This guide comes out of the experiences of dozens of activists around the country. Perhaps the most important thing all of us can tell you is that being clear at the start about why you are working for an LGBT rights policy will make your campaign more focused and greatly improve the chances that it will succeed at the most important of its many potential goals. It will also make working on it a better experience for you.

There are three reasons why you should work for LGBT civil rights and domestic partnership.

First, policies against discrimination are a good thing to have. They give some recourse to people who lose jobs, homes, etc. because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. More important, they prevent discrimination. Civil rights policies, just like all other laws and rules, work because most people obey them. If you have a policy, some people who otherwise would have lost jobs and homes won’t. Moreover, the protection of civil rights policies makes life easier for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Civil Rights policies ease the fear that you have to hide who you are to protect yourself.

Domestic Partnership policies are also a good thing to have. People shouldn’t be cut off from those they love most in hospitals, etc. Maybe more importantly, they acknowledge the existence of important, committed, loving relationships that we have been forced to hide.

The second reason is that by doing a campaign, you learn the process by which change is made in America. To truly make it possible for LGBT people to live their lives without fear and to be secure in their relationships, civil rights and domestic partnership policies will have to become the norm. One policy change won’t do it. We’ll need change on a grand scale. The only good way to learn how to change the rules is to do it. With each campaign, if you pay attention, you’ll get better at it. If you run grass roots campaigns, LGBT people throughout America will learn how to organize and make change. That will make change on a grand scale possible.

Finally, and most important of all, the process itself is ultimately the vehicle for real change. Changing the rules, oddly enough, doesn’t really change society. Think about how many laws have been passed in the last thirty years aimed at ending race discrimination. You can argue about how much progress those laws have achieved. But it would be tough to say they’ve really ended discrimination, impossible to say that discrimination ended when they were passed. You change society by changing people’s minds. To truly make it possible for LGBT people to live in peace, society has to become convinced that discrimination is wrong.

Proposals for civil rights begin the debate on discrimination directly. Proposals for domestic partnership take up a very significant part of it. More important, they can smash some of the worst stereotypes society uses to justify discrimination. Everything from criminal laws to bans on same-sex marriage have been justified at least in part on the basis that we are unstable, shallow, flawed people incapable of deep emotional commitment. Keeping our relationships out of sight has been vital to maintaining that lie. Making our relationships visible, something every domestic partnership debate does, is a good way to expose it.

Ultimately, change on a grand scale, changing people’s minds, is always the result of ordinary women and men working on and with their neighbors. Every movement needs inspired leaders. But real change won’t come from thrilling speeches any more than it will from court decisions or civil rights laws if the people who live under those decisions and laws don’t change as well. Personal contact is the key to change of this sort. And personal contact with the people you need to move is exactly what a grassroots policy campaign gets you.

Finally, you need an important warning before you start. Bring all your brains, all your energy and all your passion to the campaign. But don’t let it hurt you too much. Remember that a policy campaign will start that process of getting people organized and getting people to think about discrimination whether you fail or succeed in getting a policy passed. Even if a policy gets passed, the process of change will be far from over. Remember: the campaign is not about whether you or any of the rest of us are good or bad. Don’t ever get sucked into a debate about that. The issue is whether discrimination is good or bad.

Last, but not least, have some fun while you do this. It could be one of the best experiences of your life.