LGBT activist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black told a crowd of about 500 people at the Davis Center on April 29 that if gay and lesbian couples want equal rights they must build coalitions with other disenfranchised groups -- much like his hero Harvey Milk did when he became the first openly gay man elected to public office in California.

Black, who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the 2009 movie Milk starring Sean Penn, implored audience members to help build what he referred to as "the coalition of the us," which includes all minority groups. Milk shocked the political world in 1978 by getting elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors after receiving support from minorities, senior citizens and organized labor.

"Harvey understood the interconnectedness of all minorities and civil rights and successfully built a coalition of the us,'" said Black. "When I look at the national LGBT movement today I see that we've become myopic. If we continue to only work for ourselves we won't make any progress. It's time for the gay and lesbian movement to reach out to our minority brothers and sisters."

To further illustrate his point, Black referenced comments made by Coretta Scott King, who he said understands that, like race, sexual preference isn't a choice. "All forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere," he said, quoting King. "Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender or ethnic discrimination."

Black spoke extensively about his upbringing in a Mormon household in conservative San Antonio, Texas where he was told that homosexuality was second only to murder as a sin. When he realized he was gay at a relatively young age he recalls thinking he would go to hell and started contemplating suicide. The realization that thousands of young people struggle with similar feelings today is what drives him to work for equal rights for them and other suppressed groups.

"Why do these outcomes (like Proposition 8 in California) hurt so much? Because there's a kid in San Antonio being denied his rights and told that they're a second-class citizen," said Black, voice trembling, adding that LBGT youth living in conservative areas are nine times more likely to commit suicide. "This has to stop."

Black said that one of his biggest fears is that the gay rights movement will become a backburner issue and slowly fade out of the national consciousness. "One of the biggest obstacles for the LBGT movement is visibility," he said. "Silence kills us...it makes us disappear." The best way to make sure that doesn't happen, he said, is for the LGBT community to tell people their stories of struggle to illustrate why equal rights are so important. "The greatest thing we have is our stories. We have to be able to tell them -- it's what makes the difference."

Black has been telling stories about the LGBT community through film and television since graduating with honors from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television in 1996. In 2000 he wrote and directed The Journey of Jared Price, a gay romance film, followed by the gay coming-of-age-film Something Close to Heaven. He later served as writer and editor on the HBO drama series Big Love about a polygamist family. Black's film Pedro, based on the life of AIDS activist Pedro Zamora, a member of MTV's third season of The Real World, received critical acclaim. Black currently has multiple screenplays that have been accepted by major Hollywood directors, including the biopic Hoover to be directed by Clint Eastwood and released in 2012.

"My question tonight is ‘what are you going to do right here in Vermont?'" said Black, who calls the LBGT movement the civil rights fight of the 21st century. "I challenge you tonight not to think small. You cannot follow quietly behind anyone."