My First Political Protest

This past week has been rather intense at school. Known to 1Ls as “Memo Week,” the past eight days have involved researching and writing a legal memo worth 70% of our grade. Now that it’s over and with a little breathing room in my study schedule, I thought I would take this opportunity to sound off on the election and last week’s protest.

I went to a political protest on November 15, 2008. I have to admit that I initially didn’t think I was going to be affected by the experience. I was wrong. Let the record show that Eric was right and I was wrong…at least this one time. We arrived early (by public transportation I might add) and the first thing you see are the anti-gay bigots standing behind a police line. There were only seventeen of them with their signs telling me that I’m going to hell and shouting other sorts of nonsense. You see and hear about these people on television, like those from the Westboro Baptist “Church,” but it hit me in a way that I didn’t expect. They’re real. They believe they have a duty to go out and judge other people telling them they are going hell. Last time I checked, God was the only one who can judge me.

Approximately twelve thousand Los Angelenos managed to put down their cell phones and their Starbucks to stand up for what is right. City officials, such as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and celebrities like Nikki Blonsky (star of Hairspray) and Rex Lee (the gay assistant from Entourage) managed to come out and support the cause.

You see, three weeks ago, my civil rights were stripped from me. I once had the ability to marry and now I don’t. Just think about that for a minute…I cannot marry the person I love. With all that is going on this country—home foreclosures, lost jobs, food prices—the religious right took it upon themselves to focus on stripping away my right to marry the person I love. Yes, I blame the religious right. They funded the campaign of lies and fear mongering telling people that their church will lose their tax exempt status (a lie), gay marriage will be taught in schools (another lie), and Barack Obama supported Proposition 8 (yet another lie). They even called people posing as members of the Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Center asking them to vote yes on Proposition 8 in order to create confusion!!! Did I miss something? Is lying a Christian value? I am a Christian and I believe these people have hijacked Christianity and used it preach hate. They have tarnished the principles of Christianity. Jesus, last time I checked my Bible, was all about love. See Matthew 22:36-40.

I had the fortune/misfortune of attending a discussion on Proposition 8 with an ACLU attorney and a Reverend from the Episcopal Church at my school shortly before voting day. The attorney took the legal aspects and the Reverend took the faith aspects of Proposition 8. The legal argument was essentially that if this proposition passes, the government will take away the right to marry from one group of citizens. The faith argument was that God loves all of His children and you should love your neighbor as yourself. You could tell these two individuals were passionate about this cause. The misfortunate part of this discussion was the student questions. Most disheartening to me was one student who refused to accept the parallel between restricting marriage because of sex and restricting marriage because of race because a person does not choose their race, but a person can choose their sexual orientation. I honestly could not believe what I had just heard. You see, to be in law school, it does take some level of intelligence. However, this statement is frankly riddled with ignorance. Someone chooses to be gay? I no more chose to be gay than a straight person chooses to be straight. I grew up with a Mormon mother and a father in the Navy. It really doesn’t get more conservative than that. You think I would choose to be gay and want to come out to parents with that level of conservatism? Give me a break. The only thing I chose was to be honest to myself and my family. And guess what…my mother, still a member of the Mormon church, loves me for who I am and strongly believes her church has their views of gays and lesbians completely wrong. My father, before he passed away, loved me for who I am. He knew his son didn’t choose to be gay. He knew God created him to be that way.

Another argument I heard at this discussion was that allowing gay marriage will create a slippery slope allowing all other kinds of marriage. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to marry a goat. And why is that the next logical step in these people’s minds? We’re talking about two, consenting adult human beings who love each other and want the stability that marriage will bring to their relationship. The slippery slope we should be worried about is who will be next...who will be the next group of people to have their rights taken away from them next because of a simple majority?

So, the protest surprisingly helped me. Being there with my fiancé, two of my other friends, and twelve thousand other people really helped me. I didn’t feel alone. I didn’t feel like people were apathetic that my rights were taken from me because of a simple majority (and believe me, where I go to school, you inevitably feel like the only gay man and supporter of gay rights on the planet). I didn’t feel like this fight was over. And it isn’t. The California Supreme Court will hear the case to overturn Proposition 8 because it revises, rather than amends, the state Constitution. The petition is persuasive. And it’s going to win.