds to its strength." Smith said the two groups also decided there will be no litany of demands or detailed platforms associated with the 2000 march, although he said a planning committee will work out specific details for the event’s objectives and goals.

"The vision behind this march will be to keep it focused on equal rights," Smith said. Smith said the event will also push themes of Gay families and faith.

"The idea is to be inclusive," said Smith. "But it’s also focused. The main theme will be equal rights. The simplicity of that one theme should allow us to communicate more effectively with the rest of the country."

Tyler, in a telephone interview from her home in Los Angeles, said she strongly agrees with HRC and MCC’s vision for the 2000 march. She said that as a life-long "progressive," she has reassessed the workings of the past three national Gay marches and has come to the conclusion that organizers tended to have a bias against "mainstream" Gay people and their institutions, especially the Gay religious groups.

"I’m very proud to be doing this with HRC and MCC," Tyler said. She said she believes HRC’s positions and tactics on Gay and AIDS issues enjoys the support of the "overwhelming majority of Gay people in this country."

Added Tyler, "If there’s anything we’ve learned from the ’90s it’s that the majority of this movement is mainstream. You can’t deny this and there’s nothing wrong with this."

Smith said organizers of the 2000 march will not predict the number of people they expect to turn out for the event except to say they expect it to be the largest Gay civil rights event ever held. The 1993 march drew between 750,000 to 1 million people to the nation’s capital, according to estimates from various sources.