Today, we set out on the road.  Our formal training as a group has been completed, we’ve all spent some quality time together getting to know each other, and our sense of dedication to our objective has been refined and strengthened.  I know that personally, these last few days have been most valuable not for the knowledge imparted – though I’ve learned so much that I wonder if my brain can contain it all - but for the sense I’ve gained that my comrades on this journey are all talented, passionate and extremely hardworking individuals.

Better than that, I can honestly say that the Central Van already considers itself to be a group of good friends.  As I sit here typing, most of them are in the kitchen of the church that has generously provided us with hospitality, preparing a meal (I’m out here because one, we still have some research to do before tomorrow’s meetings, and two, you really don’t want me in a kitchen if you can at all avoid it.)  Breaking bread together binds a group tighter, and so I’m taking this meal as a sign of a good beginning.

Thinking about how excited I am about working with this unique group of individuals, I do have to pause to reflect on this morning, when the entire group of the SoulForce “Right to Marry” campaign went our separate ways – I’m going to miss the people on the other vans.  One van set out early this morning, while the other three first journeyed to New York’s capitol building in Albany.  While we were there we met with the local press to discuss our campaign and to take a few photos…and then it was time to say good-bye for now, and to eagerly await coming back together in New York City, with many a story to tell.

(Several hours later.)

During training, my mantra was “know your enemy; know yourself; love your enemy as yourself.”  Since getting on the road, I’ve added a second slogan – “TIA: this is activism.”  Accidentally drive an hour north into the Adirondacks instead of west on your way to Syracuse? Enjoy the scenery; this is activism.  It’s midnight, you have no internet access, and you desperately need information on the lawmakers you’re meeting with tomorrow?  Get out there and find some free wireless; this is activism.

That was the situation we found ourselves in last night, and so Julia and I hopped into the van for an exploratory mission into small town New York.  We found a local Paneras, parked, and enjoyed the sound of gentle rainfall as we hunted for directions to Senator Valesky’s office, his districts demographics and other vital information.  What does it say about you when that sort of thing is an adrenaline rush?

I don’t know, but it just seemed to suit the trip so far.  If something needs to happen, we find a way to make it happen.  In New York, we see a need for marriage equality – it’s time to make that happen, too.  This is activism.

Hello all - I’m Casey Pick, one of the co-directors of the Central Route van on the inaugural Soulforce “Right to Marry” campaign.  After joining Haven yesterday morning in picking up our van from the rental agency, and making the painstaking drive out of New York City – I now have tremendous respect for cabbies – I finally had the pleasure of meeting some of the other “Right to Marry” Riders face to face.  We have spent months preparing for this campaign, and hours on the phone
in conference calls or in sending e-mails back and forth across the country, but there is something special about actually seeing somebody in the flesh.  They become more real to you, and for me, that meant the campaign itself truly coming alive.

Six of us rode from LaGuardia International Airport together to Albany, beginning the first of many conversations that will draw us together as a team.  We were a mix of past Equality Riders and people (like myself) who are new to Soulforce actions.  We include a wide range of personalities, family backgrounds and political beliefs – and when you’re on the road in a large white van for several hours, giddy from lack of sleep and excitement at the impending beginning of something great, all of that information comes pouring out of you.

This is a passionate group, with opinions on everything from national oil policy to African missionary work.  But through it all, I find I was most struck to learn that several couples from past Soulforce actions will be marrying next year.  It seems such a simple, normal thing – I’ve celebrated three weddings for straight friends this year – but at the same time, it is a radical demonstration of what we’re here for.  The ability for a same-sex couple to say “we’re getting married next year” is something new and powerful and wondrous, and simply hearing that makes me excited to get moving.

Today we took another important step in that direction by beginning our training.  The discussions of nonviolence are not entirely new to me – I came to this campaign with the mantra of “know your enemy; know yourself; love your enemy as yourself” – but here, nonviolent activism is not merely a tactic or a strategy.  It is an attitude that pervades everything we will do, and it is the bar against which our many ideas and messages will be measured.

In the political world of sticks and carrots, polls and power plays, the concept of nonviolence takes on new meaning when compared to direct actions or civil disobedience.  What does it mean to debate nonviolently?  What does it mean to truly see the humanity of the lawmaker who does not consider your loving, committed relationship – your dignity as an adult human being who wants to be responsible for the well-being of another adult human being - worth the price of the political capital it would risk?  How can it be that the best way to achieve our ultimate objective of marriage equality is to be detached from that objective, satisfied in our own self-worth when that self-worth is constantly being denied?  These questions and more will stay with us on the journey, becoming more real as we meet with each new legislator or stranger on the street, and it is my hope that, like seeing my new friends faces as they climbed into a van, it will all become clearer in a way that brings joy and new beginnings.