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Protesters in D.C. on Nov. 15 express their opposition to California's Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage there. Bottom, Kellan Baker at the D.C. protest, which he organized under the Join the Defense umbrella. (Blade photos by Henry Linser and Joey DiGuglielmo)
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HOME > OUT IN DC > COVER
By: JOEY DiGUGLIELMO COMMENTS
 
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Impact protest, much the same way. Baker, a California native, has only been in the District since July, but, like hundreds of others, stumbled on Balliett and Witte’s web site in post-8 frustration.
“I just saw that they’d put a call out for community organizers, so I put my name down,” Baker, a transsexual man, says.
There were enough young people fired up that finding organizers wasn’t hard.
“Surprisingly, it was really easy,” Balliett says. “So many people stepped up to the plate. We had about 200 cities on the march by Tuesday night. We didn’t have to go find them — they were coming to us.”
Some observers are wondering where the national gay groups were and why they didn’t plan the protests.
Early on, Witte and Balliett contacted “a bunch” of national gay organizations.
“Nobody responded,” Balliett says.
It didn’t take long, though, for Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force to weigh in.
“They initially said it was such short notice that they couldn’t be involved,” Baker says of HRC. “But then [HRC president] Joe Solmonese sent out an e-mail encouraging their people to get involved. We got an e-mail from the Task Force, too, encouraging their members to support the event.”
Balliett and Witte say that though they moved quickly, they were merely trying to get something planned as soon as possible.
The national groups say they fully support the protesters’ efforts.
“We see the Join the Impact momentum as very much in concert with the spirit of the Task Force,” says Sue Hyde, director of the Task Force’s Creating Change Conference. “We recognize public demonstration as a very important part of the process so we think it’s great.”
Hyde, a Boston lesbian, was the kick-off speaker at her city’s Saturday protest. Her work with Massachusetts Equality, the state gay rights group there, had put her in contact with Join the Impact organizers, some of whom had also been affiliated with the state Equality group.
HRC’s Brad Luna says the possibility of a Prop. 8 protest was “certainly discussed” within the organization.
“It is important for us to continue to be an organization that is flexible and responsive in the most strategic way possible to whatever situation our community is confronted with,” Luna says. “In the aftermath of Prop. 8, we continue to explore all options because our guiding principle isn’t what we will or won’t do as an organization, our guiding principle is based on what we believe is the most appropriate, and strategically best, ro
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