Join the Impact: Nationwide Protests Against Prop 8 on Saturday!

Hey everyone! I’m going to be in Cincinnati this Saturday for my “Beautiful” show at Taft Theatre, but beforehand I’m gonna be at this rally at City Hall, premiering my “Protest Prop 8” song, playing guitar and everything, so please come down! It’s gonna be awesome.

These rallies are NATIONWIDE on Saturday at 1:30pm EST, so find the information for your city here. We gotta stick it to the Mormons and the other fundamentalists who want us to be second class citizens!!

Cincinnati, Ohio — A protest in favor of equal marriage will occur at Cincinnati’s City Hall on Saturday, November 15 at 1:30p.m. Local students, activists, and community members lead this event as part of a day of national protests in reaction to the passage of Proposition 8 in California, re-banning equal marriage in that state.

The local movement is being organized by Cameron Tolle, a junior at Xavier University and Vice President of the Xavier LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified, queer/questioning) Alliance, with the assistance of students from the University of Cincinnati and Miami University, along with several community members. Organizers state that the goal is not to overturn Proposition 8, but to create a national movement and create awareness for the effects that anti-gay legislation has on the local community. The protest will occur in conjunction with other groups from around the country at the same time as part of an initiative launched by http://JoinTheImpact.com; local organizers are in contact with many of these other coalitions as a way of building unity. In the first two days of organization, almost 300 people have stated they will be in attendance; 500 people are expected to attend the event.

“Last week, voters in California, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas allowed hate to infiltrate into our political system and classified the LGBTQ community as second-class citizens,” Tolle says. “We cannot sit back and watch this happen. We have to let our communities know that we oppose hatred under the law in all forms. In Ohio, we live in a state that has already declared inequality by banning equal marriage and failing to include crimes against LGBTQ individuals under state hate crime laws. We cannot let this hatred under the law perpetuate any further.”

JoinTheImpact.com is a national initiative that was created in reaction to the anger felt by many who believe in equal marriage rights after the passage of California’s Proposition 8. It is a loose coalition of activists and organizations who seek to bring positive change in the fight for equality. The movement, less than a week old, is drawing hundreds of thousands of hits a day to its websites. Almost 40 localities have announced protests in correlation with the initiative. More are expected to join in the coming week.

According to the website, the goal is to “come together for debate, for public recognition, and for LOVE! … [to] move as one full unit, on the same day, at the same hour, and…show the United States of America that we too are UNITED CITIZENS EQUAL [sic] IN MIND, BODY, SPIRIT AND DESERVING OF FULL EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW.”

Local organizers are hopeful that the protest will spur discussion and movement towards positive change in the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana region. Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana all currently have laws banning equal marriage rights; Ohio and Kentucky have constitutional amendments, passed by voters in 2004, to the same effect.

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12 thoughts on “Join the Impact: Nationwide Protests Against Prop 8 on Saturday!

  1. I can’t wait to hear your song!

    For those of you near Monterey, California, come to Colton Hall at 10:30 AM. Colton Hall is where the first California Constitution was written in 1849. It was the most progressive state constitution of its time (outlawed slavery, gave married women property rights, ensured the rights of immigrants, and more).

  2. I don’t know if I can come because I’ll need to find a sitter for my kids. But I REALLY want to (I’m in Cincinnati)! If I can make it, I will be there tomorrow will bells on and signs and lots of love!!!!

  3. Glad you made it out of Cincy alive! Yes, it is a rather conservative and unfriendly city. Sorry to have missed your show AND the protest, but I was thrilled to have Ms. Cho involved in a local event. Like MC, I’m not gay but consider myself a member of QueerNation and support those who are fightin’ the good fight. Oh, and BTW…sorry ’bout the weather in Cincy. Despite my enormous power, I have no control over that.

  4. Margaret, I’m a big fan of yours but i’m kinda disappointed how such a vocal activist like yourself don’t also address the problem of racism within the gay community. The fallout of Prop 8 exposed some of the racism within the gay white community. My friends have reported racist insults being thrown at them from fellow white gay protesters and being blamed for Prop 8 passing, even though majority of the votes were from white Californians. Check out this article about a similar racist experience with protesters in Los Angeles.

    http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2008/11/n-word-and-raci.html

    For anybody still blaming African Americans, you should really do some better research. Majority of the voters who voted yes on prop 8 were religious conservatives, most of whom are white.

    Honestly I’m not surprised by this racial scapegoating. I’ve experienced this discrimination in the gay community before prop 8 became an issue. For example, gay owners of clubs and restaurants in the bay area don’t hire ethnic people because they prefer white bartenders and waiters that look like abercombie fitch models.

    The scapegoating makes gay Black and Hispanic minorities nervous about going to these protests because they might get hated on and blamed for Prop 8. If equality is missing within the GBLT community, how can we fight wholeheartedly for equal marriage rights?

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