ON A MUDDY SECTION of the South Park Blocks on Saturday morning, 1,000 people crowded around a small, low stage to protest the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California, a measure that killed marriage equality in that state. Around the world, thousands of people rallied in hundreds of other cities and towns.
“How many of you are as angry as I am?” Mayor-elect Sam Adams asked the crowd on November 15, yelling into a megaphone. “In our anger, it’s important that we put it to good use. Because… it’s about what we do from here on out.”
Two days later, rally organizer Lindsey Asher—a woman who says the election “really instigated me,” and made her realize “I couldn’t sit here wondering what the next step is”—echoed Adams’ message.
“We’re not focusing on the hate that’s been projected on us, but what we can each do,” she says.
Meanwhile groups like Basic Rights Oregon (BRO), the Q Center, and the Equity Foundation issued an open letter the day before the rally, tamping down “the desire to place blame,” and—like Adams and Asher—calling “on everyone in our community to move forward together.”
The letter even looked at Prop 8 through a lens of hope: “The truth is that millions of voters took a stand against discrimination. And they did so in numbers greater than we have ever seen. Eight years ago Californians passed a marriage ban by a 22 percent margin. This year it was only four percent. While far from a victory, this shift represents historic progress,” read the letter, signed by BRO’s Jeana Frazzini and other local gay rights leaders.
But with all of this talk of moving forward and looking to the future, what can we do to achieve full equality? In Oregon, Measure 36 still bars marriage equality on a constitutional level, and it’ll take a tough and expensive ballot measure fight to repeal. The anti-gay activists at Concerned Oregonians are also reorganizing, and will likely try to roll back domestic partnerships next year.
“I would love to see Oregon as the first state to repeal our marriage amendment,” says BRO’s Frazzini. “In order to do something like that it’s going to take an aggressive public-awareness campaign. We’re going to need to continue to build support for that.”
The messages that the gay rights movement has put out to date haven’t been working on as broad a scale as is necessary, however. “I think California demonstrates that,” says Frazzini. Fine tuning the message to reach out to people of faith or communities of color—African American voters in California and Mormon donors have been loudly blamed for Prop 8’s passage—”is a big part of what’s next.”
“We have a movement that has struggled to broaden the representation within our movement beyond where it started, which is primarily white, primarily middle-class folks who do a great job of speaking to one another but don’t necessarily build the relationships across race and across class,” she says. “And those are the kinds of connections that are going to be critical to have moving forward.”
To that end, folks like David Martinez of Portland Latino Gay Pride, Frazzini and others plan to meet on November 19 for a brainstorming session. Asher will attend. “There are a lot of ideas swirling around,” she adds.
At the protest, Mayor-elect Adams got specific, urging people to help organizations like BRO, to come out “if you haven’t already,” and to “let your email address list know that it’s time for our straight allies and for our families to step up, volunteer, give money, and support us.”
Asher says she tries to educate people about marriage equality whenever she can—even in the grocery checkout line. If a cashier “says have a good day, I say I will… if you know about marriage equality.”
Asher adds that there will likely be another rally, where she hopes to mitigate complaints about last Saturday’s rally, namely about the absence of a march and the lack of a sufficient sound system. The crowd occasionally broke into chants of “let’s march!” but rally organizers didn’t have the time or money to obtain a permit to march through the streets, says Asher.
“I had never organized an event of this size,” she says. “I think that we had a bigger turnout than we expected. But I hope that if we do something again, we can get more people to come next time because it was such a positive experience.”
This rally was a joke. My friends and I were the ones trying to incite a march, (HELL, even a peaceful conga line!) only to be shushed and silenced with a bunch of crap about needing a permit. You don’t need a fucking permit for civil disobediance! If you’re too afraid of getting arrested then walk peacefully down the sidewalk but DO something! We were stuffed away in a corner of PSU where no one could see us, when all other city protests were at CITY HALL. And Mr. Mayor elect? Don’t be copping lines from Milk if you’re not going to have the balls he did. That just makes you look like a bandwagon jumper. Disappointing!
What should you do?
Fight for ALL our rights by attending the
END THE FED protests tomorrow at NOON
Its happening in every state- take back your
blood, sweat and tears stolen by taxes and fiat currency
owned by PRIVATE FOREIGN BANKERS.
Its unconstitutional, and its time has come.
PROTEST THE CORPORATE HEISTERS 11/22/08
(local federal reserve building, downtown pdx)
Hmmm. Last time I checked, it was the Liberal Democrats like Sam Adams who supported all the fascists who just took away my right to smoke in a bar, a gay bar to boot.
And why are any of you looking to the govt. to approve your relationships? I’m stunned by how many of my supposedly progressive friends rip on Wiccans and humanists for polyamorous relationships then turn around and scream about their right to marry being trampled. If you want to change society’s definition of marriage from its current heterosexual couple-ist rendering, you have to go all the way, and stop acting so namby pamby. I, for one, would get the government out of the marriage business altogether. But liberals can’t live without Mommy and Daddy’s approval, so keep up with your whiny rallies. I’ll have a smoke outside in your honor.
Hmmm. Last time I checked, it was the Liberal Democrats like Sam Adams who supported all the fascists in Salem who just took away my right to smoke in a bar, a gay bar to boot.
And why are any of you looking to the govt. to approve your relationships? All you’re doing is giving a government that interred Japanese people lists of gays they can track down once they issue us Real IDs. How fucking stupid and clueless are y’all? You really think the American government is not going to head toward a police state eventually? Your buddy, Obama, wants his wars, too, just different ones than Bushie.
And I’m stunned by how many of my supposedly progressive friends rip on Wiccans and humanists for polyamorous relationships then turn around and scream about their right to marry being trampled. If you want to change society’s definition of marriage from its current heterosexist couple-ist rendering, you have to go all the way, and stop acting so namby pamby.
I, for one, would get the government out of the marriage business altogether. But liberals can’t live without Mommy and Daddy’s Big Government’s approval, so keep up with your whiny rallies instead of building an alternative world with your own marriage contracts, etc. I’ll have a smoke outside in your honor. Not in Pioneer Square, though.
Posted by Your Name Here
Hmmm. Last time I checked, it was the Liberal Democrats like Sam Adams who supported all the fascists who just took away my right to smoke in a bar, a gay bar to boot.
And why are any of you looking to the govt. to approve your relationships? I’m stunned by how many of my supposedly progressive friends rip on Wiccans and humanists for polyamorous relationships then turn around and scream about their right to marry being trampled. If you want to change society’s definition of marriage from its current heterosexual couple-ist rendering, you have to go all the way, and stop acting so namby pamby. I, for one, would get the government out of the marriage business altogether. But liberals can’t live without Mommy and Daddy’s approval, so keep up with your whiny rallies. I’ll have a smoke outside in your honor.
Tear Down The Wall
The same sex movement is an addict. Be done already with pining over the masochist search for the holly grail of adulthood, the so called institution of marriage. Instead, gather your fellow non-married citizen and join in a cold turkey movement to strike down the business of bureaucratically issuing marriage licenses. Legislature at any level supporting the bestowal of privileges and/or so called rights upon couples is a bigoted enterprise begetting classism and division. So please be done with trying to scale the wall, let me suggest you put your resources instead to tearing the f….. down.
p.s. When the religious movement spout the sanctity of their holly institution point them to the first amendment to our Constitution.
sf
>>> Mr. Freedom
We got your point the 1st time. You don’t need to spam.
Smoking will kill you, btw.
I agree with “oh yeah” who posted Nov 21st. I was very disappointed to have dragged my ass out of bed early on a Sat morning, showed up for the rally stood in the cold for two hours and then be informed that we weren’t allowed to march. Now, when Mayor Elect Sam Adams grabbed the bullhorn, he really electrified the crowd. I’m glad he appeared, it almost made the whole fiasco worthwhile. I must say however, that it struck me as very strange that the next mayor of PDX who sounded very in your face, out loud and proud etc. couldnt figure out a way to finagle a permit for his community and supporters to actually march on such a critical issue and day (when people marched in 3,000 cities across the planet in solidarity with the protests and struggle in California and across the US) Just saying. All in all it was not a terribly auspicious debut for our mayor in that regard. It was, however the largest protest I have seen in PDX in my two years here. Another odd thing, two organizers at the event informed me they thought 3,000 people turned out, although that did seem a bit high. Here it says 1000. In any case, it was a nice big crowd.
To Tear Down the Wall:
Your post shows that you are missing the whole point of this struggle. It is not that we are capitulating to a tired, old, outworn convention of the oppressor establishment-the institution of marriage. It is primarily the principle of this thing. They do not have the right to tell us what we can or cannot do, nor systematically via codified law, deprive us of the freedom of any activity, association, of privileges and benefits that are extended to any other group of people. Period. We are taking about our right to inclusion in everything under basic human and civil rights. That IS the Constitution, my friend!
To morpheus
I fail to see how a marriage license is a right, it does not allow you to marry nor prohibit you from doing so. More to your point though, there are a slew of benefits, privileges, etc. which one might be allowed when claiming their marital status. Here is a short list, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf . First off, how could one not argue that ANY legislature giving preferential treatment to one group over another is not bigoted? I would assume you agree with this dynamic, so why would you want this practice to spread and fester (yes the practice of governing bodies issuing marriage licenses)? Even more specific to your point I would be interested in discussing some of the top items on the list of what you consider violations of freedom. I am aware of some of the struggles loved ones have settling accounts when another passes on, or the ability of a loved one to visit another in the hospital. As a single person though I have to differ with the thought that in order for me to have rights or privileges I must enter into a contract with a third person as a witness. So the center question I leave with is: should there be any law, of our governing bodies or private companies and corporations, which give preferential treatment to anyone based on marriage status? Take care…
THAT BITCH WITH THE BULLHORN IS HOT. DOES SHE GOBBLE WAD OR IS SHE JUST A CLAM LAPPER WISHING MCDONALDS WOULD PUT BUTTERED WHISKER BISCUITS BACK ON THE MENU?
Sam Adams is for Gays as Uncle Tom was for Blacks.
WAKE THE F%#$ UP.
Well, insanity would dictate that we keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. I say it’s time to explore some Rovian tactics for the left. We have to fight fire with fire and this can be done with the truth as opposed to the fabrications the right puts out. Prop 8 was won based entirely on fear based lies broadcast over and over until it became a viral meme and too late to publicly extinguish.
We need new strategy. And the whole pc thing has got to go.