Families at the No on 8 Rally

I wasn't sure how I was going to convince my family to come to the No on 8 rally in San Jose today.  My husband couldn't see the point.  "I know it sucks, honey, but it passed.  No point in rallying about it now...".  The kids were no better.  Saturday morning cartoons or a rally?  Stay in pajamas and play with Playmobil toys, or stand around and wave signs?  Hmmmm....

In the end, it was The Pea who did it.  I told her I wanted to go because I wanted to show my support for equal marriage rights, because I thought two women or two men should be able to marry.  She thought about her good friend H, and her friend's two daddies, and what a great family they are, and decided to come along.  In a rare display of sibling affection, her brothers said they didn't want to spend the morning without her.  My husband said I might lose the kids in the crowd, so he'd better go as well.  So off we went.

We were happy to see so many other families at the rally with us -- babies in strollers, toddlers, school-aged kids running around.  The big water sculptures in front of San Jose's City Hall had kids splashing all over it.  My kids treated the whole event like a massive playdate.  They quickly made friends with the other kids, and got completely soaked in the process (good thing temperatures were in the 70's -- in November!! -- and I always carry a change of clothing in the back of the van).   They quickly learned to scream and cheer every time a passing car honked its horn.  They learned the responses to shouts of "What do we want?" ("Equal rights!") and "When do we want them?" ("Now!").

Here is what a couple of other families at the rally had to say:

I don't think it's true that these rallies are useless.  When people across the country look at the people who came to these rallies, they will see it's not just radical gay activist groups who are protesting the passage of Prop. 8.  Hopefully, after seeing families and couples and grandparents, they'll begin to open their minds.  And hopefully all the children who were there will carry the message of love, tolerance and acceptance with them as they grow up.  If they do, then even if we don't manage to overturn Prop.8, some day our children will.

Original SV Moms post.  Check out more photos of the San Jose rally on Bonggamom's personal blog, Finding Bonggamom.