Going to Equal Rights/Prop 8 protests Saturday?

[Guest baseball]

There's nationwide equal rights/anti-Prop 8 protests this Saturday at 1:30pm (eastern time).

So is anyone here going? I think it'd be pretty cool if we could get some experiences/pictures from people going to the protests around the country and post them to a thread here.

You can find out where they are in your state/city here:

http://jointheimpact.wetpaint.com/

And if you happen to be at the Baltimore City action, come say hi .

[dante3000]

Too bad I have work at that time. I'd really love to go.

[scottheisel]

Oh, cool, there's a rally in Cleveland. I may just head on down. Thanks for the info!

[cosmonaut]

I was planning on coming to the DC event.

[mcm1610]

The Buffalo one is at Bidwell park. Way to preach to the masses, guys. Nothing like protesting in the middle of Buffalo's liberal heartland.

[Guest baseball]

The Buffalo one is at Bidwell park. Way to preach to the masses, guys. Nothing like protesting in the middle of Buffalo's liberal heartland.

You are aware that protests tend to get press coverage, right? It's not like the only people seeing the message will be the ones walking by.

[mcm1610]

The Buffalo one is at Bidwell park. Way to preach to the masses, guys. Nothing like protesting in the middle of Buffalo's liberal heartland.

You are aware that protests tend to get press coverage, right? It's not like the only people seeing the message will be the ones walking by.

Eh... I can't see this getting too much local coverage. I'll watch the news and let you know if I'm wrong though.

[Guest baseball]

You are aware that protests tend to get press coverage, right? It's not like the only people seeing the message will be the ones walking by.

Eh... I can't see this getting too much local coverage. I'll watch the news and let you know if I'm wrong though.

Sure, it might not get evening news coverage but there's lots of other press outlets. I'd be surprised if no local or college papers were covering a protest. Even internet blogs coverage can reach a significant number of people anymore. It's the information age!

[captainmorgan]

My girlfriend and I will be making our way down to the Chicago one. I'll try to remember to bring my camera.

[cosmonaut]

There has been a large counter-movement gearing up to oppose this bullshit. Here's an article about the recent protest in NYC at the Mormon temple:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZmLBrL36NObNyMR0ghXN7vB5hYwD94E08S80

Why the hell do Mormons care if gay people marry each other? I will never understand this.

[jamesferenc]

I will going down toward the Harbor that day before work.

I am sure I will stop by and check it out.

[divaface]

yeah i'll be hitting the philly one. there should be a ton of people there.

[cosmonaut]

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[deville]

I'm for civil unions, but we live in a federal republic where the majority of people voted against it. If we stop abiding by democratic rules and letting courts decide what is best for us, where does it stop? What next a banning abortion, inter-racial marriages, freedom of speech?

[scottheisel]

I'm for civil unions, but we live in a federal republic where the majority of people voted against it. If we stop abiding by democratic rules and letting courts decide what is best for us, where does it stop? What next a banning abortion, inter-racial marriages, freedom of speech?

But no one's trying to ban anything here -- they're trying to reverse a ban. They're trying to increase civil liberties and the freedoms we're entitled to as Americans. You can't compare banning abortion to allowing gay marriage, as one infringes on someone's rights and one doesn't.

[deville]

I'm for civil unions, but we live in a federal republic where the majority of people voted against it. If we stop abiding by democratic rules and letting courts decide what is best for us, where does it stop? What next a banning abortion, inter-racial marriages, freedom of speech?

But no one's trying to ban anything here -- they're trying to reverse a ban. They're trying to increase civil liberties and the freedoms we're entitled to as Americans. You can't compare banning abortion to allowing gay marriage, as one infringes on someone's rights and one doesn't.

You didn't get the point, we have elections so that whomever has the majority of votes wins and gets what they want. Obviously the majority of people in CA don't want to have gay marriages. I was just stating that if we start to overturn elections because we don't like the outcome, then where will it stop? I don't want to have courts deciding what is best for us. I support gay marriage and it's eventually going to happen, but just not right now in CA.

[scottheisel]

But no one's trying to ban anything here -- they're trying to reverse a ban. They're trying to increase civil liberties and the freedoms we're entitled to as Americans. You can't compare banning abortion to allowing gay marriage, as one infringes on someone's rights and one doesn't.

You didn't get the point, we have elections so that whomever has the majority of votes wins and gets what they want. Obviously the majority of people in CA don't want to have gay marriages. I was just stating that if we start to overturn elections because we don't like the outcome, then where will it stop? I don't want to have courts deciding what is best for us. I support gay marriage and it's eventually going to happen, but just not right now in CA.

But when an election was as close as this one, there's a review and recount process, just like the presidential election in 2000. Had Prop 8 passed with, say, 70% the vote, there's no argument -- but it was a 51/49 decision, and no election count is perfect. The matter of it is, the country -- or at least more forward-thinking parts of the country -- is split on this issue, and it's really too close to decide via a popular vote. This is one of many reasons why we have the court system, to protect the rights of minorities and review potentially unfair decisions made in elections.

[deville]

Where was the court system during Jim Crow, or when all the white people stole all the Japanese-Americans land during WWII, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Gitmo, banned inter-racial marriage, sodomy as a felony etc?

[scottheisel]

Where was the court system during Jim Crow, or when all the white people stole all the Japanese-Americans land during WWII, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Gitmo, banned inter-racial marriage, sodomy as a felony etc?

Jim Crow:

In the 20th century, the Supreme Court began to overturn Jim Crow laws on constitutional grounds. In Buchanan v. Warley 245 US 60 (1917), the court held that a Kentucky law could not require residential segregation. The Supreme Court in 1946, in Irene Morgan v. Virginia ruled segregation in interstate transportation to be unconstitutional, in an application of the commerce clause of the Constitution. It was not until 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 347 US 483 that the court held that separate facilities were inherently unequal in the area of public schools, effectively overturning Plessy v. Ferguson, and outlawing Jim Crow in other areas of society as well. This landmark case consisted of complaints filed in the states of Delaware (Gebhart v. Belton); South Carolina (Briggs v. Elliott); Virginia (Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County); and Washington, D.C. (Spottswode Bolling v. C. Melvin Sharpe). These decisions, along with other cases such as McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Board of Regents 339 US 637 (1950), NAACP v. Alabama 357 US 449 (1958), and Boynton v. Virginia 364 US 454 (1960), slowly dismantled the state-sponsored segregation imposed by Jim Crow laws.

In addition to Jim Crow laws, in which the state compelled segregation of the races, businesses, political parties, unions and other private parties created their own Jim Crow arrangements, barring blacks from buying homes in certain neighborhoods, from shopping or working in certain stores, from working at certain trades, etc. The Supreme Court outlawed some forms of private discrimination in Shelley v. Kraemer 334 US 1 (1948), in which it held that "restrictive covenants" that barred sale of homes to blacks or Jews or Asians were unconstitutional, on the grounds that they represented state-sponsored discrimination, in that they were only effective if the courts enforced them.

The Supreme Court was unwilling, however, to attack other forms of private discrimination. It reasoned that private parties did not violate the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution when they discriminated, because they were not "state actors" covered by that clause.

In 1971, the Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld desegregation busing of students to achieve integration.

[scottheisel]

Where was the court system during Jim Crow, or when all the white people stole all the Japanese-Americans land during WWII, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Gitmo, banned inter-racial marriage, sodomy as a felony etc?

Interracial marriage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws#Anti-Miscegenation_Laws_and_the_US_Constitution

[scottheisel]

etc. etc. etc. -- everything you mentioned (minus Mumia Abu Jamal) has been overturned by the courts in time because it's realized the laws people are trying to uphold are unfair, wrong and antithetical to what America is supposed to be all about.

As for Mumia, there is just enough reason to think he is guilty if you think he is innocent, and vice versa. He doesn't represent a cultural movement that's being oppressed.

[deville]

wow the courts only needed about 200 years to right a wrong.

[deville]

ok, so what if an uber evangelical christian judges gets this case and decides that gay marriage is wrong and rules against Prop 8, then what?

[captainmorgan]

You didn't get the point, we have elections so that whomever has the majority of votes wins and gets what they want. Obviously the majority of people in CA don't want to have gay marriages. I was just stating that if we start to overturn elections because we don't like the outcome, then where will it stop? I don't want to have courts deciding what is best for us. I support gay marriage and it's eventually going to happen, but just not right now in CA.

And I don't want a slim majority of voters deciding what civil rights I'm entitled to. That's what the courts are for - to protect the rights of minorities. If they'd tried to put segregation or interracial marriages up to a vote, those things wouldn't have been overturned. So if the majority of the people in the south believed that black people didn't deserve equal rights, should they have had to wait until the white majority was "ready" to give them their rights?

[scottheisel]

wow the courts only needed about 200 years to right a wrong.

So you want us to wait 200 years to reverse the gay-marriage ban? I really don't understand what you're trying to say here.