NEWSBYKENZIE SEAL

The guest post below is written by Kenzie Seal, the Chief Financial Officer for the National Marriage Boycott (NMB).  NMB is a student-led movement for marriage equality, and they could win a $10,000 grant from Ideablob if they get enough votes.  Read Kenzie's reflection below, and please vote for them at Ideablob. (Photo above by Urvashi Nagrani.)

A reluctant activist—that’s what I’ve always considered myself.

When I walked onto Stanford’s campus as a freshman last year, I had no intention of getting involved in activism. I wanted to focus on settling in and making friends and going to parties—oh, and school too. The last thing I wanted to do was distract myself by picking up a wealth of extracurricular activities.

But the placement of Proposition 8 on California’s ballot last year left me with no choice. As a gay man, I couldn’t not get involved in the No on 8 Campaign. The idea of doing nothing but watch as my civil rights were put up for popular vote was absolutely inconceivable—really, I had no alternative but to do something.

And so I begrudgingly joined Stanford’s No on 8 Campaign, and soon found myself getting steadily more involved. Before I knew it—and I’m still not quite sure how I let this happen—I was leading phone banks twice a week and helping to run Stanford’s entire No on 8 infrastructure.

I took solace in the fact that, come November 4th, I would be done. If I did my job right, Proposition 8 would go down in flames—and I’d be able to lay aside all this political, activisty kerfuffle and go on my merry way, content that I had done my civic duty, fulfilling my obligation to my fellow man. I was just taking a brief hiatus from my simple life of personal endeavors and self-centered concerns—but I would be back in no time.

Yet, as we all well know, the voters of California had a different future for me in mind, and I would not be let off the hook so easily. My job was not done—and I found I could not walk away.

Sometime around midnight on election night, a group of Stanford students who had fought against Proposition 8 gathered, regrouped, and pondered our next move. The result? A student organization “dedicated to justice and liberation for queers across the nation”—a tall order of business, to be sure. And while we promptly set about organizing all the protests and rallies we college students are so fond of, I still maintained my doubts about our abilities to achieve this goal.

That is, until the idea of boycotting marriage altogether was proposed. The idea was simple: members of the boycott would pledge not to marry until everyone could, and, as a symbol of their pledge, they would wear an Equality Ring on their left hand.

The idea was simple—but it was also immensely powerful.

And as we launched this campaign at Stanford we began to realize its full potential. The campaign’s reception was tremendous; people clamored to take the pledge and make such a strong and public a commitment to equality. We began to explore the idea of taking the boycott to other schools, and soon found a host of other student leaders equally eager to join and spread the boycott.

As this amorphous marriage boycott campaign evolved into the concretely defined and increasingly recognized National Marriage Boycott, I found myself more and more inextricably involved. As we transformed NMB into its own entity and reached out to campuses across the nation, a few hours of my time a week gradually became a full-time job.

Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, that reluctant activist had become an executive officer in an emerging non-profit organization. It was a baffling transformation—and clear evidence of occult forces at work in the world.

But be that as it may, here we stand: nearly a year after the passage of Proposition 8, with more than 20 branches of National Marriage Boycott organized in more than 10 states—and dozens more sure to come. From where I stand, it is pretty clear: I see a national movement coming, poised for action and demanding change.

And this is a movement like no other. This a political campaign which is not run by politicians, and this is a grassroots movement which is not run by seasoned organizers—this is a movement which is run by a high school kid struggling against an oppressive school system, and a college kid trying to stir his complacent classmates into action, and by a legion of self-proclaimed activists at Stanford, and by so many more people from as many different worlds—gay, straight, married, unmarried, and everything in between.

But we do have one thing in common: we are all young and naïve enough to believe that we can change the world—and that’s what gives us our power. Because we are so committed to this issue, and we care so much more than our opposition.

Because we care about every little detail: we care about tax benefits and social security, we care about the dignity of official governmental recognition, we care about family visitation rights, and we care about next-of-kin status in medical emergencies. We care about the very ideals of justice and equality.

And we care about the often-unseen bigger picture too: the fact that LGBTQ youth are four times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers—no doubt largely due to the unequal and inferior status their government bestows upon them. Let me tell you, that’s not an easy thing to live with—and let me also tell you, this fight is about a lot more than just marriage.

At the end of the day, we care about these things because we can see the severity of the problem, even when others may not.

And so I remind myself, reluctant or not, I have an obligation to help fix this problem. After all, somebody’s got to do it.

And so I have no choice.

Come join me in this fight.

Join the National Marriage Boycott: go to www.nationalmarriageboycott.com to sign the pledge and get your Equality Ring.

Help NMB win some badly-needed funding by voting for us in a competition to win $10,000 on Ideablob.com.

(Photo above by Urvashi Nagrani.)