Gay for a Day

Ladies and gentleman, Satuday, Nov. 15th at 10:30 am pst I attended an event so gay that I.....



Ok stop that dammit, this is serious. Yeah ok, so it is a little serious but it was fun, I went to the 'repeal prop 8' rally in Down Town Los Angeles. (yes this is a serious issue, but keep reading because there will be pictures if I can get it to work).

So where was I? Oh um, so last Saturday morning I went to the rally. I kept on seeing the events all over the news and decided that since I felt pretty strongly about prop 8, I would go to the protest.

I woke up at 8 am (on a SATURDAY, I KNOW!!!) and drove to Pasadena with a few friends so we could take the metro into town. See, we anticipated difficult parking and closed roads, so driving and buses seemed not to be a viable option. Thus, the desolate LA metro would be our best bet. The three of us entered where no man had been before and purchased our tickets at a very reasonable $1.25 and we proceeded to play the waiting game. Since it was November, the temperature outside was a cool pleasant 95 F (35 C for you Euros out there) and it was only going to get hotter.

Here is a view of the desolate and perhaps even haunted L.A. metro system

I don't know if it was the protest down town or what but the metro got pretty full during our trip to Union Station.

Seeing a huge number of people with signs on the train prompted me to imagine that the down town area was going to be a sea of pro-gay rights activists undulating as protest slogans traveled outward like the ripple of a water after a stone is thrown in a lake. Much to my surprise I found the streets of down town relatively empty (as always). There were road blocks and police here and there, hinting that there was 'something' lurking among the sky-scrapers, but that 'something' was yet to be seen, heard or smelled. A small group of us headed toward the iconic L.A. city hall building pausing occasionally to look at one another with curiosity scrawled across our faces.

"Does anyone know where it is?", a stranger inquired.

"I think it is on Spring st.", I replied confidently.

Sure enough as we got closer to Spring St. it became more apparent we were in the right place. We turned the corner and the 1st thing we saw was...

the enemy

This was pretty much it as far as the pro-8 people went. I saw one other guy further down the march, but his sign was pretty tame compared to "Home-Sex is a Threat to National Security", which even for a pro-8 person is a bit of a stretch isn't it? I mean come on! I understand (I use that term loosely) the whole ignorant bigotry thing or using religion as your reason but bringing national security into it? That's a bit much even for an asshole, don't you think? Anyway, people kept on warning us not to acknowledge the presence of these jerks because it could lead to our arrest and/or detainment. Because of the dearth of Jesus Freaks, it certainly was not an issue.

The rally started out with some speeches. They made me laugh, cry, and cringe. The most notable speakers were Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was very eloquent and passionate but was cut short because of the brush fires; Ricki Lake, who, well I mean, she's Ricki Lake; and some guy who insinuated that we were to blame by saying "if this many people showed up to the phone banks before the election this wouldn't have happened". The most emotional speech of the day was given by a young woman who was raised by gay parents. Her main point was that since prop 8 supporters claimed that children raised by gay parents were not the same as children raised by heterosexual parents that California's vote, in effect, made her inferior to other people. At the risk of being made fun of, I was deeply moved.

Eventually, people began to grow restless and started screaming "MARCH! MARCH!", obviously desiring to begin the planned march. I was torn. I was tired and hungry, the sun was taking its toll on me and my legs hurt from having to shift my weight every 30 seconds, so I was eager to get the show on the road. But on the other hand I wanted to give everyone who had planned a speech a chance to talk. Thus, I kept my mouth shut out of courtesy.


The march began with a thunderous cheer. Everyone had gotten their second wind in unison and was eager to start down the planned route through down town. That second wind quickly turned to confusion as people seemed to walk aimlessly, only stopping when they were blocked by other protesters. Soon I figured out why. The stage was in an intersection with protesters going down three of the four streets as far as the eye could see. This created a massive traffic jam as people from all 3 streets pushed onto the 4th empty street (the planned route). It was like the 405, the 101 and the 110 were all merging onto the same freeway. Eventually I made it passed the intersection and the pace of the march went from a slow frustrating shuffle to a comfortable stroll.

The signs were clever. My favorites included "Keep Utah out of My State"; "You can have 10 wives, I just want one husband"; and "Chickens 1, Gays -1". Many of the signs targeted the Mormon Church for their audacious support of the prop. There were also some real characters, like the guy in the chicken suit, the guy dressed like Uncle Sam and a whole slew of outrageously dressed men who announced their relationship status as single, gave their phone numbers and offered other bits of relevant info like "...and I cook" into a megaphone.

The march made two lefts and then traveled down the other side of city hall and kind of thinned off from there. We expected it to convene into some sort of jamboree type event but it seemed to just peter off somewhere around China Town, which is where we broke off from the others to find some food.

It was a little too planned to be considered a protest so I will call it more of a 'demonstration'. That seems more accurate.

All in all it was fun, and I was glad I got my ass up early. In some cultures people will die for what they believe, I just had to wake up early on my day off.

And now what we have all been waiting for.... CUTE KIDS FOR GAY RIGHTS!

how cute!

More photos can be seen at my facebook profile for those of you that know me.