Some advice from a highly respected professional on the need for a timely response from the LGBTQ community to breaking news.  This regards the Rick Warren situation, but certainly applies to local, regional and statewide issues as well.  This sums up exactly what went wrong when the State Legislature announced a Pittsburgh based hearing on the Marriage Protection Amendment last spring --- an uncoordinated, slow response to disseminate information and a failure to utilize contacts in the new social media.  We MUST do a better job and capitalize on the groundswell of grassroots energy by strategically responding so we can control the dialogue.  I hope Equality Advocates under new leadership will take a statewide approach to coordinating this infrastructure. 

We don't need more groups.  We need to invest our more precious resource -- ourselves -- into the existing groups to give them the tools they need to be more effective.  If you are feeling jazzed by Join the Impact, I implore you not to start a new Pittsburgh chapter or a new group period.  Get yourself to a Steel City Stonewall or a Gertrude Stein Club meeting.  Join the PFLAG Advocacy committtee.  Find out what's happening in the loosely organized LGBTQ faith communities around advocacy.  Join the Pride Committee.  Help organize the Dyke March. Then bring those folks to the Join the Impact events.  Join the Impact should be a TOOL, not a new organization.  The title says it all ... JOIN, not START an impact.  We need you!