By Sharon Gittleman
LANSING – Dawn Broderick is a patient woman. Broderick, senior co-chair of Michigan Pride, is determined to push for equal rights for the LGBT community – until she achieves her goal.
"It took the Civil War for African-Americans to be recognized as human beings and not property," she said. "It took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to codify those rights for Americans. I don't foresee our fight for human rights taking 100 years. But I'm not ready to give up now."
Michigan Pride is sponsoring a March on Lansing at 1 p.m. on June 12, from Riverfront Park to the Capital building, to call for equal rights for all. The float and March line-up begins at noon. A rally will follow the procession.
At the event, attendees can fill out cards telling their legislators how they feel about the legal handicaps faced by gays and lesbians. A music festival and the Dancing in the Streets post pride party will close out the day's activities.
Broderick believes the movement to permanently bar gays and lesbians' right to marry is the LGBT community's biggest challenge.
"They want to write discrimination into the Constitution," she said.
It's not just members of the political right that stand behind these efforts," said Michigan Pride Secretary Sarah Mieras.
"I call them radical heterosexual activists," she said.
Both women hope the Lansing March will be a step toward eliminating the legal handicaps faced by the LGBT community.
"Whenever you have a rally, it's not to educate the straight people – it's to inform our own community and to get them inspired to change the world," she said. "It's not just a party."
Last year, Mieras said, Michigan Pride and Michigan Equality gathered over 5,000 signatures on postcards asking legislators to add protection against discrimination based on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the state's Elliott Larson Civil Rights Act.
There's power in numbers in Mieras' view.
"We had over 960 zip codes listed out of the 1000 zip codes in Michigan," she said. "We handed them to the Michigan senate in a huge mailbag. There's more than one conservative senator in Michigan who had to look at a stack of these and say, 'I've got gay constituents.'"
The decision to sign a postcard was some gay peoples' first step toward becoming more politically active, Mieras said.
"This year, there's a box on the postcard asking people to number their interests," she said.
The lack of workplace protections for gays, marriage rights, second parent adoption rights and the safety of gay kids in schools are just a few of the concerns listed on the cards.
"Our goal is for 10,000 of these to be signed," she said. "Hopefully, we'll be able to visit every senator and representative."
Broderick said the June 12 event will be Michigan Pride's 16th March on Lansing, an effort begun when state civil rights legislation failed to pass through both houses.
"Ever since then, Michigan Pride has been calling attention to the fact that members of Michigan's LGBT community are second class citizens," she said.
The Absolut Pride Comedy Extravaganza, including band performances and casino games, will precede the rally at 7 p.m. on June 11, at The Temple Club, located at 500 E. Grand River Ave., in Lansing. Tickets are available online. To find out more, set your browser to http://www.michiganpride.org on the Internet.
