Considering it was an idea hatched just four weeks ago, yesterday's nationwide protest of Prop 8 Day Without a Gay received a titanic amount of media coverage, including complete guidelines, newspaper articles, tv reports, and a debate on Fox. Publicity is greatest impact such events have, so ignore the Chronicle's assessment that DWAG "fizzled." Whatever DWAG was, it wasn't a failure. (An awesome aspect of a gay walkout is that it's tricky for the haters to find a way to be against it. What are they going to do, angrily demand gay people should be more visible?)
Without DWAG, nobody would have been writing gay articles. Even during Pride, papers do not run these Gee, look how many gays! overviews. And yes they tilted toward OMG, No Gays??? Who Will Blowdry Your Hair!?!? rather than who will fix your truck, who will heal you, who will represent the people of Idaho in the US Senate, etc. Though I love the Los Angeles Times' use of "ungayed," the real equation with gay contributions erased would be yield the null set. With novels it would be: From current fiction subtract James' characterization, Proust's use of memory, Forster's connections, Woolf's stream of consciousness, Isherwood's I Am a Camera point of view, and Capote's reportage, leaving readers of literature...Peanuts?