More Protests Yet To Come

Jim Burroway

November 11th, 2008

The protests against Prop 8 continue without any apparent letup. Here are some more scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, including one in St. Paul, Minnesota:

Tuesday, November 11:
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
1:00 p.m.
Corner of Haven and Foothill.

Redlands, CA
4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Redlands Mormon Temple
1761 Fifth Avenue

Santa Monica, CA
5:00 p.m.
321 Santa Monica Pier

Fresno, CA
5:00 p.m.
Fink-White Playground
Amador St and B St.

San Francisco, CA
5:00 p.m. – 10:00p.m.
San Francisco City Hall
1 Dr Carton B Goodlett Pl

San Diego, CA
5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
San Diego Mormon Temple
7474 Charmant Drive

Los Angeles, CA
6:00 p.m.
La Cienega Blvd and Centinela Ave

Saint Paul, MN
3:00 p.m.
State Capitol (Meet on Old Main Lawn)

Wednesday, November 12
Encinitas, CA
4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Corner of Saxony and Encinitas Blvd.
Phone: 5305759264
dancewithwolves@wildmail.com

West Hollywood, CA
7:00 p.m.
Santa Monica & San Vicente

New York, NY
6:30 p.m.
Manhattan Mormon Temple
125 Columbus Ave at 65th Street

San Diego, CA
7:00 p.m.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral
2728 Sixth Ave.
For more info, contact Chris Harris at (619) 298-7261 or harrisc@stpaulcathedral.org.

Patrick

November 11th, 2008

I hear there’s also one in Seattle on Saturday. It’s supposed to begin at noon at Volunteer Park and end up at the Westlake Plaze.

Louie

November 11th, 2008

I’m glad to see that more of these protests are leaving the gay ghetto and reaching out to the mainstream.

After all, what good is it to stage a protest in the gayborhood where the media and mainstream society can continue to ignore us?

In other words, why preach to the choir?

We have to take it to the people! All of the people! Where they cannot ignore us! Where we are visible! Where the media will be forced to take notice!

Dave

November 11th, 2008

Just what are these temper tantrums — over a measure which left-leaning California should’ve easily defeated — meant to accomplish?

Are they supposed to generate sympathy for gays? Or make people angry with them?

One of the strategists for the Yes on Prop 8 campaign thinks the latter the more likely result:

[Frank Schubert]added that the ongoing protests by supporters of same-sex marriage will not help their cause and will have the effect of hardening support for Proposition 8.

Schubert is a partisan who will want to discourage activity that can hurt his cause. However, what he says is plausible.

The protests certainly don’t impress conservative pundit Michelle Malkin. Today she blogs:

I think it’s time for Democrat leaders to counsel the anti-Prop. 8 mob to stop the protests and accept the will of the people of California.

Tell them to leave the churches alone. Tell them to stop blocking traffic and impeding businesses and harassing elderly couples and targeting donors.

It’s over. You lost. Move on.

Just what is the intention behind these protests? Are they meant to have a political effect or just to vent the protesters’ livers?

And what will be their ultimate result?

Jeff in Surprise, AZ

November 11th, 2008

It looks like there is a movement for a nationwide event this Saturday, 11/15. Checkout this web site: http://www.jointheimpact.com

Timothy Kincaid

November 11th, 2008

I care very little about the stated opinions of committed anti-gay activists.

This action has achieved something I did not think would occur. Across the nation gay people are starting to stand up and say, “enough is enough”. We are showing others that we care.

Had we simply said, “oh darn”, then there would be no cause for those who voted for Proposition 8 to reconsider their actions. They could go on believing that “it hurt no one” or that “gays don’t really want marriage” or that “its taking nothing away” or whatever other platitudes they told theirselves.

But now they know that we care. And they know that there are consequences to their actions. To us… and to them. It is no longer theoretical or opinion or “just what I believe”. They now know that they have hurt their fellow man.

And some will feel sorrow.

We are changing hearts and minds.

Jim Burroway

November 11th, 2008

Well gee. By that same logic, I guess Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr., were just wasting their time and got nothing to show for it than a backlash.

Sometimes I just gotta shake my head at some people.

And frankly, I don’t give a damn what discredited anti-gay activists like Malkin think. If anything, whatever she says, I’d be inclined to do the opposite.

Louie

November 11th, 2008

Of course Michelle Malkin doesn’t get it.

Because she didn’t just lose a fundamental civil right in California!

Even when a football team loses the Super Bowl. The losers are still members of the NFL and get to try again next year. They don’t get the right to be football players taken away from them.

I guess that to some people, fundamental civil rights are a game.

To the protesters, it’s something more than just a game.

Tim (El Cerrito, Ca.

November 11th, 2008

The passage of PROP 8 in California has major ramifications nationwide. The neo-cons have new spring in their step. We lost this because of our community’s complacency – believing that our progressive state would never allow this to pass. We were WRONG. The religious right’s plan is to now execute the exact same play-book in every state to ensure that discrimination against us is written into every state Constitution – and ultimately the US Constitution (think DOMA). Think “it’s gonna happen whether you like it or not” played out over and over and over again for the next 5 years. This is our modern day Civil Rights struggle; we’re the new “blacks”. We will NOT allow ourselves to be relegated to the back of the bus anymore. We must fight this all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. For those of you who are straight white males, it is highly unlikely that you’ve ever experienced real and ongoing discrimination. To be clear, we will NOT just “accept it” and move on. We are not just whining or having “temper tantrums” (Dave). We are tax paying citizens, neighbors, employees, employers, police, eveywhere. We will be loud and active to ensure discrimination is never allowed to be mandated by a simple majority mob rule.

Louie

November 11th, 2008

Also, if the new Democratic majority in D.C. doesn’t see us rise up in anger and indignation, then they won’t fight for our rights either.

They will go where the votes are and the passing of Prop. 8, Prop. 102, Amendment 2 and Act 1 shows where the “majority” are at.

Now that they won their seats, they are looking at staying in power. And they will do whatever it takes to hold that power. I.E. Clinton and DOMA, Clinton and DADT, etc.

Stefano A

November 11th, 2008

to ensure discrimination is never allowed to be mandated by a simple majority mob rule.

Amen!

And to top if off, a 4.6% failure to pass is hardly a whopping majority opinion. It’s only slightly less than half.

Tim (El Cerrito, Ca.

November 11th, 2008

I probably should have said “simple majority” … which is what it was. But they’re “SIMPLE” people anyway, right?

Tim (El Cerrito, Ca.

November 11th, 2008

This is a GREAT read – and better explains all of this much better than I attempted to do. everyone should read this and pass it on.

http://lezgetreal.com/2008/11/no-more-mrs-nice-gay.html

Stefano A

November 11th, 2008

Tim (El Cerrito, Ca.)

I probably should have said “simple majority” … which is what it was.

Your point was valid with or without “simple”.

My comment was more of an “addendum” regarding the comments of proponents of Prop 8 who (to listen to them) give the impression that it was a huge landslide majority of the state, rather than how in fact it was almost a 50:50 split.

PDuff

November 11th, 2008

Dave, I wouldn’t be too concerned with the sociopathic rantings of Michelle Malkin. This woman clearly is troubled, I think due to some type of childhood trauma.

Dave

November 11th, 2008

Tim,

You may care little about the opinions of the likes of Schubert, but that is beside the point. The point is how well has he guessed the reaction of most Americans.

People who voted for the amendments in Arizona, California, and Florida may be moved to reconsider by all these protests. But they can also be angered and moved to harden their hearts. Certainly committed marriage traditionalists like Malkin will not be moved in your direction by these protests, which is why I quoted her.

Dave

November 11th, 2008

Jim,

Are you seriously comparing these protests to what Ghandi and King did? Ghandi and King didn’t just march in the streets and shout slogans; they strove to show the world the ways in which their peoples were being oppressed.

Demonstrating the hardships of colonial occupation or Jim Crow is hardly the same as bitching because a government benefit that has never before existed, but has lately been much discussed, hasn’t been created.

And you can’t possible compare the amendment just passed in California with what Ghandi and King fought against. All Prop 8 did was reserve the term marriage as a legal descriptor for opposite-sex couples. Same-sex couples can still legally wed in the state. Yet “Stop the H8” is the rallying-cry for all these protests.

These protests — in California and across the country — are all about confrontation. As Tim says, they are about letting anti-gay marriage voters “know that there are consequences to their actions.” But confrontation, by taking people to court rather than trying to persuade them, is what brought matters to this point.

If I may quote Jonathon Rauch:

On gay marriage, we’re now zero for 30 on state constitutional bans. Think about that. Has any other political movement in the history of the United States compiled such an unblemished record of total electoral annihilation?

Confronting those who consider the difference between the sexes to be intergral to marriage hasn’t been successful so far. Why should moving from the courts to the streets change that?

Dave

November 11th, 2008

PDuff wrote:

“I wouldn’t be too concerned with the sociopathic rantings of Michelle Malkin.”

Is that okay by BTB rules?

Jim Burroway

November 11th, 2008

We generally cut some slack slack on comments directed at public figures. We don’t allow it in cross-talk between people who post at BTB. I suppose that if Michelle Malkin were posting here, we’d have to revisit that comment.

But then, if Michelle Malkin were posting here, she’d probably quickly run afoul of our comments policy rather quickly, given her track record elsewhere.

Neil H

November 12th, 2008

Confronting those who consider the difference between the sexes to be intergral to marriage hasn’t been successful so far. Why should moving from the courts to the streets change that?

Because it’s a move from the courts to the streets?

Having been told that we were wrong to fight in the courts and should have tried through democratic means, are we now to be told that we’re wrong to fight via democratic means like public protests as well?

I’m sure that many anti-gay activists will be trying to frame these protests as “militant gay activists trying to push their agenda”, just like they always do when gay activists exercise their democratic right to free speech. And if there hadn’t been opposition in the wake of the vote, then the same anti-gay activists would be claiming that the apathy “proves homosexual activists never really cared about marriage and were only using it to push their agenda”.

Gay people need to stop playing defense. If there’s a problem with peaceful protests being misrepresented as a coercive and aggressive activity, then that misrepresentation needs to be acknowledged, but not treated as if it’s accurate. We should spend less time worrying about what people opposed to gay rights may think without our input and more time actually providing them with our input.

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