Just a little protest

I attended a couple very good gay movies on Saturday. Alas, since I already had tickets the first of the two kept me from participating in the Detroit protest of the Calif. gay marriage ban that was set up by Join the Impact. The weather on Saturday was cold and I was pleased to hear they had a substantial crowd. Participants said there were about 350, news sources said there were 200.

Though Join the Impact didn't tabulate events, they did add up the total number of participants. Since the tally for each city has an lower and upper estimate, the total does too. The low estimate is 120 thousand. The high estimate is 132 thousand.

Other sources counted the events: One estimate is protests in 110 cities from Maine to Hawaii. Here is a list of many events with excerpts from local press with pictures. Even if you don't read all the words it is worth reading the list of cities and looking at the photos. There were even 4 protesters in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

A participant tells the story of the Los Angeles protest, which drew a huge crowd. Alas, the writer feels the march part of the event was designed by the police escort to minimize visibility.


Photos from some participants here.


If you can't get enough photos, here's a site with nearly 1000 of them.


Various participant reports and photos in the comments section here. There is a nice USA map showing participating cities, though a couple cities are misspelled (no H in Pittsburgh) and Marquette ended up south of Detroit.


Now, back to my own Saturday. The afternoon movie was Chris and Don, A Love Story about the relationship between Christopher Isherwood, who wrote the stories that became the musical and movie Cabaret, and Don Bachardy, who developed into a pretty good artist. Most of the movie was about Don telling us about their love. Quite enjoyable.

I then had 6 hours between movies -- alas, the protest was over by then -- and I spent a chunk of it in the library at Affirmations Gay and Lesbian Center in Ferndale, a couple miles from the Reel Pride Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Royal Oak, which presented the movies. I also had a nice dinner and spent some time browsing in a bookstore.

The second movie was a sweet one, Were the World Mine is about an all-boys school putting on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. That play features couples lost in the forest and subjected to a love potion. In the movie, they gay boy playing Puck (complete with fairy wings made from his divorced mother's wedding dress) decided to use Shakespeare's recipe to make the love potion. He then uses it to make the star of the rugby team love him and to create several other gay relationships, especially those involving people who spout homophobic nonsense. Though the potion is neutralized by the end, the lessons learned while walking in another's shoes are kept. The official movie site is here. That show got out after 11 p.m. and I was home by midnight.