Nonviolence Begins Within

My friend and Soulforce Q director Haven Herrin included this message in the most recent Soulforce update. As always, her way with words does justice to her insight.

Last week, Soulforce offered a call to action. Now is the time to take it to the streets, we said, and people are indeed peacefully rising up across the country in response to the passing of Proposition 8. Never has the need been greater to reach out to hearts and minds, as we are seeing in Arkansas, Arizona, California and Florida the legislative effects of hearts that have not heard us.

And with that challenge to action, I would like to add the equally important call to be nonviolent within the LGBT community. Blaming any one "demographic" of citizens for the passing of Proposition 8 does not stand up to the scrutiny of statistics, and it drives a wedge into our community. Process matters, and in honoring that dictum, morality and decency ask that we work even harder to make the LGBT community a safe space for all, regardless of ethnicity, faith, ability, or class. It is important to support our fellow activists in our layered, diverse identities. A beautiful aspect of the LGBT community is that we are everywhere; none of us is one-dimensional in our identities, and all of us are part of a web of social justice issues, including but not limited to LGBT equality, that must progress.

I hope that we may all be diverse in our allied communities and in our work. Nonviolence is not just for reaching out to our adversaries. It is also for building relationships that comprise a safe, strong network that supports all activists in coming out, sharing stories, and changing the hearts of our friends, family, co-workers, faith leaders, and neighbors.

Soulforce is working toward embodying all that nonviolence requires of us. Please visit the Soulforce website to learn about our work at the intersections of identity during the American Family Outing this past spring, or engage with our current work in the same vein in the Equality Ride.

Haven Herrin
Director of Soulforce Q

Read the original call to action by Executive Director Jeff Lutes at www.365gay.com/opinion/soulforce-time-to-take-it-to-the-streets