[ Lost in the Landscape ]

protest weather!

Today was a national day of protest against dis­crim­i­na­tory ini­tia­tives that were approved by vot­ers on elec­tion day. Cal­i­for­nia just barely passed its Propo­si­tion 8, and that slap in the face against civil rights has stirred up a com­mu­nity in ways that haven’t been seen since the Rod­ney King police bru­tal­ity protests of the 1990s.

I joined a small protest last week­end, and this morn­ing I headed over to Bal­boa Park for what was promis­ing to be a much larger parade and rally.

If you don’t know the park, it’s pretty much the equiv­a­lent of San Diego’s front yard, and is one of the great civic parks in the US. Many of the city’s muse­ums and zoo are there, and it’s a great com­mu­nal gath­er­ing place for every­thing from fam­ily pic­nics and pickup vol­ley­ball games to big civic events like Earth Day cel­e­bra­tions and the start­ing point for today’s Prop 8 protest march.

There were peo­ple every­where. Thou­sands of them! This front yard was get­ting pretty crowded fast. You couldn’t have asked for a bet­ter Novem­ber day: sunny, warm (even hot), light breezes that helped keep you stay cool but didn’t blow signs out of your hands.

We got going a lit­tle before 11:00, and fol­lowed route that took us through down­town and over to the County Admin­is­tra­tion Build­ing, where many of us were mar­ried over the last five months. Peo­ple honked and waved and were amaz­ingly sup­port­ive. Peo­ple were on their condo bal­conies, wav­ing. Ser­vice work­ers at the hotels came out on break and shouted their sup­port for us.

Here you see the parade head­ing into down­town. The marchers were whoop­ing it up at this point. Part of it was the enthu­si­asm. Part of it was an appre­ci­a­tion for the first sign of shade on the parade route.

There were a lot of peo­ple. (Yes, that’s marchers extend­ing all the way into down­town.) The local paper’s story says some­thing like twenty to twenty-five thou­sand.

And here’s the end of the parade and the site of the rally. One of the parade chants went: What do you want? Equal rights! When do you want them? Now! But I will admit that at this point some of us were sub­sti­tut­ing “lunch” for “equal rights…” Protest­ing is such hard work!

But all in all a mag­nif­i­cent show­ing, an amaz­ing day, and a great affir­ma­tion of com­mu­nity and support.

Any­one who thought things were con­cluded by the mob-discrimination on elec­tion day are so wrong. How do you stop pos­i­tive energy like this?

November 15 2008 05:11 pm | Categories: rambles | Tags: democracy • gay marriage • Proposition 8 • protests • rallies

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