Protestation

In New York it was cold and rainy, in Russia it was this close to freezing temperatures and in San Jose it was 80º. Thus I usher in one of the topics for this post: WTF, CA?

For those who don't know, today was a national protest against Prop 8. Although it passed in California, it was protested in 300 cities across America and in 10 different countries. I went to the one that was in San Jose and it was huge and amazing and loud and hot and a lot of other things. Over 2,000 people showed up which apparently was nothing compared to cities like Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, and (duh) San Francisco. I made a sign* because going without is slightly depressing. I attended a Sacramento protest last week and it was hard to get into the spirit without something to thrust vehemently into the air. Below is a picture of part of the protest with a big red arrow pointing at me.

There were SO MANY people and I really have never seen such diversity. The coolest part was all the little kids running around waving signs and cheering and playing in the fountain. We were protesting at the City Hall though there were also many people standing on the curb and waving and cheering at the cars that were driving by and honking. At some point a guy came and stood across the street with "No gay marriage" signs. This of course caused people to swarm around him which effectively made the protest even bigger and more spread out. I took a bunch of photos.

Eventually most people were standing somewhere along the street waving, cheering, and chanting as the cars drove by and honked or waved signs at us. Since we were near a light, often times the cars would stop and people would run out into the street to give high-fives and even hug the motorcyclists. Some people started throwing beads into the open windows à la Mardi Gras. There were a few people who drove by that either flipped us off or gave us thumbs down signs and they were collectively booed. One car even had a cup of coffee thrown at it. Still, about 97% of all the responses were positive, which is a very hopeful sign.

* Mine is the one in the upper left-hand corner. At the bottom in small writing it says © Оля.