Driving Equality

Day 2

We didn’t quite make it to Washington DC last night, as we got a late start and I needed to stop driving around 2:30AM. We pulled off the highway about an hour outside of the capital and slept in the van at a gas station. We still have a lot of organizing to do, so sleeping in the van was not all that comfortable. But we were very tired and feel asleep pretty quickly. In the morning we woke up and headed into the city. The traffic was terrible, but we made it to our first interview at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). 

We met with Marty Rouse, the National Field Director of HRC and Jeremy Pittman, the Deputy Field Director. I worked with both Marty and Jeremy at MassEquality during the height of the marriage battle in Massachusetts. Marty hired me in 2004 to help with electoral organizing after I ran a campaign for a candidate running for State Representative in central Massachusetts. I remember when he asked me to come into Boston to meet with him at MassEquality headquarters. I was so excited. We sat in his office, overlooking the gold dome of the State House, and he interviewed me for a place on the MassEquality team. He told me that the LGBT movement needed future leaders to emerge and that he saw me as a possible candidate. Then he asked me what I saw myself doing in five years. I told him that I was not sure, but that I wanted to become a part of this movement for equality. That was five years ago.

We conducted interviews with both Marty and Jeremy and then toured the huge HRC building. The interviews went well, as both Marty and Jeremy are amazing speakers and down-to-earth people.  I could not have asked for a better start to the project. We got a better understanding of the fight for LGBT equality on a national level and on a state-to-state basis. We talked about the disparities between the states and what is happening in different parts of the country. 

Tomorrow we are heading to Virginia!

If you like what we are doing, please make a contribution to keep us on the road.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.