Is "Join the Impact" the Stonewall of the Next Generation?

by Michael A. Jones

Published November 15, 2008 @ 06:10AM PT

Join the Impact, the Web site started by an activist in Seattle LAST FRIDAY because of a conversation she had with a friend in Cleveland, has become the talk of the netroots this week, snagging articles in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times this morning, and getting a shout out from MoveOn in a mass email blast. On their first day online, JointheImpact.com had 50,000 hits. Within days, it would eclipse one million hits (and two overloaded servers!).

The concept is simple, and has some people - including the site's founder, Amy Balliett - suggesting that "Join the Impact" may be the Stonewall that this generation of LGBT rights activists needs to band together as a community.

Last week, Balliett was talking to Willow Witte, a friend and activist from Cleveland. Witte wanted to do something locally in Cleveland to protest the passage of Proposition 8, but was finding it hard to organize. At the end of the conversation, Balliett and Witte decided to start Join the Impact, a Web site calling for a nationwide day of action to protest Proposition 8. Neither were anticipating the momentum that the site would gather. After a week of organizing, activists will gather today at 1:30pm EST around the globe to protest Proposition 8. At last count, there were 8 countries hosting rallies, in 300 cities. Here in the States, there's a rally in every single one of the 50 states.

A nationwide day of action. Built in just over one week. I guess "Field of Dreams," was right: If you build it, they will come. And come out in droves.

In today's NY Times (which also has an excellent piece on how the Mormon church played the defining role in passing Proposition 8), Balliett compares the Join the Impact effort with the Stonewall Riots of 1969, and talks about how if the Stonewall crowd had the social media we have today, the national implications of Stonewall would have been rapid. Though many attribute Stonewall as the defining moment when the gay rights liberation and pride movement was born, it took weeks and months for the reverberations to carry across the country.

Join the Impact has done that in a week.

We'll see what turnout is like today (the weather in the Northeast is supposed to be wet and cold, but I hope that doesn't stop people!), but it's clear that Join the Impact may be filling a void here in becoming the online organizing presence of the national gay rights movement. After today's day of action, organizers are planning a national "Day Without Gays" for December 10, where supporters of LGBT rights stay home from work, stay home from shopping malls, stay home from class, eat-in instead of going out to restaurants, stop blogging (ahem...) -- all to show the country that LGBT rights supporters make up a crucial component of our daily life, and that despite efforts (like Proposition 8) to demonize and eliminate rights, we won't sit back and be silent.

We'll see how it goes. Rome wasn't built in a day. But then again, had Join the Impact been around, maybe it would have been.