The Gideonse Bible   I have some things I need to discuss.

It was a beautiful day for a march. Except that it was hot, damn hot. It was November 15, and it was 90 degrees at 10am. I know that I live in warm and sunny San Diego, but even here, it’s not supposed to do that. It felt like Cincinnati in July. Well, in Cincinnati, there’s never a breeze off of the ocean, so it’s worse. Also, it’s Cincinnati, so the heat won’t cause hundreds of buff gay men from take off their shirts. Okay, it didn’t quite do that here, but it got a few guys to go shirtless. Yay! Anyway, it was a gorgeous and hot day, and we were up early to join the impact of tens of thousands of people around the country (and the world) protesting the passage of Prop 8. It was fun and thrilling and amazing and long and tiring. And awesome.

A few observations:

• At the starting point, there was a man dressed in a Winnie the Pooh costume. People had their pictures taken with him. He must have been hot.
• Among the many awesome signs, my favorite was “The Bible. Slavery good. Gays bad. Snakes talk.”
• At Stonewall 2.0, we sent out updates to our Facebook pages via cell phone.
• I saw two counter protesters. One looked like a homeless Vietnam vet, and he came to the march in his tricycle made of scrap metal called the Star Trike.
• There were a lot of kids. A lot of strollers.
• There were a lot of dogs. There were a lot of dogs on the side of the parade route drinking water. It was hot.
• We met a woman who was marching with her son, who is gay and has Down’s Syndrome.
• I looked at the crowd, and I said, “At least 20,000. This is twice as many as last week. Twice the length, twice the width, and packed in tighter. [Ha!] Easily twice as many.” Turns out I was right. Please note: This is more than any other protest in any other city on that day.
• A lot of straight people marched. My brother’s college roommate and his wife were there, and so were these delightful folks.
• It was great to see the news media there in force. My favorite intrepid reporter moment was watching a leggy glamazon in four inch heals climb on top of the KUSI truck to cover the story.
• It was a very, very empowering event.

Here’s a video that gives you a good idea of the scene. Here are some blog posts of the day: here, here, and here. The Union Tribune’s story is here.

You can click on these pictures to see my Flickr set on photos from the march.

[UPDATE: Here's the Advocate article.]

Definitely, one of the better things to come from today’s insanely successful mass demonstrations is that Wanda Sykes decided to come out:

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Comedian Wanda Sykes says the passage of a same-sex marriage ban in California has led to her be more outspoken about being gay.

“You know, I don’t really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn’t feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life,” Sykes told a crowd at a gay rights rally in Las Vegas on Saturday.

“Everybody that knows me personally they know I’m gay. But that’s the way people should be able to live their lives,” she said.

Sykes, who is known for her feisty and blunt style, said the passage of California’s Proposition 8 made her feel like she was “attacked.”

“Now, I gotta get in their face,” she said. “I’m proud to be a woman. I’m proud to be a black woman, and I’m proud to be gay.”

Sykes’ appearance at the Las Vegas rally surprised organizers. She was in town performing at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.

Rock on, Wanda!

[Update appended.]

Today Time published an article titled “What Happens If You’re on the Gay ‘Enemies List.’” It’s relatively accurate.¹ The last paragraph, however, includes the clichéd response from the Yes on 8 campaign about the boycott-the-bigots movement. And it’s a cliché that is ridiculous, and I’m completely fed up with it being printed in news reports without it being immediately discounted. Here it is:

Meanwhile, lists of donors to Proposition 8, once trumpeted on the Yes on 8 Web site, have been taken down to protect individuals from harassment. “It’s really awful,” says Frank Schubert, campaign manager for Yes on Proposition 8. “No matter what you think of Proposition 8, we ought to respect people’s right to participate in the political process. It strikes me as quite ironic that a group of people who demand tolerance and who claim to be for civil rights are so willing to be intolerant and trample on other people’s civil rights.”

Schubert is a liar and a bigot, and obviously, he’s a hypocrite. Let’s take this apart.

“It’s really awful.”

What is awful? That your supporters have to face ramifications for their political acts? That they spent money on a campaign that demonized and lied about gays and lesbians and now gays and lesbians are angry with them? That majority rule does not mean that the majority can force a minority to shut up? (That the majority rules doesn’t even exist, since we live in a constitutional republic, not a direct democracy?) What did you expect to happen when you stripped a minority group of their rights? That we would crawl back into our closets? Frank Schubert, you’re an idiot.

“No matter what you think of Proposition 8, we ought to respect people’s right to participate in the political process.”

We are respecting their rights. They have every right to give money to a hate group. And we have every right to publicize this fact, to ask people not to patronize their businesses, and to protest their actions in legal and peaceful ways. It is rich that Schubert would bringing up “respect” for “rights,” after his organization stripped the rights of people he clearly has no respect for. Frank Schubert, you’re an idiot.

“It strikes me as quite ironic that a group of people who demand tolerance and who claim to be for civil rights are so willing to be intolerant and trample on other people’s civil rights.”

Intolerant? Tolerance does not mean lying down in the street and being run over by trucks. Tolerance is live and let live. It is respect for the beliefs and private actions of others. I am tolerant of Mormons practicing in their church. I am tolerant of my relatives who think I am going to Hell because I lie with a man as I would a woman. But the moment that the group I am tolerant of tries to strip me of my rights, spreads lies about me on TV, the radio, and the Internet, and enters the public sphere and tries to make me a second-class citizen, tolerance is irrelevant. I will not lie down in the street and die, Frank Schubert, you idiot.

Civil rights? In what way can you possibly argue that protesting the political actions of others is even remotely “trampling” on their civil rights? Have we prevented anyone from speaking? From organizing? From voting? From practicing their religion? From getting married? Political speech and political acts do not exist in a vacuum. They have consequences. The entire goal of Prop 8 was to use fear and lies to persuade voters to steal the rights of gays and lesbians. It takes a profoundly immoral hypocrite to dare accuse the victims of Prop 8 of trampling the civil rights of their opponents by exercising their right to free speech and assembly. Frank Schubert, you have no shame. You are a hypocrite. And an idiot.

UPDATE: His neice is a lesbian. And she’s appalled. The best part of her post:

And on behalf of the gays (and, in fact, those who are simply living the way people in the US were intended to- the straight people who let gay people live their own lives), fuck you Frank. You suck. (And your Thanksgiving pie sucked, too, by the way.)

^{1I could have done without the paragraph about “targeting” African-Americans, which conflates racism expressed by a tiny fraction of people at a couple of rallies immediately after Election Day (with no mention of the gay racists on the Internet, who are supposedly legion), with a larger, organized boycott effort focused on donors, regardless of race.}

In case you missed it, Prop 8 passed. That means it is now illegal for gays and lesbians to get married in California. It also means that the state cannot legally recognize same-sex marriage from anywhere else, including, Canada, Spain, Massachusetts, or Connecticut. How could something this profoundly unjust, immoral, and stupid take place?

Here are my top ten reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

[Update: I deal with the "Dan Savage is a racist" meme in the comments.]

Not that anyone who voted for Prop 8 watches him. And it would have been more helpful if he’d made a statement like this two weeks ago. Still, it was nice of Keith to say this stuff tonight.

An hour or so ago, I sent the following to my family, which was in a frenzy of Obamania:

Seeing Ohio go blue – partly because of my mother’s hard work – was a thrilling moment, and I was agog watching Obama’s speech. It’s been an amazing year. But it has been nearly impossible for me to feel much joy today. I’ve felt the opposite, in fact. While California voted for Obama by a huge margin, a million of his supporters helped take away one of my fundamental rights. Essentially, they legitimized a campaign whose central argument was that nothing is worse than teaching children that gay people are treated equal under the law. In Florida, which Obama also won, a million, if not more, of his supporters also wrote discrimination into their state’s constitution. In Arkansas, as of today, it is now illegal even to foster a child if you are gay. Obama’s election is a sea change in American history, but until we no longer legally oppress all minorities, we will not be a free country.