About 2,000 people gathered at San Jose City Hall today as part of a nationwide day of protest against Prop 8 and for equal rights. We started by gathering in four locations - the San Jose Museum of Art, Metropolitan Community Church, St. James Park, and the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center. I'd carpooled in with my friend Ms. V and a friend of hers, and we started at St. James Park, handing out extra Vote No on Prop 8 signs left over from the campaign. Although we could have gone to the Mountain View rally closer to home, we'd chosen San Jose to be part of something bigger, and to be with our community from the DeFrank Center and the South Bay No on 8 campaign. Almost immediate we ran into Nan Coley, a friend and former colleague who had provided the inspiration for my blog post last night, Waiting for Proof. We continued handing out signs until we ran out, when I found more friends, the Shmilas, who I had introduced 12 years ago, and who were married on November 2. Ms. V ran into her ex and they caught up on their lives. And we ran into a straight couple active in PFLAG, who we'd met through the campaign. His sign (photo right) was so popular people kept asking him to pose for pictures and videos.
Then we were given the signal and started walking, and as we spread down the sidewalk we started to get an idea of how many of us had gathered. A news helicopter circled overhead as protestors converged on City Hall from the four starting places. The crowd included LGBT and straight, young and old, parents and kids, teachers and students, leaders and members of faith communities, Hispanic Americans, African-Americans, Asian Pacific Islanders, the full diversity of the San Jose community. We surrounded the fountains on the City Hall plaza as barefoot children played in the water. We chanted (2-4-6-8 Love does not discriminate! What do we want? Equal rights! When do we want them? NOW!). We strained to hear speakers like DeFrank Executive Director Aejaie Sellers, and cheered when cars passing by honked their horns in support.
The mood was mostly upbeat. Although I'd been nervous about a possible counter-protest, we met no resistance on our march to City Hall and we found none on the plaza. I later read in the San Jose Mercury News that there had been a handful of Yes on 8 protestors across the street, but from our vantage point at the bottom of the fountain they could be neither seen nor heard. The messages were positive. Although it was sorely disappointing that Prop 8 had passed, it had been defeated in Santa Clara County where the Knight Initiative had passed. Although many in the LGBT community had been stunned by the election results, that had mobilized our community across the country. Volunteers from the DeFrank Center circulated with clipboards to sign up volunteers ready to commit to fighting for marriage equality. They invited us to a community meeting on Monday night to plan next steps. As we stood in the sun and cheered and waved our signs, I forgot to be angry at those who had waited to volunteer until after Prop 8 had passed. We can only move forward, and this crowd appeared ready to do the work. Now if we can only hang on to that energy.
(From the Courage Campaign's own Rick Jacobs. - promoted by David Dayen)
About thirty of us gathered in front of the closed Starbucks on the plaza in front of the LA courthouse to assemble our petition materials for the rally and march a few blocks away. MoveOn.org, Courage Campaign (full disclosure: I founded Courage) and Credo Mobile have, over the past week, gathered over 200,000 signatures on a pledge to repeal Prop. 8. Our group that met for the first time this morning, was volunteers who signed up to get more sigatures from the crowd. And boy did they ever!
We made our way to the staging area outside of City Hall where we were greeted by thousands of jubilant folks with home made signs. The backstage set up reminded me in some ways of the May 1, 2006 immigration march on Wilshire Boulevard that had also sprung up from the peoplem, but was managed by organized labor: there was security, a rope line, a little blue tent under which speakers gathered before their turn. Rodney Scott, who puts on LA Pride every year, did a brilliant job with logistics along with a new group of young people called FAIR.
Despite threatening weather, organizers estimated that nearly 5,000 people came out to City Hall in Boston, MA to stand together as supporters of marriage equality. Organizers, including local politicians, leaders with Mass Equality, and U.S. Congressional Representatives Rep. Nikki Tsongas and Rep. Edward Markey all spoke to the crowd.
Massachusetts made history in 2004 when it became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage. That thought was not lost on organizers today, many of whom traveled to California in the lead up to the vote on Proposition 8 to help with the No on 8 campaign. State Rep. Carl Sciortino read from the Constitution of the State of California, "All people are by nature free and independent and have certain inalienable rights." Thus launched the demonstration.
Some quotes and highlights:
Rep. Nikki Tsongas (D-Mass.): "We are a partner with everyone across the country when it comes to bringing about marriage equality."
State Rep. Byron Rushing: "I am here this afternoon because we are engaged in struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. We are here to struggle. In this democracy, marriage is a civil institution, and in a democracy, all civil institutions must be open to all who qualify."
Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass):(Reflecting on the fact that gay marriage is now illegal in California, while it is legal here in Massachusetts) "There is one thing that distinguishes Massachusetts from California on the issue of gay marriage. We are right, and they are wrong! ... Gays should have the same rights as straights. As God's children, they should have the same rights straights have. Everyone is entitled to full rights under the U.S. Constitution, so now we engage in this great struggle. ... They asked the ancient Greek philosopher when we would know full and true justice. And he answered: We would know true justice when all of those who have not been harmed are as angry as those who have!"
Gary Daffin (LGBT political activist and Executive Director, Multicultural AIDS Coalition): "Here in Massachusetts, we wanted our brothers and sisters in California to wake up after the Election and relax and feel at home in their country. It took Black people 400 years for us to feel at home in our own country. It might not take the LGBT community 400 years, but we need to keep fighting."
Heather Baker (special ed teacher and Boston LGBT rights activst): "We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly. We need equal rights across the country."
Even though the weather wasn't picture perfect, the scene outside of Boston City Hall was. And yeah, that may sound cheesy, but the energy level at today's "Join the Impact" rally in Boston gave me faith that we can build this national movement to ensure marriage equality, and work to foster LGBT rights in all 50 states.
This morning, after some bus mishaps (omg, I can’t wait for BRT!), my girlfriend and I arrived in front of Oakland City Hall for the Join the Impact rally for equal rights. It was a beautiful sunny day, and it was great to see thousands of advocates gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza.
The crowd was incredibly diverse - filled with people of every age, gender, race, and sexual orientation. And there were so many families - kids everywhere! It was great to run into so many people I know and to see so many others I’d never met before. Serendipitously, one of the first people I ran into was Matthew, my precinct walking partner on election day. We formed a special bond that day, a bond that can only be formed by going door to door in a hilly precinct where most doors were up several flights of stairs. It was so great to see that the election results hadn’t gotten him down too much and that he was still working towards marriage equality.
Several LGBT leaders gave moving speeches throughout the day, but the star of the show was Coby, a boy whose parents started an LGBT family coalition. He started off saying that for many years he didn’t know that there were people who didn’t approve of his parents’ union. He didn’t realize that his family was different from others because, well, they’re his family. Coby went on to explain that when he heard kids at his school make fun of gay people, he thought it was because they didn’t understand what it meant to be gay. His mothers then made an effort to educate the students at his school, and ultimately, he thought that kids understood this issue more than many adults and should have more say in our society.
(The impact has been joined. - promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))
Yes, Ventura, there is a Progressive Left--and it came in force today for Join the Impact. It's a common joke here that we live in "Ventucky", though our situation less resembles that of the deep South and more that of a clinging outpost of Red, stuck between the swaths of Blue that are Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. We have the gag-worthy Gallegly as our representative, and even unprincipled liars like Tony Strickland somehow manage to attract over half the population here to vote for them. True, the demographics have been changing with voter registrations to match, but that has translated neither into electoral gains nor significant grassroots activity in the Democratic and progressive community--though that is changing due to the tireless efforts of people like our new VCDP Communications Director Brian Leshon.
But today a sea of Blue washed up on the Ventura shores in front of the Old San Buenaventura Mission to let Ventura and all of California know that yes, we do exist. And no, we're not taking it lying down anymore. Unfortunately, the pictures here don't do the crowd justice; an amateur photographer is emailing me some pics that I'll be putting up as soon as I get them.
It was definitely fire-and-brimstone time in Los Angeles today as approximately 15,000 "No On 8/Join The Impact" protestors gathered near the steps of LA City Hall. Major fires both north and south of us ringed the city in smoke even as the skies above remained a brilliant blue. But neither the fires nor the freakishly warm temperatures (in the 90's) did much to affect attendance.
A few observations:
The City establishment was surprisingly well represented considering the fires. Councilman Bill Rosendahl, LA's first and only openly gay council member, was the first to speak, followed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a number of dignitaries in the Gay and Lesbian community, and City Attorney Rocky Delligadio (who talked about the upcoming legal challenges)
Protesters held all manner of home-made signs (my husband, who worked with me on the general election, remarked how refreshing it was to see so much diversity compared to the graphic uniformity of the Obama campaign).
My favorite, held by a very good looking man in his early twenties, read "Are you sure you want me marrying your daughter?"
Seattle has our back. Big time. This picture at right is of the huge march down Broadway in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood - the Emerald City's version of the Castro. A friend in the crowd spoke to someone in Mayor Greg Nickels' office who estimated over 12,000 people were in this march.
I will have more photos and information up later once my sources get their stuff uploaded and sent to me. The Stranger has some more photos of the march.
Prop 8 is catalyzing a nationwide marriage equality movement. Washington State's Supreme Court upheld the state's marriage ban in a shocking 2006 decision widely believed to have been motivated by 3 liberal justices facing well-funded conservative challengers that year (WA elects Supreme Court justices in contested races). But marriage equality advocates have vowed to undo this by, piece by piece, legalizing marriage.
With 2/3 majorities in both houses and Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire winning reelection last week, Democrats in Olympia are now strongly considering overturning the state's marriage ban (which exists in the law and not the state constitution) as marriage rights activists mobilize in the Evergreen State.
Our opponents may have won the Prop 8 battle but it may prove to have been a pyrrhic victory.
"What do we want?" "Equality!" "When do we want it?" "Now!"
That has been the rallying cry the past few weeks as thousands have gathered in Sacramento, out in the streets, in the public square and in front of the State Capitol. Today we gathered in Cesar Chavez square right in front of the Sacramento City Hall. The police I talked to estimated the crowd between 1,000-2,000 people. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be outside with our community, in joint action, to speak out against the rights that were taken away from so many Californians on election day.
The rally was one of hundreds of Join the Impact protests planned for today in small towns and big cities across the country. It was the brainchild of an ordinary activist who thought big, built a platform and watched it explode.
The main organizer of this event was a new local group called Equality Action Now. They have put together a website and an email list, were selling t-shirts, gathering donations, got the permits and loudspeakers, and coordinated a list of speakers to address the thousands of gay people and their allies. It is truly incredible to see the work people are putting into organizing in their own communities. They are not the traditional standard bearers of the equality movement or the large organizations. These are few people who stood up and decided to be leaders. They are the strength of this new movement for equality.
These local, impassioned and empowered new organizers and leaders are the reason why the next time marriage equality is on the ballot we will win. We have all felt the taste of defeat and the pain of having our rights taken away. All of us can and must do more than we did this past time.
For those who haven't been to one of these rallies, I will try and explain the emotions being there, especially as a gay woman. At first it is a thrill to see so many people, people you didn't know existed, gathering today for the same purpose. Then you feel a sense of power being amongst the crowds, the unity of purpose, the strength in numbers. But then sadness starts to creep in and the pain of realizing what transpired to make this happen. It is emotional and tough to stand there and chant for rights you once had and chant against your fellow Californians who voted to take away those rights from you.
Today, I ended up leaving before the march around the Capitol, because it was too hard on my girlfriend to be there, sharing an intimate pain in such a public manner. This is still raw, still painful. It will always be emotional, but the anguish should fade. Hopefully, the energy will not. We need all of the people rallying together across the state and country to put in the hard work to repeal Prop 8.
More about the rally on the flip, including pictures...
Today, all over the country, Join The Impact organized rallies to protest the passage of Proposition 8. We in California saw Prop 8 awaken a sleeping giant as thousands of people gathered, seemingly spontaneously, all over the state in the wake of the news that it had passed. It was an amazing sight but little did we know that that truly was just the beginning. A national people-powered marriage equality movement seems to have sprouted up virtually overnight.
As I'm in here in the Chicago suburbs for a friend's wedding (no, I wasn't invited by Barack...) I went into town to check out the Chicago Join The Impact protest at Federal Plaza. The Facebook event had more than 3200 RSVPs and there had to be twice that many people there today. At one point, I heard an announcement that the police were extending the area where people were permitted to stand; this place was bursting at the seams.
Police expected 5,000 people today for San Diego's Join the Impact march against Prop 8. Police are currently estimating 20,000 marchers turned out in support of equality (link will also lead to some cool pics and video). Organizers upped their estimate early this morning to 25,000 and they're sticking with that number. Either way, it doubles last week's 10K strong San Diego march.
I arrived at the jumping off point at the appointed 10am hour. There were thousands of people spread throughout Balboa Park- old and young, gay and straight, male and female, all races and ethnicities. Some were alone, some came with families, some with groups of friends. It took about 30 minutes to get things organized, in part probably because of people like me who were working the crowd as much as possible. And I'll tell you how I knew right away that this was a really big deal: While I'm sure many were there, I didn't see a single person I know from political activism. But I saw people I knew from my neighborhood, from bars, from sports, from music, from church. In other words, this wasn't the same old political demonstration with the same old faces. This was everyone who normally don't obsess about politics. People who normally may not even be out of bed at 10am on a Saturday much less marching for miles in the 85 degree heat. This wasn't politics, this was a movement.
I was very careful to pack my trusty Flip Video, and I got some shaky clips of the beginning of the march (above) and the pivot from 6th Avenue to Broadway (right). The march ran a three mile course south on 6th Avenue along Balboa Park, west through downtown on Broadway, and up Pacific Highway past the Star of India before culminating at the County Administration Building (where marriage licenses are issued). Gloria Allred, city councilman-elect Todd Gloria and reps from the ACLU, Equality California and the Human Rights campaign were on the docket for the rally between the building and the bay.
Chant sheets were everywhere and the chants rarely stopped. The homemade signs were plentiful and ran the gamut from Lincoln to Hitler and Chickens to Satan. I was pleasantly impressed though by the VAST majority of people embracing the positive messaging. People get that this is about love, acceptance and equality. And that abandoning that is to let agents of intolerance win.
The only arrest reported at this point was a member of the Minutemen. Which is a nice juxtaposition to the experience of marching through downtown. Cars honked in solidarity, people cheered from balconies and streamed out of offices and hotels to root us on and give high-fives. In the course of 3 downtown miles, I spotted maybe 7 Yes on 8 folks. Organizers kept people reasonably well behaved, and nothing advanced beyond an occasionally aggressive air horn. Heck, the handful of unattended Yes signs we passed had police attendants.
This is just one of the first reports to come today. There are more than 300 events scheduled throughout the state and across the country. And I said to a friend who marched with me, "You will not be able to stay home brother.
...
Because...people will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
...
The revolution will be live."
People are still filing out of what I imagine to be very congested spaces and rallies across the country, but I thought I'd go around the Web and find some reports.
Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities coast to coast Saturday to protest the California vote that banned gay marriage there and urge supporters not to quit the fight for the right to wed.
Many cast it as a civil rights issue.
Crowds gathered near public buildings in small communities and major cities including New York, San Francisco and Chicago to vent their frustrations, celebrate gay relationships and renew calls for change.
"Civil marriages are a civil right, and we're going to keep fighting until we get the rights we deserve as American citizens," Karen Amico said in Philadelphia, holding up a sign reading "Don't Spread H8".
"We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly," said Heather Baker a special education teacher from Boston who addressed the crowd at Boston's City Hall Plaza. "We need equal rights across the country."
Democracy is not a one-shot deal. People can't just vote every 4 years (or 2, or more often) and think that the work is done. We still need to make our voices heard, to hold our elected officials responsible, to advocate for the causes we believe in. Very rarely do we see a direct and immediate change from any act of public assembly or civil disobedience, but each of us is still one. And the more of us there are, the harder we are to ignore.
Greater public awareness + greater media coverage = greater political awareness = a better shot at change that matters.
It was a beautiful sunny morning as thousands of people converged on Civic Center Square (just across the street from where Obama rallied the Bay Area twice, more than a year ago now).
One of the most stirring speeches was given by an African American Baptist preacher, a man who was introduced as having been taught by Martin Luther King. His ringing oratory, as evinced by the title of this diary, brought the crowd to its highest pitch of enthusiasm; I could imagine being at a rally in the 60's and hearing King exhort his followers for civil rights. (Sorry, I did not get his name).
Apparently Mark Leno and Carole Migden spoke at the SF rally.
In Los Angeles, protesters clustered shoulder to shoulder near City Hall before setting off on a downtown march, chanting and carrying rainbow-colored flags and signs bearing messages such as "No More Mr. Nice Gay" and "No on Hate." [...]
The Los Angeles Police Department estimated that 40,000 people would attend the march, which officials expected to be peaceful.
Across the state, the rallies took on a carnival-like atmosphere in heat-wave conditions.
Hundreds of people gathered on the steps of Houston City Hall this afternoon to protest the passing of Proposition 8, California's constitutional amendment taking away the right to marry for same-sex couples. Along with the passing of other anti-gay measures across the nation, Prop. 8 made November 4 a day of mixed emotions for many of the progressives in attendance, who say they went to bed ecstatic about the election of Barack Obama but woke up the next morning to find out not everything had changed for the better.
SAN DIEGO - A crowd estimated at 10,000 by police and 15,000 by organizers marched downtown Saturday to protest the passage of Proposition 8, with one arrest of a counter-protester reported during the otherwise peaceful event.
A man identified by police as a member of the anti-illegal immigration group San Diego Minutemen was arrested about 12:30 p.m. at Sixth Avenue and Ash Street following a fight, said San Diego police Capt. C.J. Ball.
I'm headed down to the e-board meeting, but I wanted to again mention the Join the Impact rallies in support of marriage equality today, in over 300 cities in all 50 states. Organizers expect over 1 million people to attend nationwide. Stay with Calitics all day, we'll have site reports from at least 7 locations across the state and the country - San Diego, Los Angeles, Ventura, San Francisco, Sacramento, Chicago, IL, and Albuquerque, NM. Hopefully we'll have pictures and video from some of those events as well.
If you're going to a JTI event, write up a diary and we'll post it on the front page. To find an event in your area, check the wiki.
UPDATE by Brian: We'll be getting some updates later on today, but I thought this photo from the SF rally was worthy of sharing.
About 2,000 people gathered at San Jose City Hall today as part of a nationwide day of protest against Prop 8 and for equal rights. We started by gathering in four locations - the San Jose Museum of Art, Metropolitan Community Church, St. James Park, and the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center. I'd carpooled in with my friend Ms. V and a friend of hers, and we started at St. James Park, handing out extra Vote No on Prop 8 signs left over from the campaign. Although we could have gone to the Mountain View rally closer to home, we'd chosen San Jose to be part of something bigger, and to be with our community from the DeFrank Center and the South Bay No on 8 campaign. Almost immediate we ran into Nan Coley, a friend and former colleague who had provided the inspiration for my blog post last night, 
The crowd included LGBT and straight, young and old, parents and kids, teachers and students, leaders and members of faith communities, Hispanic Americans, African-Americans, Asian Pacific Islanders, the full diversity of the San Jose community. We surrounded the fountains on the City Hall plaza as barefoot children played in the water. We chanted (2-4-6-8 Love does not discriminate! What do we want? Equal rights! When do we want them? NOW!). We strained to hear speakers like DeFrank Executive Director Aejaie Sellers, and cheered when cars passing by honked their horns in support. 
Despite threatening weather, organizers estimated that nearly 5,000 people came out to City Hall in Boston, MA to stand together as supporters of marriage equality. Organizers, including local politicians, leaders with Mass Equality, and U.S. Congressional Representatives Rep. Nikki Tsongas and Rep. Edward Markey all spoke to the crowd.
Yes, Ventura, there is a Progressive Left--and it came in force today for Join the Impact. It's a common joke here that we live in "Ventucky", though our situation less resembles that of the deep South and more that of a clinging outpost of Red, stuck between the swaths of Blue that are Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. We have the gag-worthy Gallegly as our representative, and even unprincipled liars like Tony Strickland somehow manage to attract over half the population here to vote for them. True, the demographics have been changing with 
Seattle has our back. Big time. This picture at right is of the huge march down Broadway in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood - the Emerald City's version of the Castro. A friend in the crowd spoke to someone in Mayor Greg Nickels' office who estimated over 12,000 people were in this march.
Also at 