by Charles P. Sheen, Current President, Prism NY April 30, 2008
For a few weeks now, I had been looking forward to yesterday’s trip to Albany for LGBT Equality and Justice Day. To me this trip was going to be a mini adventure, because I had never been to the capital to lobby my representatives for anything before. I knew my reps names and I voted for some of them, but the though of going to the capital building to speak with my assembly person or senator about anything for me seemed daunting and somewhat intimidating. Picture me, one little person, driving to our states capital building to talk to someone in-charge.
I’m not sure who I thought I was; Toto came to mind, but he actually had a bark before he cowed back under the flap into his basket. Immediately following the Toto flash, uncontrollably, the image of my face on gingham gowned Dorothy popped out of my subconscious into my minds eye for a short moment before I gasped a Homer Simpson “Doh!” and blacked it out too. These things happen to me when I drive. I don’t understand why; I just accept it and move on.
The idea for me to attend Equality and Justice Day came from Bill Kirschgasser. At some point during the “Out At The Movies” film festival poster removal issue, he voiced a blanket invitation for anyone to join him. I think that this was Bill’s fourth or fifth trip to Equality and Justice Day. After I naively arrived at the capital building, I was so glad to have him as a guide; it made all the difference to me, once I was in that maze that is the empire state plaza, to have a friend in sight. I thought I was prepared, at least a little, for this trip; wrong. In my haste to leave the morning of the trip, which for me was at about five am, I'd left the paperwork on my kitchen table. “Doh!” number two.
To get to the Empire State Plaza (ESP) according to the agenda, I had to leave Canton around five to six am. Ok ok I got out of the house just before six. So as usual, I’m on the tail end of the schedule. The trip from Canton to the Albany area was as it uneventful, as it always is. I often travel to the Albany area for work: Note to readers - I always avoid downtown. Actually I like driving in the early morning hours in the non snow season. The light is gentle and it seems dewy out. Fresh. It is a shame I’m not awake for most of these drives. On the trip “to” I made it a point to stop in Saratoga at Starbucks for a chia latte. Since I found this store on another trip to the NY State military museum at the armory there, I’ve made chia stops a Charlie thing. It was after I got back onto 87 south and saw a few “Albany” signs that I realized I had left the directions on the kitchen table too. Double “Doh!” and a Damn. A quick call to the recently retired Fred P, saved the day (sort of). Thanks Fred. From where I was at that point, having already missed the familiar route 787 into North Albany, I needed to take the dreaded Central Ave into the city. If you have ever been to down town Albany, as a visitor you’ll remember with eye straining horror how small the stylish text is on their very small ornamental street signs. I swear some DMV commissioner must be co owner in a local fender bender repair shop. Not to worry. I navigated through with only a few missed turns. Fred P told me to take Lark to State and voila the ESP would be right there. Hum…. Not so fast. After the first few missed signs voila weren’t the first thing popping into my mind. It didn’t even start with a “v.” It’s cute they way a lot of the streets are named after birds; I spied Robin street as I was bop bop boppin’ down Central Ave. And there was Dove, Partridge, etc. None of which gave me a clue if I was getting closer to the lovely Lark. Maybe there is a hierarchy to that species that is unknown to me. The engineer in me wonders what is wrong with numbers; sequential numbers. At least then you could count down and know when your close. Finally, after wrangling through the city streets I come to the excessively huge ESP. To be brief I’ll summarize. It took over an hour to find some place to park. Tellingly, I’m no urbanite. But parking where I did on a narrow little street, which belied its name “Grand Ave.” seemed more than a little dicey to me. I had been over, through and under every other conceivable street, parking garage etcetera. They were all full. “Grand” Ave was the closest that I could find and I was already late. From that little street, the walk was a few blocks over and up to get to the Madison Ave entrance to the ESP. It is huge. And although there were signs, I initially missed the registration.
After going through a security screening twice I found myself in the old capital building looking for the Empire State Pride Agenda organization that was hosting the lobby day. After “touring” this beautiful building looking for the group, I did find a few members and asked them. The only thing they could tell me is that there was a rally outside at eleven thirty. I continued to look for Bill K. and the Northern New York contingent. Bill and I had exchanged cell phone numbers. I called. I had to leave a message. As I kept looking around the building I found myself looking out a wall of windows onto the plaza and the rally that I was missing. I tried to open the doors and they were looked. After going down a few flights, over a few, back up a few I finally did the unmanly thing and asked some dweeb for directions. I found my way around a building and to the park where the rally was in progress.
	It was amazing. I’m told there were about fourteen hundred people at the lobby days from all over the state. A good number of them were one big swell rallying outside in the windy forty plus degree chilly windy weather. It was impressive. The group was very lively and vociferous and lively. Several speakers mounted the podium and addressed the crowd speaking of fairness, New York State’s historical leadership in civil rights issues and how we as a group needed to press our legislators to advance our legislation forward. I was starting to feel very less just one small person and more of a big group. A substantial group.
The rally was successful in energizing me. I also found Bill in the rally crowd as I took pictures. After the rally we all headed on mass back to the plaza to the box lunch and then to actually lobby our legislators. During our lunch break Bill and I planned out where our representatives were and who we would be speaking to. We have Senator Aubertine in office now as a new senator. Our district, the 118th is vacant now. We were assigned to lobby Joan Christensen from the 119th district, whose district is south of ours and covers central New York and vicinity.
Although we did not have an appointment with Deirdre Scozzafava we were planning on a “pop in” just to say “HI” and maybe drop off some information. If you’re not aware of it the three bills that were are lobbing for are GENDA, Protection from transgender discrimination (Bill # A. 6584a/S. 3753a), Marriage and family equality (Bill # A. 8590 /S. 5884) and Safe Schools for LGBT youth. (Bill # A. 3196/S. 1571). As I said, I’ve never lobbied before. Bill coached me and it was a big help. At this point I was still feeling a bit intimidated at the thought of the face to face meetings with the legislators. Bill explained that we probably would not be meeting directly with the assemblyperson/senator; more than likely we would meet with a staff person and that was the case in our first meeting with assemblywoman Christensen’s director of communication Chris Stewart. Bill and I were with a group of seven others from the central New York area. We all introduced ourselves to Chris and then several of the delegation spoke of their personal stories and difficulties living as a LGBT person. It was very moving. I think that we made an impression on Chris. Assemblywoman Christensen was supported the dignity for all students in the past and was a 2008 co sponsor of GENDA. Bill and I talked to Chris about people we know who are hampered by not having equal marriage protection and how it affects them, their families. At two o’clock we meet with Senator Aubertine’s staff member Susan. In this group we were with some members from Central Square and the Watertown area. Senator Aubertine has supported the dignity for all students bill but not the others. Our group of seven talked to Susan about our experiences for about one half an hour. It was a heartening talk in which she related that she thinks her own nephew is coming out as a gay young man and their family is trying to work through the process. It was nice to talk with someone who can relate to our issues. We left Senator Aubertine’s office and walked to assemblywoman Scozzafava’s office which was about two miles away. Unfortunately no one was in the office. To be fair, we did not have an appointment.
The appointments were set up based upon the addresses of the attendees and since neither Bill nor I are in her district no appointment was made. We did however not want to make our presence known, so I ripped my LGBT sticker and placed it on her mailbox. I believe that I’ve read where she has been supportive in the past. I hope she likes our note.
I left equality and justice day with the feeling that I was successful. Yes, I was tired. It had been a long day and seemingly I’d walked for miles and miles. I have no idea if I had advanced any of the three pieces of legislation with either of the three representatives or their staff that I spoke with. LGBT persons are only one constituency and trying to change someone’s mind isn’t an easy task. For me, the bigger part of the goal was my participation in the process. For me, it is the next rung above voting or writing a letter. It is the active one-on-one involvement in trying to get a better world for myself and my friends. I was completely successful at trying. It is a good feeling. This year, as best as I know, Bill and I represented Northern NY. I hope next year we more people will join us. Road trips are more fun with more people. For more information check out these websites. Empire State Pride Agenda Marriage Equality New York