Let me reiterate - we don't need another national march

I want to go into more detail about why I am totally against another march for lgbt rights.

For one thing, I am an eccentric idealist when it comes to national marches. I even refused to attend the Million March. In fact, I was set against it. The reason was that I figured why should I go to Washington, D.C. to make a commitment to my family and community when I could honor that commitment by staying home and working at my job like always. I didn't need to go to Washington to make a show of it.

The second reason is because of the memories I have of the 1993 Gay march in Washington. It was my first and last national march. I remember being disgusted by the vulgarity of some half naked individuals and mostly by the lack of a coherent plan other than demonstrating how mad we were.

I also remember the words of a gay-friendly columnist who said that based on the march, he couldn't tell what the lgbt community wanted. The problem with the 1993 March was that there were so many groups, factions, and different interpretations of lgbt rights that it was difficult to get all of those groups unified.

My guess is the same thing will happen with this march. Hell, the only folks who may benefit from this march will be religious right figures who will no doubt film the lack of discipline that many of us will probably demonstrate.

The idea that the lgbt community should have a huge march only underlines our huge problem. It seems like we are trying to end the fight for lgbt rights with a quick knockout rather than a strategic dismantling of discrimination and ignorance.

I fail to see how a public showing of our anger will do us any good if we can't articulate that anger into something productive. All a March on Washington would demonstrate is that we enjoy transitory visibility and symbolic anger but don't have the wherewithal to translate that symbolic anger into positive action.

Maybe it's time that we start looking at things on a state-by-state basis. The Christian Coalition began by taking over area school boards. Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America are connected by statewide organizations.

Why can't we do the same thing? With so many statewide lgbt groups in existence, have we ever thought of meeting, sharing resources, and drafting plans for our individual communities?

That would make more sense than a useles public showing of anger.