Love them or hate them, you’ve noticed GetEQUAL by now. That’s because they’re reintroducing direct action, and very public civil disobedience back into the LGBT activist toolkit.

Once the domain of AIDS/HIV activists like ACT-UP, civil disobedience had waned in the gay community in favor of fundraisers and schmoozing with Democrats. However, once in charge, the Democrats seem to have forgotten all of the cash and time we’ve given them.

Enter GetEQUAL; stage WTF.

Yesterday GetEQUAL sent 20 Washington DC area activists to present Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, with protest placards holding her accountable for promises made on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which will protect LGBT people from being fired by employers suffering from homophobia. Eight activists–including my friend Zack Rosen at The New Gay–were arrested when they sat down in the middle of the Capitol Rotunda during a public tour shouting their signature “I am somebody and I deserve [full equality].” replacing “full equality” with “job protections.”

Though the protest has been a hot topic in the gay media, a quick perusal of news outlets show that ONLY LGBT news sources covered the story–which one would think at the very least would be of some interest to the Washington Post as the Capitol rotunda had to be evacuated, and security was called in to arrest eight people. It seems that GetEQUAL is no longer catching the eye of the mainstream media. So now what?

Direct Action is a great new tool for the movement to exploit, but it should not be monopolized by one single group.

They’re going to run out.

First, GetEQUAL is a tight cabal. They’re good people, and they’re a national network, but their players are few. If the same folk keep getting called up to participate in the direct actions, eventually, they’re not going to be able to pull it off, because they’ll be to recognizable. Its like if someone who looks like Sacha Baron Cohen walks up with a wig and a microphone to ask you questions. The jig is up.

We saw this happen at Netroots Nation prior to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s talk. GetEQUAL leaders like Robin McGehee were sitting front and center when security came over to let them know the table was “reserved.” The table was only suddenly reserved because they wanted to move the GetEQUAL central players as far away from Pelosi as possible so that the cameras and mics would miss their comments. The more the regular GetEQUAL players get arrested the more often that staff and security will be tipped off when they show up to events like Netroots Nation.

This shows, however, that while the mainstream media might be yawning at GetEQUAL lately, politicians are paying even more attention. Several gay folks I spoke with in Vegas reported actually speaking with Harry Reid’s office directly, who were apparently freaking out about what Dan Choi and GetEQUAL were going to do at his speech. The more that gay activists show up, cause trouble and get arrested, the more that politicians are going to want to pay more attention to our struggles and acknowledge us more frequently. We get swept under the rug and forgotten less, the more we demand accountability.

Its up to ALL of us, not just GetEQUAL.

Second, media and politicians don’t feel beholden to GetEQUAL. If GetEQUAL has the monopoly on all of our “direct action” as a movement, it will be meaningless. They don’t and can’t represent the community. If one group constantly does the same thing, never to be imitated or duplicated, its called ’schtick.’ Schtick don’t pass bills.

What we need is 100 GetEQUALs. We need direct action in every Congressional district by people representing GetEQUAL, people representing HRC, people representing the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, people representing the National Center for Transgender Equality, people representing Equality Across America, people representing the National Black Justice Coalition, people representing Queer Rising, people representing Join the Impact, people representing Courage Campaign… you get the idea.

GetEQUAL is on the right track, but the rest of us need to get on the same page. If every gay protest, action, sit-in, and harranguing of a politician in America is branded “GetEQUAL” it won’t have as much of an impact. Its just more “GetEQUAL is mad at us.” Rather, everyone should be getting in on the act, so when people are getting arrested for sit-ins and blocking traffic, it becomes “the QUEERS are mad at us.”

That will have far more impact.