Joined the Impact!

Today, as many know, was the (inter)national day of protest against Proposition 8 and for marriage equality.  The number of people that showed up in my city was incredible for a small to medium-sized city.  I happen to live in a city that has a university, so the city is more liberal than surrounding areas, and we enjoyed a massive amount of support in the way of protesters and simply people honking their horns and giving us thumbs up.  I forgot to make a sign so I simply used a fairly generic sign they had made already that said “Marriage Equality”, but some people made some very original signs.  My favorite was “Canada welcomed us with opened arms.  Why won’t my country welcome my wife?”  It was so sweet.  One of the organizers went around with a megaphone asking people to share their names and why they were there.  One man, of indeterminate age (my guess was roughly 45 or 50) gave this very beautiful speech about the progression of marriage rights, and in the end he said “we will win this, history is on our side”.  This one old man, a double amputee, was there the whole time, and the only thing I heard him say was “I married my sweetheart, why can’t everyone?”  It was so touching to hear someone from a generation less likely to support marriage equality, come out and say something so wonderful in its simplicity.

At noon, after two hours of standing on the same four corners of the intersection, we marched down to our town’s farmer’s market, filling up both sides of the sidewalk and getting even more people honking.  When we got to the market we stood at the entrance and chanted for about ten minutes before we had to break up.

I am so glad I got up early this morning, because I really feel like I made an impact.

It was all about love.