 We had an enthusiastic crowd of approximately 75 people at the December 20, 2008 Light Up the Night for Equality in downtown San Jose.
The silent protest across the street from St. Joseph's Cathedral was positively received, garnering supportive honks from motorists and thumbs up from several of the parishioners as they walked into the cathedral's main entrance.
After the 4:30 mass began, we headed back across the street and assembled for the 5:00 p.m. candlelight vigil at Cesar Chavez Park's Christmas in the Park. The park and surrounding streets and businesses were jam-packed with pedestrians and drivers, a perfect opportunity for our vigil and Craig Person's magnificent banners to be seen by the masses!
Many of the park-goers were families with children and the bright colors of Craig's banners, along with the Santa hats and tinsel-decorated signs we carried drew their attention and smiles. Angie Tai brought along some beautiful cards to hand out to the curious -- purple cards adorned with a set of interlocking gold wedding rings and an eloquent explanation of why were were there. We also passed out bilingual cards (English and Spanish) which provided links to Courage Campaign's "Pledge to Repeal Prop 8" petition, to Join the Impact's national site, and to our local JointheImpactSanJose.info site.
Overall, the reception we received was extremely positive and supportive. The nay-sayers seemed to be largely absent, save for the rare negative grumblings of one or two passers-by. The overwhelming majority displayed pleasant curiosity about our signs; many offered words of support; some stopped to engage in respectful conversation about our fight for equality. There was virtually no police presence and we encountered zero harassment the entire evening.
 Just hours before last night's vigil, Courage Campaign alerted us to a last-minute call for action in response to the Yes on 8 sponsors' hiring of infamous attorney, Ken Starr. On Friday, Starr filed a brief with the California Supreme Court which seeks to invalidate the marriages of an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples, effectively forcing those married couples to submit to an involuntary divorce. In response, Courage Campaign has launched a campaign to put faces and names to the thousands of married couples, as well as to the children, family, friends and associates who would also be detrimentally impacted by Starr's lawsuit. To do this, Courage Campaign has asked all of us to do the following:
- No matter your marital status or sexual orientation, will you share your photo with us, as part of a community photo project?
- If so, please take a picture with a plain 8.5" by 11" piece of paper that sends a special message, like "Please don't divorce us," "Please don't divorce my mothers," "Please don't divorce my friends, Name and Name," or "Please don't divorce Californians." Print it out, or write it clearly in big, block letters.Then send your pictures to us at:
- PleaseDontDivorce@CourageCampaign.org
- We'll put all of your pics together in one place and make sure all the right people get the message -- the lawyers behind the effort, the press, our friends and neighbors.
We took several photos for the campaign last night and they are now part of the Courage Campaign's "Please Don't Divorce..." slideshow. These photos, along with other photos of last night's event, are now available on Picasaweb. Feel free to download, email and share the photos with anyone and everyone. The photos may also be republished providing you credit the photographer, Nikki Weidner.
Lastly, quick kudos to the following individuals for their contributions to last night's event:
 Sara Taylor, volunteer and point person for Join the Impact, and Sara's boyfriend, Derek, for serving as Master of Ceremonies during last night's "open bullhorn" session.- Craig Person of 75 Signs to Equality. Craig, your beautiful banners were the highlight of the evening. They made a huge impact and gave us a hundred times more visibility than we'd have had without them. Thank you, thank you! Tell us when and where to report to help make more banners or to help hold them for the next event!
- Angie Tai for supplying the very polished and meaningful hand-out cards -- great idea and one worth implementing at all future events!
- My wife, Ananda, for her infinite patience and sacrifice in helping me make signs until late into the night, and for doing all the shopping for candles, matches, Santa hats, tinsel and so much more. Love you!!
- And last but most certainly not least, to all who braved the cold, traffic and crowds to come join us. Your participation in events like last night's is priceless - without you we have no movement, no visibility -- no chance of winning this fight for equality. Thank you all for sharing your time, thoughts and energy with us. We hope to see you at the January 10, 2009 rally and at many more events to follow!
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