Protesting for Civil Rights

In what's turning, into the civil rights movement of our generation. I protested for the first time in my life. Check out the slideshow below. About 10,000 people showed up according to one organizer. It was a large showing, peaceful and we stopped traffic.Give the widget a moment to load. Pop into the stream for larger pics.

At first a few people gathered outside the Mormon Temple on 66th Street, then momentum build and we headed to Columbus Circle and CNN.The night was beautiful.

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Comments

[Goebbels in a miniskirt]

While I cherish the freedom to assemble and protest, these sad souls do not like others to exercise their right vote. A clear majority of people want to keep marriage between one man and one woman. The propaganda job by these amoral fascists is akin to what you saw in Nazi Germany (targeting of a small religious element, fear mongering, and violence).

I can't help but think of the Mormon Church's prophetic Proclamation to the Family issued over a decade ago, "...we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."

In addition to divorce and abuse, homosexual marriage will lead to the disintegration of the family and our society.

[BRIGGS]

it is sadly, not suprising to see the twisted arguments that a commentator here can use who supports propoistion 8 and spews contempt and hate at those who oppose it and are using rights of freedom of assmebly and freedom of speech to protest against it.

it is not the objective of the bill of rights to shut poeple up with the ballot box, but to ensure that all citizens are free to protest those ideas and those political events that they disagree with.

it is sad and disheartening indeed, to hear that using one's constituional rights to protest the outcome of a referendum is akin to nazi propogranda, and the nazi persecution of reilious ogranizations.

the greater parallel here is the nazi persecution of the jews, which is what this oommentator and the mormon church at present, and other reiligous groups at various times, do when they seek to create two classes of citizens, one with equal protection and due process under the law, and one for whom they assert and act to prevent full civil rights with the argument that their relgious beliefs trumps the constituional right of equal protection.

if we are to use nazi ananolgies here, then we must isnist, that the analogy certainly serves to show the facist, right wing behavoir of the mormon church and other ograngized religions when they wish to trump constitutional rights to devour the bill of rights by resort to relgious freedom.

the point is, and this is the point that the nazis so well understood, and that the mormons on this occassion exemplify, is that when you use the apparatus of goverment to say that one class of people are less equal than another, less dserving of cigil rights, less deserving of --life, liberty and happinesss--less equal, that is, under equal protecton, then you estalbish the mechanism by which no class of people and therefore, no one person's rights are safe from being taken away, or trampeled upon, you have established the means by which delegtimize them and take away any or all of the freedomes without much popular unrest.

the hideous thing about making one class of citizens less whole in the social contract, is that by the time those wishing---whether their resort be to the institutions of government or religion---to employ the power of the mob, as the history of lynchings in the south shows us, or the history of holocaust shows us(that the misguided commentator above so terribly distorts for his similar nazi like views)there is so little sympahty left for the class of victoms that they attack, that all hope of preseving the classes dignity and civil rights in the soceity are lost. and in the south and in europe, all hope preserving the very life of blacks and jews was lost.

yes, protest the acitons of the mormon church in its attempt to use the state constitution of california not to provide equal protection under the law, but to setup an exemption, an exemption that should be called the mormon church califormia propsoitino 8 nurrembergh law.

when we use state oonstitutions to limit or deny one group, or class of citizens the protection of law, the right to equal rights, we look like the nazis who understood that if you wanted to get rid of the jews, the first thing you did was use the power of gobvernment to make them illegal. and we setup the wider reaching mecahnism to deny any group, and if so desired, all individuals in the scoiety equal protection under the law, and all the civil right protectons intended by the foundign fathers in the bill of rights. so today its gays and lesbains seeking legal marriage under law, and tomorrow it may even be blacks and jews agian, and it may even be mormons themsleves!

i submit, on this occassion it is the mormon churhc, the supporters of proopositon 8 and the commenatator above who look like tne nazis.

[Alex]

Goebbels in a miniskirt,

I do not agree in the slightest. You must remember that Jim Crow laws were supported by the majority as well. Where they right. No.

Regarding the disintegration of marriage. I promise to stay away from your husband if you promise to stay away from mine.

[mmbrriggs]

if you have an argument then state same, it is not enough to state that you do not agree in the slightest, that is not an argument, it is the mental equivalent of stikcing your tongue out at someone. ite epsresses your contempt, but reveals no intellect.

as for majority rule, i suggest you invest a few dollars at barns and noble and bone up on the federalist papers and read about the debate about majority rule and the szfeguards that were adopted by the founding fathers to prevent a tyranical majority of denying the rights of the minority.

but it does not surprise me, that as a suppoorter of protposiition 8 you would stick your tongue out at my reply, as the real pourpose of the supporters of propoisiton 8 is to to stick their tongue out at the equal proteciton clause of the california state consitituton and to the class of claifiornia and american citizens that you wish to deny equal rights to.

and now that class of citizens is supposed to be chastized and accused of acting like nazis for not accepting your attempt to make us the latter day jews of the holocaust, with the support of the church of latter day saints!