Friday, February 3, 2012

In Which I Went A-Protestin'

Earlier this week I had some free time after work, a piece of cardboard, and a marker so I made up a sign that read "Christian and pro marriage equality!" and went to the end of the anti-gay-marriage rally that was taking place a few minutes' walk from my house in the state capital. I'm not generally in the habit of making political statements aside from donating money and voting, but I'd had a long day and wanted to vent, and the gym was closed.

Much to my disappointment I didn't find any other counter protesters (the homos were probably home baking cookies or helping their kids do their schoolwork) so I leaned against a planter near where people were leaving and held up my sign. The crowd was about half Catholic, white, and Republican, and half Baptist, black, and probably Democrat - one of the clearest demonstrations I've ever seen that if there was a political party that was socially conservative and not racist they'd have a lot of black voters.

I got mostly glassy stares, which surprised me until I heard someone ask a companion "What's marriage equality?" - apparently this anti-gay-marriage crowd hadn't been keeping up with the other side's rebranding. I got the usual amount of men hissing sl*t, lesbian, and lesbian c*nt hissed at me that you'd expect. A few ladies said God Bless You, and I wished them a "The Lord be with you" back.

Only two guys stopped to engage me - one yelled "Gay men can't make babies!" and I responded "Neither can old people, and they can marry" and he yelled back that homos spread diseases and have created 38 new ones - I'd never heard that one before! A middle-aged man in a red sash from the Catholic contingent came up to me and asked "Should a father be able to marry his daughter?", to which I replied (smartass that I am), "Well, it's one man, one woman..." - he stomped off. I folded up my sign, went home, and laid down to recover from witnessing so much vitriol. Watching others' hatred is sickening and exhausting.

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