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Editorial

Dear Mr. President:

During the weekend of April 24 - 25
there will be a great gathering of Amer-
icans in Washington, DC. It will be the
third March on Washington for Lesbian,
Gay and Bi Equal Rights. It will be a
celebration unlike any the Capital has
ever seen. People of all backgrounds
will be there, all national origins, all rac-
es, all religions and non-religions, all
ages all genders and those who transcend
gender, HIV positive and negative, and
of course, all sexual orientations. We
will be together in a great gathering to re-
joice in our experiences, similar and dif-
ferent. We will be together in hope and
in anger, in determination and in despair.

In 1979, when I was in Washington for
the first L/G/B March, the city was de-
serted for the weekend. There was only
us and the police. The only recognition I
received from someone outside those who
had travelled to DC was when I was head-
ing home with a carload of tired friends,
from a toll collector, who saw the placard
in my car window and answered his own
question: “So that's why there is so much
traffic on a Sunday night.” There was lit-
tle coverage in the press. Very few of the
gay men and lesbians I knew went, es-
timates for total attendance were in the
tens of thousands, maybe one hundred
thousand. We proved to ourselves that we
could do it. It was a long way from the
Stonewall Riots of 1969.

In 1987., we filled the city. Same sex cou-
ples and groups of friends roamed the city
and asked strangers to take their pictures
in front of the statue of Lincoln over-
looking the Mall. We were tourists, not at
a gay resort but at the nation's capital. I
was surprised who was there that week-
end; in addition to some of the same peo-
ple I had shared my car with a decade ear-
lier, were some of the most conservative
and closeted men I knew; total attendance
was estimated in the hundreds of thou-
sands, maybe as many as half a million.
The Names Project Quilt was spread out
on the Mall for the first time. Waves of
people walked among the panels, stooping
to touch the fabric, to touch an em-
broidered object of a loved one, to stand
in silence with tears streaming down our
cheeks for those who had died, for those
who had yet to die, for those who had yet
to become infected and for our frustration
at the slowness of change. Woopie Gold-
berg asked the question on all our minds
“How long, Mr President?” How much
longer must this go on? How many more
must die? How much longer will we be

2

treated as less then human? The President
was never to answer those questions.

It was a time of joy and sorrow. There
was a wedding for thousands of us who
cannot legally marry in front of the IRS
building. People wept at the Vietnam
Memorial and at a memorial for Harvey
Milk. There was dancing and great cel-
ebrating from sunrise to sunrise. The
weekend was the most positive, self-
affirrning time in my life. My face ached
from smiling so much. When the plane
lifted off from National Airport and cir-
cled over the city with its monuments lit
in the rosy glow of sunset, cheers and ap
plause filled the plane. We had come as
individuals, not knowing what we would
find and left as a large and growing clan,
taking home with us a pride and dignity
that would not tolerate the lack of press
coverage, that would push through state
gay equal rights legislation (in seven
states now), that would work for benefits
for our lovers, that would work in co-
alitions and not maintain the silence of
the past, that would help elect the 42nd
President of the United States.

In 1993, the crowd will be even larger.
Almost everyone I know who is gay or
lesbian identified is talking about going.
With expectations of a million people,
this will be a weekend without precedent.
There is much to celebrate, there is much
still to accomplish. Undoing the past 12
years is no small task, but it is too easy
an answer to lay it all on the doorstep of
the past two administrations; the ban on
gays in the military, for example, is fifty
years old. We are tired of being con-
venient scapegoats, of being talked about
as though we weren't part of every family
in this nation. We are wary of good
words and good intentions. Wasn't it the
good intentions of the medical com-
munity to label us ill and then offer to
cure us that was the rationalization for
much of the institutional discrimination
we face? Don't the churches which fan
the fire of hatred toward us also preach to
love thy neighbor?

Our sheer numbers will speak for them-
selves, but numbers are only a small part
of our story. Come and join us on Sun-
day as we gather by state and march
through the streets, the organized groups
and the multitudes of individuals. Come
into the crowd and speak with us, one on
one. Hear our stories. Overhear what we
share among ourselves. Experience the
grit and color of our daily lives. Come
with your staff and survey the crowd for
yourself. The media will provide the