Actions
The Lesbian Avengers generally avoided traditional picket lines, sit-ins, and petitions, aiming instead for actions that created stronger, original images more likely to attract both media coverage and new members.
The Lesbian Avenger Handbook encouraged particular attention to the visual elements of the demonstration. "It should let people know clearly and quickly who we are and why we are there. NY Avengers have used a wide range of visuals such as fire eating, a twelve-foot shrine, a huge bomb, a ten-foot plaster statue, flaming torches, etc. The more fabulous, witty, and original, the better."
The targets of the Lesbian Avengers changed often. They have taken on homophobic school boards, misogyny in the gay community, and anti-gay referendums. Sometimes their positions seem to change, as well. In the early years, the group opposed attempts to legitimize gay marriage, protesting the notion at an Andrew Sullivan book signing in 1995. By 2008, the Avengers were protesting in favor of marriage equality, and in opposition to Proposition 8.
The New York Lesbian Avengers also developed a Lesbian Avenger Civil Rights Organizing Project, traveling across the country to fight anti-gay referendum and ballot propositions.
Read more about this topic: Lesbian Avengers
Famous quotes containing the word actions:
“Long ago I added to the true old adage of “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” another clause which, I think, more than any other principle has served to influence my actions in life. That is, What is nobody’s business is my business.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“Therefore all just persons are satisfied with their own praise. They refuse to explain themselves, and are content that new actions should do them that office. They believe that we communicate without speech, and above speech, and that no right action of ours is quite unaffecting to our friends, at whatever distance; for the influence of action is not to be measured by miles.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Now they express
All that’s content to wear a worn-out coat,
All actions done in patient hopelessness,
All that ignores the silences of death,
Thinking no further than the hand can hold,
All that grows old,
Yet works on uselessly with shortened breath.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)