National Equality March, Washington DC

This weekend I went to Washington DC to photograph the National Equality March. It was an absolutely amazing experience! Hundreds of thousands of people descended on our nation capitals this weekend to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the West Lawn in front of the Capitol building for a rally. It was amazing to see that many people come together to fight an injustice. The power of the gay-straight alliance was so clearly seen and I really believe that it will make a difference. While it was amazing to see so many people there on Sunday, it is really important that people continue to fight for their rights everyday and convince others to do so. A lot of straight people think that gay rights is not their issue, but it is. Civil rights and liberties should be universal- they effect everyone. If in the 60’s white people decided that the civil rights movement was a “black issue” it would have greatly hindered the cause. I was so proud to be there and be part of this historic moment. Seeing hundreds of thousands of people marching together for the cause, there was no way to tell if someone was gay, straight, bi, or transgendered and it didn’t matter, it was just a massive amount of people marching for what they believe in. As a straight Jewish woman, there are always so many causes near and dear to my heart and it is so easy and natural for me to jump on the bandwagon of many causes. It is so important though that we look outside ourselves to our friends, family, community and even strangers and fight for causes near and dear to their hearts too, because a human rights cause effects all humans- there should be no “my” or “their” causes, just ours.

It is not enough just to say that you support these rights, everyone must stand up and act. My favorite chant from yesterday, which will be forever stuck in my head, is

Gay, Straight, Black or White, We demand our Civil Rights.

For more information check out:
www.equalityacrossamerica.org

Photos After the Jump