Largest LGBT Queer Protest Boston has Seen in Decades
Thousands of people protested on Saturday in front of Boston City Hall. The official count is between 5,000 and 10,000 people. That is the largest LGBT Queer related protest in the city of Boston since the 1970's. Old school activists were coming up to me, saying that they haven't seen anything like it in decades. More people turned out for Saturday's protest than showed up during our state's own fight for marriage equality.
As organizers, we made the decision to focus the protest on more than just California's prop 8. Of course prop 8 was the catalyst for the event, and a major topic of discussion at the protest. However, we decided to expand the scope of the rally to include all LGBT Queer rights. We invited Gunner Scott of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition to speak and sent over 50 volunteers out into the crowd to collect signatures in favor of the Transgender Civil Rights Bill that we are trying to pass in the Massachusetts Legislature.
The protest was an incredible success. Two Congresspeople spoke at the beginning of the rally, and a third showed up later and asked to speak to the crowd. Openly gay State Representative Carl Sciortino and our communities number one ally, Representative Byron Rushing fired up the crowd with moving speeches. We had volunteers speak and we heard from a same-sex married coupled. Instead of having an MC for the event, us, the organizers, decided to MC the event ourselves. We each introduced speakers and led chants. It was a thrill to speak in front of 5,000+ people, publicly declaring that we will no longer tolerate second-class citizenship and we will not accept anything less than full equality.
We have created our own chapter of Join The Impact at www.JoinTheImpactMA.com. Join us!
As organizers, we made the decision to focus the protest on more than just California's prop 8. Of course prop 8 was the catalyst for the event, and a major topic of discussion at the protest. However, we decided to expand the scope of the rally to include all LGBT Queer rights. We invited Gunner Scott of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition to speak and sent over 50 volunteers out into the crowd to collect signatures in favor of the Transgender Civil Rights Bill that we are trying to pass in the Massachusetts Legislature.
The protest was an incredible success. Two Congresspeople spoke at the beginning of the rally, and a third showed up later and asked to speak to the crowd. Openly gay State Representative Carl Sciortino and our communities number one ally, Representative Byron Rushing fired up the crowd with moving speeches. We had volunteers speak and we heard from a same-sex married coupled. Instead of having an MC for the event, us, the organizers, decided to MC the event ourselves. We each introduced speakers and led chants. It was a thrill to speak in front of 5,000+ people, publicly declaring that we will no longer tolerate second-class citizenship and we will not accept anything less than full equality.
We have created our own chapter of Join The Impact at www.JoinTheImpactMA.com. Join us!
1 Comment
-
Comment by QueerToday on November 16, 2008 at 9:14pm - Congrats!
Add a Comment
Give
© 2009 Created by QueerToday
You need to be a member of QueerToday.com to add comments!
Join this social network