Soulforce: Tell New York Senate Leader, ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’

SoulforceQ, the young adult division of Soulforce, is telling citizens of the State of New York and folks around the country to send a strong message to New York Senate Majority Leader, Republican Senator Joseph Bruno. The Senator, who heads the New York Senate’s Rules Committee, had refused to put New York’s Marriage Equality bill on the floor for debate and is making no signs that he will ever do so in the near future. The bill has through 2008 to pass, or else it will die and must be resubmitted for 2009.

Photo right: SoulforceQ members with openly gay Nyack mayor John Shields (credit: Ricky Flores, The Journal News).

With this reality, SoulforceQ is urging citizens to send Senator Bruno a pair of their own shoes, with a short statement on why marriage matters to them, in order to tell Bruno their stories and life experiences. The “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” campaign is a part of SoulforceQ’s Right to Marry Campaign, of which I have been participating since June 14th. The Right to Marry Campaign will end on June 28th, but the shoe campaign will continue! We must let Senator Bruno know what it is like to live our lives and “walk in our shoes.”

The shoe campaign has gotten some media coverage, although not much yet… and we hope there will be more.

From Lower Hudson Online:

A group of young activists is calling on New Yorkers to clear their closets of old sneakers, stilettos and Oxfords and send them to the state capital.

The old shoes are being packed and shipped to Albany to the office of New York state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, carrying a message in support of a bill that would allow same-sex marriage.

“We’re saying walk a mile in our shoes and then perhaps you will be less likely to stymie the progress of this marriage-equality bill,” said Matthew Nelson, a member of Soulforce Q, the young adult division of Soulforce, an organization that promotes equal rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Eight activists from Soulforce Q have made Nyack their base over the past week, planning and coordinating trips throughout Rockland and Westchester to try to gain support for their Right to Marry Campaign.

They have canvassed communities -including Nyack, Tarrytown, Chappaqua and Irvington - asking people to send their shoes to Bruno along with a message asking him to support the bill.

“We want to inundate his office with these shoes to send a message that he needs to allow this to go the Senate floor to be voted,” said Nelson, co-director for Soulforce Q’s South Bus, one of four Soulforce buses traveling throughout the state.

Nelson did not know how many pairs of shoes had been sent because the team had encouraged people to send them as individuals.

You can read the rest of that article here.

Also… our Facebook group for the campaign has already reached over 700 members and we hope it will grow.

Will you help make this campaign a national one? Can you help push Senator Bruno to have our stories and experiences heard on the Senate floor?

OF COURSE YOU CAN!

Send a pair of your old shoes, with a letter telling your own personal story as an LGBT person, an ally or family member, or just a supportive citizen to:

Senator Joseph L. Bruno
Legislative Office Building, Rm: 909
Albany, NY 12247

If you send your shoes, be sure to snap a photo before you package them and send the photo (and perhaps a copy of your story/letter) to katie@soulforce.org.

Posted in Right to Marry Campaign |