Signs from the Marriage Equality rally…
Today there was a massive national protest against the recently-passed Proposition 8 which banned same-sex marriage in California. The scene in front of San Francisco’s City Hall looked a lot like the Pride Parade with all its rainbows and signs, except that everybody was looking in the same direction.
I frantically scribbled down as many of the brilliant sign slogans as I could. Here’s what I saw:
Now that I can’t get married, are you better off?
Repeat Hate, Reveal Love
No Taxation Without Representation
Gay, Straight, Black & White
Marriage is a Civil RightWhose Civil Rights are Next?
We love ALL our children
No more Mr. Nice Gay
Hug a Homo
Kiss a Queer
Your MOM Loves Gays
Queer Eye for the Prop 8 Guy:
Church / State
Honey, STOP!! Never never mix!!!!What if we voted on YOUR marriage?
I just want to get married.
All love is constitutional.
Marriage: Not just for pregnant evangelical teens!
REALLY protect marriage
I’m straight & I’m pissed
Not your sacrament,
Just our civil rightMy gay sister deserves the same rights as me
Prop 8 hurts children and families
Stonewall 2.0
Equality and Justice for ALL?
You have three wives.
I want one husband.Chickens: 1
Gays: 0I can see inequality from my house.
Homo by nature, equal by law
My straight parents raised me right and
I’m STILL GAY!In school I was taught men and women get married
and I still married another man.
Let me stay married.Marriage: we aren’t “thrilled” with the name, either.
We just want protection and civil rights.End the ban on love.
Discrimination makes Baby Jesus cry
Why so fixated on my sexuality?
Are you that bored and frustrated with your own?There once was a ballot named 8
whose aim was to legislate hate.
It passed by a thread
with the Church in my bed.
For my rights, I will nowhave to waitMILITATE!Just
Married
SegregatedI love my 2 Dads
My love is not second class
You can’t amend our family
We are OUTraged
Jesus wept. –John 11:35
Ban Divorce:
It hurts children and compromises marriageJesus took no one’s rights away
Not 2 late 2 fix this mistake
Yes I Do
Separate is inherently unequal
I want to be miserable, too
My twin is not a second-class citizen
My love is bigger than your hate
Voting on civil rights is unamerican
This fight is far from over
GIRL, you did NOT just steal our rights, did you?
I’ll keep my marriage out of your church.
Keep your church out of my marriage.Let me marry my husband so I can stop screwing yours.
Out-of-state money paid for H8. We won’t buy it.
Who would Jesus H8?
I served to defend EVERYBODY’S rights!
Mormon church:
How else could you spend $25 million?Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
We’re here, we’re married, get used to it!
I am one of “We the People”
Why condemn our acts of faith?
Give my daughter my rights!
End the tradition of discrimination
If we can’t get married, they shouldn’t be able to get divorced.
Should we vote on Freedom of Religion next?
The Gay Agenda
1. Equal Rights
2. See item #1.If gays can’t marry, straights can’t get their hair done.
Oppression is Pathological
And my personal favorite…
OMG
WTF
SRSLY?
Which ones do you love?
What signs are you seeing?
Category: faces 25 comments »
November 15th, 2008 at 6:22 pm |
in pursuit of happiness
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November 15th, 2008 at 6:26 pm |
I am too old for this shit!, equal rights NOW!
Don’t H8, appreciate!!
Against gay marriage? don’t get one!
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November 15th, 2008 at 6:34 pm |
Gay Marriage?! What’s next, POLYGAMY?! Oh, wait……
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November 15th, 2008 at 6:57 pm |
don’t be a gaycist!
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November 15th, 2008 at 7:33 pm |
These are amazing. Laughing through tears. I’m so thrilled that in my very, very socially conservative town, at least 50 showed up for a protest. WV is very proud of y’all:)
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November 15th, 2008 at 9:10 pm |
My favorite sign at the local protest in Northampton Mass was held by a tiny 3-4yro boy
“When I am big, maybe churches won’t H8”
Thank you everyone who went out into the streets today!
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November 15th, 2008 at 9:47 pm |
My favourite sign was my own, I have to admit:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that ALL men are created EQUAL”
It’s a classic.
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November 15th, 2008 at 10:57 pm |
[hateful comment deleted]
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November 16th, 2008 at 12:02 am |
Wow, zgomer , your post undermines itself! How did you do that? You inarticulate attempt to spew hate backfired and showed you to be somewhat retarded. You poor, insecure thing.
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Zgomer replied:
April 17th, 2016 at 6:54 am
[hateful comment deleted]
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November 16th, 2008 at 12:39 am |
Whoa, zgomer! What makes you such a shining example of humanity that you get to set the standard of what’s “natural,” “normal,” and “responsible”? Looks like hate and ignorance are the ONLY things you’ve brought to this discussion.
Marriage isn’t about reproduction, zgomer. What two adults do in their bedrooms is none of your business, and whether it results in children is also none of your business, nor is it the government’s business. As a happily married Christian man in a childless (opposite-sex) couple, I’m insulted that you, and the likes of you who supported Prop 8, have tried, by law, to reduce my marriage to procreation and sex. Prop 8 poses a grave threat to the institution of marriage, by trying to dictate to everyone what the PURPOSE of marriage is–that’s not up to the state to decide. Marriage has many benefits, and each couple gets married for its own reasons–procreation may or may not have anything to do with it.
My wife and I choose to be childless, and every state in the Union still recognizes our marriage. Same-sex couples deserve the same protection of law that you, and my wife and I, enjoy: the tax benefits, hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, and countless others. zgomer, I defy you to explain how your own marriage has improved by preventing the law from recognizing someone else’s.
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November 16th, 2008 at 2:44 am |
Zgomer, I won’t say that you don’t understand gays. I will say that you don’t understand grammar, logic or reality. Blessed are the puss grinders.
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November 16th, 2008 at 5:45 am |
“fight for LOVE not against it”
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November 16th, 2008 at 5:49 am |
[hateful comment deleted]
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November 16th, 2008 at 8:16 am |
Dear DeeDee and zmonger,
I can’t wait until the day you come face to face with the God you portend to believe in and love. I want you to look God in the face and explain to him how you made the world a better place. How you treated your fellow persons with the love and respect with which Jesus taught us. Then when God looks through the facade that is your faith to the clear and deep hate that you hold for you fellow human beings, God will judge you and judge you harshly.
Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called children of God.
–Matthew 5:9
The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.
–Psalm 29:11
One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.
–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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November 16th, 2008 at 10:20 am |
[hateful comment deleted]
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November 16th, 2008 at 11:10 am |
News flash, DeeDee: Not everyone is a Christian. To me, the first half of the Bible is a collection of fictional stories to explain patriarchal laws of the JEWISH religion and the second half covers the brief example of a good man (but a man, nonetheless) and his successors working toward defining the church in their image.
Oh and yeah, there’s that whole FIRST AMENDMENT which means you can’t make LAW based on BELIEF ALONE. In other words, you can’t attempt to hoist your outdated religion onto others.
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November 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am |
*waves her sign at DoDo* SEPARATE CHURCH AND STATE* !!
er, DeeDee
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November 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am |
To Mister DeeDee:
The gay community is not at all requesting that the bible be changed. They are only asking that it not be used as a weapon against them in the eyes of the law. Saying that A gay person cannot marry a gay person “the fact homosexuality is a sin” is a massive violation of the seperation of church and state.
Some people have argued that If homosexuals are allowed to get married, then Soon ploygamists will be able to get married multiple times. I refute this argument by pointing out that Both gay and straight marriage is just two people becoming bonded, while Polygamy is multiple people becoming bonded, which begins to cause a massive problems with the taxes and inheritance rights associated with marriage (though of course, I personally have no moral problems with polygamy, sort of a live and let live stance. I was just refuting “Homosexual marriage will open the floodgate for polygamy etc. Arguement I have heard elsewhere.)
And now to pull out my bible and find other crazy laws in leviticus…
Leviticus 19:19 includes…
“…Neither shall a garnment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.”
That probably means all mixed material clothes are banned, so that 35% polyester shirt you’re wearing is sinful.
Leviticus 21:17
“Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath Any blemish, let not approach to offer the bread of God.” then it goes on to list said blemishes: Blind Lame, Flat Nose, anyhting superfluous, brokenfooted or brokenhanded, crookedbacked, dwarfed, the list goes on.
I guess that means that God wants you to ostracize any midgets of cripples that you meet.
These are but a few of many laws that call for things even most hardcore christians find Immoral.
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November 16th, 2008 at 11:27 am |
Hey everyone,
I’m proud to say that Genderfork.com has been running for over a year without a shred of hatred in its content or comments, and I intend to keep it that way.
zgomer’s and DeeDee’s comments have been deleted and their IPs have been blacklisted.
I’m grateful that a bunch of you jumped on the situation to contain their rhetoric (and in fact, someone even emailed me to make sure I was paying attention) — thank you.
Further hatred will be quietly deleted.
Love,
Sarah
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November 16th, 2008 at 11:35 am |
One thing I have not heard from opponents of same-sex marriage is an answer to this question: How does it affect you, personally, if people of the same sex get married?
I find the reaction from many Christians to same-sex marriage to be out of proportion. I don’t see people protesting adultery or divorce, and yet both adultery and divorce are dilutions of the “purity” of marriage. Adultery is even proscribed by one of the Ten Commandments, not by a mention in Leviticus.
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November 16th, 2008 at 11:37 am |
Dear DeeDee and zmonger,
Are you even regular readers of this blog? I doubt that people who are open enough to explore gender would be so opposed to equal rights.
I wonder what it would be like if everyone like you spent more energy on spreading love than hate.
How would you feel if someone took away your rights to freedom of religion?
We all need to realize that we live in a complex and diverse society and that it benefits us all to be open and spread love, specially when our opinions differ.
Also, I have to add that consensual pain with sex is a perfectly valid form of sexual expression that not only queers participate in. It has nothing to do with gay marriage.
Love, peace and all good things,
Fivestar
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November 16th, 2008 at 12:57 pm |
My husband and I have been having this conversation a lot lately for a couple of reasons. I am for gay marriage and he is against it. He does not hate gay people nor does he think they should not be allowed to have a civil union. He thinks that if the laws were opened to let a man/man or woman/woman marriage pass, then what would stop people from defining a marriage between a parent/child, elderly/caretaker type scenario. He think that a big part of marriage is the laws allowed to benefit either party. So what then stops a person who is taking care of there elderly mother to make the argumement that there mother depends on them so why can’t they each have the legal rights as a married person. (something like this, I am trying hard to remember his arguement because most of the time I shut down and get too emotional to debate)
His other concern is that of childbirth. He thinks that if a same sex couple want a child, they should adopt, but they choose to not be able to reproduce by having a same sex marriage.
These are his opinions and I have to respect them even if I really don’t agree. I try like heck all the time to get him to change them – and I think it is working, but slowly and with compassion.
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November 16th, 2008 at 1:10 pm |
Beth,
The answer to “what would stop people from defining marriage between a parent/child, etc.?” question is “the law”. I suggest he vote against any alteration to the law that allows a parent to marry their child. However, that’s not what the same-sex marriage issue is about. Why is he against same-sex marriage per se?
Any civil rights lawyer can answer the question “is same-sex a slippery slope?” and I believe their answer is “no”.
I don’t get the child thing, can’t help you there.
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:35 am |
Beth,
Yeah, I don’t get the child thing. Have you asked him this: what currently stops a person (who is male) taking care of their elderly mother (who is female) from saying the same thing under our current law? Well, because you can’t marry your mom. Gay marriage wouldn’t change that…it really has nothing to do with that.
I think the slippery slope argument seems to come up when people don’t really get that gays fall in love and want to get married just the same as straight folk. It’s not a “marriage of convenience” – it’s a real marriage.
The fact is there are marriages of convenience right now between men and women. Some are people who want to immigrate. I knew one person (a lesbian) who married a friend of hers (a gay man) so they could get assignments together in the military, because they were friends.
So yes, there will probably be some people who will use gay marriage in a way that doesn’t have to do with a real sharing-love-bond kind of way. But people are already using straight marriage that kind of way occasionally, and it hasn’t devalued marriage at all. Because marriage is such a strong cultural institution, it is still an institution, even if people occasionally get legally married for some other reason.
I don’t think that would change if we allowed gay marriage, although I can understand why it would be a scary thought. The only thing that really prevents people from gaming the existing marriage system more is that most people want to get *legitimately* married.
What I mean by that is, for instance, I don’t think the lesbian I know who married her gay friend would have done that if she thought she could get *actually* married to her partner. She would have wanted to save that slot for her real life partner. The reason she married her gay male friend is because they both knew they could never really marry their actual partners.
Being able to really get married would have *strengthened* the legitimacy of marriage to them–not being able to get married makes the whole thing seem unfair and sometimes even turns gay people off of marriage and makes them bitter (in my opinion) – because the pain of not being able to have your real love legitimized in the same cultural way that every other couple gets to creates a lot of pain and anger at our culture.
Right now you have a sizable percentage of the population questioning the legitimacy of marriage simply because they can’t participate in it. Letting gays marry would actually increase the stability of the marriage institution in my opinion, as there would be more buy-in across the board. It being unfair right now is what is damaging its legitimacy. Some straight people are even protesting marriage by not getting married until gay people can get married too. If you want to save marriage – make it fair.
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