Suck It, Haters!

Today was the big day.  Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets all over the country to support marriage equality and LGBT rights.  I personally am simply struck with awe with the whole thing.

At our event in Chicago, there were easily 3,000-5,000 people, and I think that's a conservative estimation.  The rally at the federal building was moving and strong and amazing and only met with minimal resistance.  It was the marching that immediately followed that was nothing short of amazing.

At first, Police officers kept us limited to the sidewalks with barricades and mounted officers.  The plan was to march from the rally spot to Millennium Park to make our impact.  The whole way there, we were pushed off to the sidewalk and forced to obey traffic signals, which in my opinion was too symbolic of the gay rights movement to date: complacent, shoved to the side and dismissed.

However, things changed as soon as the police loosened up the leash, which I'm not sure they were planning on.   As a pack, we veered off down Adams and took over the street.  We, as a group, realized that we needed to make a larger statement and needed to been seen and heard, and the only way to do that was to get into the streets and demand attention!

We marched up past City Hall and through Dailey Plaza, then over to State Street (the second of the big shopping strips in downtown), then took to Wacker and over to Michigan Ave to protest on the streets of the Magnificent Mile in front of all the people there.  At one point, I jumped up onto on of the separators in between the traffic directions to get a view of the scene and did not see an end to the horde in either direction, and I swelled up with pride and tears! 

Probably the most poignant part of the whole march came when a straight couple who had literally just been married in the church on Michigan Ave. came out to join the crowd.  They rushed out to the street with the bridal party to take pictures and then took pictures with the mass of us and finally joined us for a block or two.  In itself, it was a symbolic show of support.

People began to break off and head their own way at the end of Michigan Ave. The Police had finally got ahead of the crowd and routed us off the busy streets.  By the time the train weaved around the block back to Michigan Ave., we had lost the steam to control the street and were forced back to the sidewalk, at which point I called it a day and headed home. 

I cannot express how amazing this whole event was.  It literally brought me to tears with the shear power of it all.  And I'm glad to hear that many, many other events went off across the country with similar effect.  Truly, I feel like we have, as one community and one voice, finally begun to push back today.  It's far from the end of the fight, but we have declared in no uncertain terms today that we will fight, and we will not lose or back down.

As an added treat, here is my favorite sign of the day.  In fact, my buddy here received TONS of compliments on it before he let me have it when he broke off and headed home. 

I know many of my friends went out and participated, and I thank you for it.  Did you go?  Tell me about it in the comments or email me your story, I'd love to hear it and share it!