The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

On Thursday, June 30th, members of Indianapolis PFLAG joined with other community organizations at the Indiana Statehouse to protest the passage of several bills that will have negative impacts on women, LGBT people, immigrants, workers and teachers. Organized by Allison Luthe-Carter from Jobs With Justice, the statehouse rally was organized to let state legislators, as well as the citizens of Indiana, know that these are bad bills and will do nothing to help Hoosiers.

About 100 people gathered at 5:00 on a sunny afternoon. One of the goals of the organizers was to have all the participants get to know each other. So everyone present was given the task of participating in a human scavenger hunt. Each person was given a sheet of paper with ten tasks, such as "Find someone who has been arrested," and "Find someone who was born outside of Indiana." The sheets were then gathered and at the end of the rally, the person who got the most answers was given a prize.

This game might have been fun, but there was more to it than that. As I said before, the bills that have been passed are bad for Hoosiers. Luthe-Carter feels that there is strength in numbers. If all of these groups band together and work together, they will show the legislators that we cannot be divided.

When the scavenger hunt was concluded, Luthe-Carter stood on the Statehouse steps and explained what the rally was about. Also on the steps were about seven people, each holding a banner with the name of each bad bill. Each person explained what "their" bill was and then descended the steps, putting their banner into a dumpster made especially for this occasion. Finally, participants, myself included, carried the dumpster to the curb. This was symbolic and was to show that these bills are garbage and need to be thrown away.

Concluding the event, Janet "Skylark" Perkins-Prather, led the group in singing protest songs, ending with "We Shall Overcome." Arms linked, participants sang along and showed the legislature that we are one.

PFLAG members present were: Jan Nichols (Indy PFLAG president), Judi Egbert and myself. We are particularly upset that HJR-6 (the marriage discrimination bill) recently passed the House and Senate. I am glad that other organizations now know about this bill and will hopefully support us in our work to defeat it.