A Prop 8 challenge for swankers

[innerSpaceman]

ok, so on to the topic at hand and not the separate topic of steve.



The Rally at the Mormon Temple was TeH aWEsoMe!

For some reason, being in front of the Mormon Temple, at the heart of darkness, was far more fulfilling and meaningful than being in West Hollywood.

Likewise, though people driving through West Hollywood don't necessarily live there ... the constant and enthusiastic support from more "random" drivers in West L.A. was incredibly gratifying.

Though the protest was ostensibly in anger at the Mormon Church (and there were many anti-Mormon signs and chants) ... the mood was - imo - far more positive than at last night's rally. Then again, there was no "program" per se ... just protest, a jolly crowd of gays and supporters, lots of reporters, and happy motorists.


My much more professionally made sign, btw, read "One Man and One Woman OR One Man and Six? MORMONS Mind Your Own Marriage Business!"

After about half an hour, though, the crowd got a little rambunctious and again defeated their own good purpose by spilling out into Santa Monica Blvd. and totally blocking westbound traffic. Moments later, the cops - instead of breaking up the protest - just diverted all of westbound Santa Monica Blvd. traffic onto southbound Overland. Whoa. And no mayor of L.A. in attendance to encourage the police not to crack down. (The WeHo mayor was on hand at last night's event.)


This kinda wrecked it for me. There were no longer a stream of supporting motorists to express their overwhelming solidarity (if the same percentage of total Californians felt likewise, the measure would have failed in a landslide ... but the Mormons decided to build their Temple in very liberal West L.A.)


I tried to get people out of the middle of the street so the fun could continue and the cops not freak out, but there was no stopping it. And I got into a rather lively argument with a grizzled old gay who was apparently a veteran of Stonewall and who likely didn't recognize that I was old enough to have been there, too (ya know, if I knew I was gay at 9 years old and decided to sneak into Manhattan for a drink in the East Village).

He insisted the way to affect gay acceptance change is to stop the functioning of civil society, even if it meant pissing off the general populace. I vehemently disagreed with him, and pointed out that hundreds of drivers were expressing their support, and now we were getting them mad at us. But there was no brooking disagreement with this gay geezer, and he was happy as a clam that no one could drive west of Overland, mwha haha!

Someone suggested that it might be useful to stop traffic at rush hour so close to Century City, and I had to concede that would be something halfway significant.



But being so close to Century City, I'm glad I knew I couldn't very well skip this rally on an extended lunch hour. The protest was awesome. I loved a thousand gays and others shouting Shame On You while pointing their fingers at the Mormon Temple, and the vibe was just really positive and fun.


Wow, it's 4:45 p.m. right now, and from a telephone conversation I just heard, traffic may still be messed up from the protests that may still be going on!


I didn't run into anyone from the LoT ... but that gave me the space I needed to talk to strangers and have fun with random gays.


It was, quite clearly, the Best.Lunch.Hour.Ever!