Source: The Day, Los Angeles Times
Protests of Prop. 8 are
scheduled for Saturday throughout the country.
Advocates of equality in marriage laws for gay and lesbian couples will join with hundreds of thousands of others throughout the country as they rally outside the Rhode Island Statehouse today to protest a ban on same-sex marriage in California and urge lawmakers to approve gay unions in the only New England state that does not recognize same-sex couples.
The Providence rally, organized by Marriage Equality Rhode Island, is part of a nationwide protest against a vote this month in California that limits marriage to heterosexuals. As many as 300 similar protests are planned from Boston to Los Angeles.
Many of the protests have been coordinated through the website JoinTheImpact.com, which estimates that today's events will turn out over 1 million people organizing across 300 cities in all 50 states and 10 countries world-wide.
Related in Qnews: The young and wired inspired to take to the streets in response to anti-gay ballot measures 14-Nov-08
The nationwide series of protests against the passage of Proposition 8 will be a key test for a loosely formed Internet-based movement that has emerged since California voters banned gay marriage last week.
"We're just going to stand together to express dismay and anger we feel about civil rights being ripped away from the gay community across this country, Susan MacNeil, a spokeswoman for Marriage Equality Rhode Island, told Connecticut's The Day newspaper. More than 450 people contacted through the social networking site Facebook have said they will attend.
Over the last 11 days, advocates have used the web to organize scattered protests at places like the Mormon Temple in Westwood and Sunset Junction in Silver Lake and mount boycotts against businesses that supported Proposition 8. Those efforts snowballed, and marches against the proposition are expected in more than 300 cities across the country, Los Angeles Times reports.
But turning all those blogs, Facebook groups and MySpace pages into an organized movement is going to be tough.
Opponents of gay marriage on Friday strongly criticized the boycotts and marches. And it remains uncertain whether the aggressive tactics ultimately advance the activists' goal: Either having the California Supreme Court throw out Proposition 8 or persuading voters in a new election that gay marriage should be legal in the state, according to LA Times.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told an LA Times editorial board meeting Friday that proponents of gay marriage should take the issue again to the California Supreme Court and review the strategies that failed to persuade voters to defeat Proposition 8.
"I can't imagine for them to say anything else but what they've already said, that it's unconstitutional," Schwarzenegger said of the state high court's ruling on earlier barriers to gay marriage. The governor opposed a ban on gay marriage.
Although passage of Proposition 8 in California was the most stinging defeat for marriage equality because it stripped away rights that had been recognized by the state's courts, voters elsewhere in the country also decided to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry.
In last week's election, voters in Arizona and Florida also passed constitutional amendments banning marriage for gay and lesbian couples with Florida also choosing to deny both heterosexual and homosexual couples the option of civil unions.
In Arkansas, voters decided that gay and lesbian parents should not be allowed to adopt or act as foster parents by restricting those activities to married couples.
The votes have inspired a new generation of protest, fueled less by established gay rights organizations and more by ad-hoc groups formed through web social network sites.
In that sense, today's rally in Providence is different than many others because it was organized by an established LGBT-rights lobbying group. But the rally marks a change in strategy for Marriage Equality Rhode Island, also known as MERI, after years of defeat. In the past, the advocacy group believed that by gradually accumulating legal protections for gay couples, Rhode Island would inch ever closer to gay marriage.
While the group put forward gay marriage bills, it spent much of its effort seeking lesser protections, for example, giving a gay man the right to visit his partner in the hospital or plan his funeral.
When lawmakers start a new session in January, MERI will push exclusively for gay marriage.
Numerous political obstacles block gay marriage in Rhode Island, even though such marriages are legal in neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri, House Speaker William Murphy and Senate President Joseph Montalbano all oppose gay marriage.
Unlike in Connecticut and Massachusetts, judges in Rhode Island seem reluctant to legalize same-sex marriage. Last year, the state Supreme Court ruled that a lesbian couple married in Massachusetts could not seek a divorce in Rhode Island, where they lived.
The ruling said nothing in state law allows for same-sex unions.
Rhode Island is also the most heavily Roman Catholic state in the country, and influential church leaders have vigorously condemned gay unions.
MERI was inspired by developments in Connecticut, whose Supreme Court ruled 4-3 last month that same-sex couples have the right to wed in the state. A lower-court judge entered a final order permitting same-sex marriages Wednesday morning.
"It doesn't make sense for us to try to ease our way into something that we consider our full human rights, especially if Connecticut and Massachusetts have already granted those rights," Crowley said.
Source: Protests to be a key test for Proposition 8 opponents | Los Angeles Times
Rally a shift for Rhode Island gay marriage group | The Day