As a gay guy living in San Francisco, I have to say that the election was especially bittersweet. I had volunteered for both Barack Obama as well as the No On 8 campaign, so it felt like a punch to the gut when Prop 8 passed. That's not to say I was especially surprised it did, but it was and is still painful.
I've been a little cynical about some of the protests that have happened since then. I wish more people like me had been proactive in keeping this from passing in the first place rather than just engaging in purely reactionary protests.
But yesterday's protests signaled to me that perhaps there is a new Stonewall-esque groundswell against this codified hate. I had a work meeting I had to attend yesterday, so I had no intention of joining the protest. But instead, the protest found me, snarling up traffic and keeping the buses from moving. So I got off the bus and instead meandered through the crowd, taking some photos. Fortunately for me, I usually carry around my photo-bag just in case I run into incidents like this.
Photos after the jump.
Last night, I ended up in the Castro district, where there had been earlier protests. But there was still a small protest going on at the intersection of Castro and 18th Ave. There had been a sit-in, with a number of people blocking traffic coming both ways. By the time I had gotten there, the number of people in the sit-in had dwindled to just a couple. Dozens of onlookers were crowded on the sidewalk, along with a handful of police officers.
Say what you will about the efficacy of such a tactic, but the people participating were showing quite a bit of passion for their persistence. And I have to hand it to the SFPD as well; they handled the situation very professionally. They did not try to stop anyone from photographing the scene, and they just tried to persuade the protesters to leave without any coercion. Finally, those involved got up peacefully and cleared the intersection. By the end of the ordeal, though, the entire intersection was chalked up with pleas for equality.