[James and Jenna also have strong opinions about this topic. Check them out and enjoy this week's debate!]

The legislative back and forth on gay rights is mind boggling. One day Maine introduces a gay marriage bill, the next day Arkansas rushes to ban gay adoption. Illinois starts towards civil unions, and then the bill loses momentum in the House.

In our coverage of these events, there are always a few readers who comment on direct action: avoid paying your taxes until you have full rights, boycott corporations that don’t support spousal benefits for same-sex employees, protest, stop traffic etc.

As a lawyer, it’s important to warn about the consequences of breaking the law. It puts you at risk in all sorts of ways beyond simple arrest for the one thing you actually did wrong. Convictions for any kind of offence can make getting a job, crossing borders, getting into school almost impossible.

As an activist, I appreciate the value of direct action. Even violent direct action has played an enormously important role in American and world history. I wonder if some of the progress we have achieved as a society could have happened without a little nudge from a few people and groups who were willing to risk everything to get the rights they deserve.

Direct action encompasses all sorts of practices. Some of them, like protesting with a permit, are pretty mild and most of us would agree are useful if not for the publicity than for the movement’s own morale. Others, like withholding taxes, are pretty extreme, result in incarceration and are sure to get people’s attention.

And that’s the point. If people are aware, and then maybe a bit scared and definitely talking about an issue, they are more likely to believe that government resources should be directed towards dealing with it.

If Malcolm X wasn’t using extreme language to scare white people in the civil rights movement, do you really believe everyone would have been thinking Martin Luther King was so reasonable? If MK wasn’t murdering people in the streets of South Africa, would there have been an incentive to negotiate with Nelson Mandela? The same is true for Sinn Féin and the IRA in Northern Ireland and the FLQ and the Parti Québécois in Canada.

Now. we are not living under Apartheid and so the level of violence in these historical examples is clearly inappropriate and would be ineffective.

That said, the radical movement within the LGBT struggle makes people pay attention and is part of the reason why the government is interested in hearing from more moderate organizations like the HRC. It is also the reason why judges bother to take organizations like Lambda Legal seriously.

Very few people choose to direct their own resources towards equality for other people. Most downright resent calls for inclusion and benefits for “sexual deviants.” Even in countries where gay marriage is legal, acceptance is still elusive for many.

That’s why you have to make your government pay attention.

Sometimes this will be through persistent knocking at his front door. But it would be more effective if he were inviting you in, desperate for a way to resolve the division and discord all the gay anger is causing in the country.

James is right, there needs to be lots of tough ground work done to win a movement (although litigating is a particularly inefficient example). But a successful movement takes all types and we would be remiss in not recognizing that much of the direct action I, for one, would not condone, does help.