Giving a voice to the anger over Prop 8

WHY DO you think Proposition 8 passed?

I THINK it has a lot to do with the lies the Yes on 8 campaign promoted--like the whole idea of gay marriage being taught in schools, and churches losing their tax exempt status. I think that scared a lot of people, and a lot of it wasn't based in reality.

I think both campaigns had the same resources, but the Yes on 8 campaign really played on people's fears. And unfortunately, that's very effective in American politics.

DO YOU think the No on 8 campaign could have done anything differently?

YES. I don't have a TV, but I watched all the commercials on YouTube, and the one thing I really didn't like is that I don't think they had a single homosexual person on any of their commercials. And I don't feel like they went after the claims Yes on 8 was making effectively enough. I think they could've done that a little better.

But I think they did do about as well as thought they could have. I don't blame the No on 8 campaign for it passing.

HAVE YOU ever been involved in any kind of activism before organizing the demonstration for November 7?

NO, THIS is the first time. Even on the No on 8 Campaign, I wasn't all that involved. But then, when this happened, my brother and I just got really angry about it. The night of the election, we were in the Castro, and there was an impromptu celebration for Obama. That same night, we started spreading the word about the protest.

Organizing this was mostly just out of anger. I can't really call myself an activist.

WHAT WAS your motivation for planning the demonstration? Did you start organizing before the vigil on Wednesday night called by Equality California.

WE ACTUALLY started organizing before the vigil happened on Wednesday night. I don't feel the vigil represented what San Francisco really felt, which was anger. And I think the march did that pretty well and pretty gracefully.

Neither my brother nor I were involved in the No on 8 Campaign all that much, unfortunately, and we knew that a lot of people who had been working really, really hard were probably going to be a little burned out and just really saddened by the results. So we took it upon ourselves to organize this protest because we still had all this energy--because we weren't so heavily involved with the work.

We printed out flyers and put them up around the Castro. We put the Web site on the flyers, and encouraged people to print out flyers or make their own. They did, and that's pretty much how it happened.

HOW DID you use the Internet to build the march?

IT STARTED with a Facebook group. David invited all of his friends to join, and I invited all of my friends. Everyone was really excited about the idea, and so they took it upon themselves to invite all of their friends.

We started a blogspot Web site--that's the Web site we put all the flyers on, because not everybody has access to Facebook. We just updated people through that Web site.

I don't have any traffic statistics, but I think a lot of people visited the site because we just received tons and tons of e-mail. People all the way from the eastern part of Contra Costa County were e-mailing us and saying, "Oh, I printed out a hundred flyers and put them all over my neighborhood."

Then, David and I went out the Wednesday night of the vigil and posted flyers all over the Castro and Mission Districts. After that, we went back to the vigil and handed out flyers there. And after that, it was really just a collaborative effort of all the people who wanted to help.

I also created a form letter, and I sent them to all the local media I could think of. They were all really great, especially the smaller outlets: places like SFist.com, squidlist.org and indybay.org. They almost immediately posted the information on their Web sites, and they were really nice about it. Apparently it was on the radio and TV before it happened, because of the press release.

AT WHAT point did you feel you could get a sense the demonstration was growing by word of mouth?

We were getting e-mail every single minute, so just based on that, we knew that it was going to be pretty big--at least 2,000 people or something, but I couldn't have anticipated how big it really was.

One thing that really upset me was the media coverage afterwards. The San Francisco Chronicle initially reported only several hundred people. Then they upped it to 1,000, and now I think they say several thousand. And it was way at the back of the paper.

The whole point of the protest was to get media coverage, and it seems to have been swept under the rug. I really don't think the protests in San Diego and LA and elsewhere over the weekend would have been as big if it weren't for this one.

The Facebook group has about 3,000 members, and I would say a good half of them are from Southern California. And we got all kinds of messages saying, "I'm too far away, but I really support you guys, so let's organize something down here." And there's places all over the state--like Modesto, Fresno, Sacramento-- where there are protests. It's spreading pretty fast, and I don't think people are going to give up any time soon.

WHAT DO you think needs to be done to repeal Proposition 8?

I THINK at this point, it's going to have to happen in the courts. Maybe it will be up for a vote again at some point. But I do hope it happens in the courts, because that's the only way I see it happening any time soon.

But at the same time, I think that these demonstrations are important, just to send a message to those judges and everybody else that we're still mobilized and resolved to fight until the end. That's really what I think the protests are for.

ARE THERE any next steps you see coming out of this demonstration?

SOMETHING THAT my brother and I are trying to start right now is to pressure the media to cover the march and the issue a little bit better than they have. Like I said, they kind of swept the protests under the rug.

We've been sending e-mails to places like the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN and others. They've really been misreporting, because CNN still says that only 2,000 people showed up, and anybody who was there knows more than 2,000 people were there. The AP wire says 1,000. I just don't understand why they're doing that. We're demanding they report these things more accurately.

We also need more and also diverse types of demonstrations whether it be through arts, protests, theater productions, anything. I think that we need to continue doing this and all that we can, showing California that we are not going to give up. And it doesn't necessarily have to be like the protest and march we had on Friday.

One thing that troubles me a little bit is that the movement right now is starting to target churches. I'm not a religious person, but I understand that most of the people who voted no on Prop 8 are religious, and those "activist" judges who gave us our rights are probably religious. So I don't know if it's a very good idea to be targeting religion.

According to what I was reading yesterday, in the early 1990s, when the AIDS movement was happening, a big activist group in New York targeted a Catholic church in Manhattan, and it totally backfired on them. so I don't think that's the way to go.

I think the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church have a lot to be ashamed about in the way they supported the Yes on 8 Campaign, but I'm not sure if it's going to help our cause that much by attacking another minority, the Mormons. To me, it doesn't make much sense.

WHAT ARE your impressions of how things went on the march?

I THINK it was a huge success. I was awestruck the whole time. I didn't think it would be even a tenth as large as it was. I could barely contain myself.

I think it was pretty successful because from what I heard, there was no violence, and I want it to continue that way, because I understand that if we want to win over mainstream America, we can't really be violent.

After Dolores Park, we marched back to Civic Center and by then, it was about half the size as when we initially marched to Dolores Park. Again, we blocked off Market Street. A famous drag queen and columnist, Pollo Del Mar, was a great speaker at both Dolores Park and again at City Hall.

I thought it was over, so I went home to my apartment, but it wasn't--they went back to Castro Street!

WHY DO you think word about the march spread so far so fast in less than 48 hours?

IT'S BECAUSE people are angry, and it resonates across the Bay Area. People in the Bay Area aren't going to sit down and just let the lawyers take care of it. They want to voice their anger, and they need to vent. I don't think the candlelight vigil was enough for most people, and that's why it grew so big.

DO YOU see yourself doing more of this type of activism?

YEAH. RIGHT now, I'm doing the whole media activism thing I mentioned before. I see myself being part of other demonstrations--maybe in areas that are seen as more moderate, like San Jose and Modesto, but I want to continue to be a part of it now. I kind of feel bad for not being a part of the No on 8 campaign as much.

WHAT'S YOUR message to other folks like yourself who maybe weren't involved or active as much before the election?

I THINK the message is that anybody can make a difference. You don't need to be some famous activist to make a big difference.

David and I have never been involved in anything like this, and yet we had close to 10,000 people marching with us that night. So people just need to get involved and do whatever they can--whether it's printing flyers or making Facebook groups. Because anybody can make a difference.