Dust off your placards, lace up your combat boots — there’s a good, old-fashioned gay rights demonstration in Burlington tomorrow.
Gay activists and their allies nationwide were outraged last week when Californians voted for Proposition 8, which will amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages. Since then, a number of grassroots protests and demonstrations in support of marriage rights have taken place in California and across the country.
A new grassroots network has sprung up in response to this issue, and organizers nationwide are planning a national day of action tomorrow, Saturday, November 15.
Vermont Freedom to Marry is organizing the Burlington event, despite the fact that it may not help their cause. They’ve been quietly marshaling their forces for the past couple years, trying to build support for a bill in the legislature that would grant same-sex couples the right to marry (instead of just unionize civilly). From their website:
We’ve heard from several people around the state who want to take part in the Join the Impact national day of protests about Proposition 8. In truth, we’ve been wringing hands about this. Given where we are in the marriage movement in Vermont, protests aren’t exactly going to advance our efforts, but people are calling on Vermont to Reclaim its Leadership Role — It’s time!
We’re shifting gears, and we’re asking you to join us this Saturday to acknowledge the painful and discriminatory vote in California while urging Vermont to Reclaim its Leadership Role by passing marriage equality in 2009!
I’m sure FTM doesn’t want to jeopardize the progress they’ve made by attracting any negative attention that might galvanize the opposition. But what the heck, right? Everybody’s doing it.
Get in on the action tomorrow at Burlington’s City Hall Park at 1:30 p.m.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2008.
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I think they should protest at the Joseph Smith Memorial in Sharon, birthplace of the Morman leader.
I went out to the protest today and was pleasantly surprised by the crowd of 200+ who sat in the rain and listened to impassioned pleas for equality. I’ve been to many protests/demonstrations in front of City Hall over the past 10 years and usually you can count on 50 or so die-hard folks to show up. Today brought out a wide cross-section of folks motivated to get equal marriage rights passed in Vermont. I’m relieved to know that VFM is prepared to fight this fight and win — they’ve been laying the ground work for years and they didn’t spend $84 million to do it. Executive Director Robyn Maguire urges us to get involved by signing the Marriage Resolution at http://www.vtfreetomarry.org.
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As a heterosexual member of Vermont Freedom to Marry Task force, my husband and children are 100% behind Equal Rights for Same-Sex Marriage. We’ve been members for about 2 years, and was one family of hundreds that attended one of the public forums to speak in favor of this civil right. This is neither a republican or democrat issue – it’s a human right’s issue. Civil unions fall short of the legal rights and protections afforded to civil marriage – specifically social security benefits, inheritance tax protections, health care rights.