Jan 17th, 2006
“Secret” Plan Busted for Easter Egg Hunt
It was only a matter of time before the national event I referred to in a previous post would be named by an outside party, despite — and because of — an impossible request for the LGBT community to keep this one below radar.
Today, Mark D. Tooley’s article, A Gay Easter?” published in the online version of the Weekly Standard, reports on Family Pride Coalition’s plan to have LGBT families on the lawn of the White House on Easter morning. His article quotes heavily from an email distributed by Soulforce (referred to in my January 5th post as “Org. C”) and also refers to the publicly accessible page at Family Pride Coalition’s (”Org A”) website that announces the event.
It should be noted that the the publicly accessible page at Family Pride Coalition’s website has been changed since Tolley quoted from it. In November it asked that no one link to it and to keep it a secret. In December it said to not link, but email announcements were alright. Between my January 5th post and today, the site has changed again. The please-keep-it-quiet has been replaced with this message: “If you think this is a great idea and you want to be a part of it, please sign-up. Even if you’re not sure yet, we need you to sign up now so we can plan and organize effectively. If you sign up, we will continue to send you developing information about the event.”
As I stated in my January 5 post, Family Pride’s intention to keep this event secretive was silly, and it is naive for Soulfource and COLAGE (”Org. B”) to assume every person signed up on their mailing lists is down with the cause. Now conservative groups have the ammunition to paint LGBT organizations as sneaky for planning to, as Dooley puts it, “crash” the traditional event.
The moral of the story? Secrets backfire, and when they leak out, the clean-up is a lot messier than starting out with everything out in the open. Have the consequences of hiding in the closet taught our community nothing?
Thanks to Clif at “Outside the Tent” for comic relief: The Easter Bunny Hates Heather
Abigail, you’ve definitely been right about the whole “secrets” thing - dumb plan. Hopefully the idea will move forward and something positive will come of it, though.
I enjoy your blog, btw.