The National Marriage Boycott: Bringing Progressive Change to a Campus Near You

by Michael Jones · 2010-06-17 14:10:00 UTC
Topics:

NMBSummer time means conference circuit for many folks. There's Netroots Nation, Stonewall Democrats, and of course, Campus Progress, which tips off July 7-8. Imagine upwards of 1,000 attendees, plus thousands upon thousands of other folks online, all bantering together to network and come up with creative ideas for social change.

Now imagine a gay rights group founded by and directed by college students addressing all of these folks. Wouldn't that be a really cool thing to see happen?

Cue the National Marriage Boycott. The group formed in the wake of Proposition 8 at Stanford University as a means of bringing together other like-minded students under a simple purpose: until everyone has the legal right to get married, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, no one should get married. Thus, folks who sign the National Marriage Boycott pledge make a commitment not to tie the knot until marriage equality spread across the country.

The National Marriage Boycott has spread like wildfire over the past year, moving beyond the halls of Stanford and to college campuses and high schools across the country. They have another chance to take their message to a broad audience, but they need our help to do it.

National Marriage Boycott Executive Leader Alok Vaid-Menon is nominated to be one of Campus Progress's keynote speakers at their upcoming July conference, along with seven others. Voting is going on now, and ends tonight at midnight, so if you want to see the National Marriage Boycott snag a national stage, head on over here and cast your vote for Alok. It's easy. Click the link, give Alok a "10" on the rating scale, and then stay tuned to see if the most prominent youth-founded gay rights organization in the country gets a national platform at Campus Progress.

And if you're curious about Alok and his message, check out a YouTube clip after the jump, where Alok spells out his words for progressives.

"We are demanding queer progressive change in communities across this nation," Alok says. "How can America be the land of the free when LGBT people must fight for the right to love? We are America, because we are raising our voices, we are showing that to be an American is not to be heterosexual; it's to be active, and to speak against the social injustice that defeats us and deafens us."

Elegant and inspiring. Let's get Alok up on a national stage. Campus Progress today ... Congress tomorrow? One can hope...

Photo credit: National Marriage Boycott

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
A Portrait of Pope Benedict XVI's Big Gay Wedding
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (12)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.