Prop. 8: West Hollywood demonstrators meet court ruling with low-key protest

The general mood among gay rights protesters in West Hollywood tonight was disappointment, although many demonstrators said they expected the Supreme Court to rule as it did Tuesday.
 
“I was not extremely surprised,” said Abby Posner, 25, a musician. “The reality is I don’t think that this is the time for [the law] to change. It will, eventually.”

As marchers gathered at San Vicente and Santa Monica boulevards, they spread out across the streets, holding signs aloft. They came with their dogs. Some were on bicycles. There was some chanting—“What do we want?” “Equal rights!” “When do we want it?” “Now!”

If it were not for their protest signs an observer might have mistaken the gathering for a street festival. Steve Whitmore, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, estimated the crowd at no more than 1,000 people. No arrests were reported.

Most of those who gathered in West Hollywood spoke about focusing their effort on getting Proposition 8 repealed by 2010. Posner, who is a lesbian, was joined by three of her straight women friends, one of whom, Denise Arias, carried a sign that declared, “NEXT TIME, CAN I VOTE ON YOUR MARRIAGE?”

Not everyone there was gay. Actress Drew Barrymore attracted crowds around her at the intersection of Santa Monica and San Vicente.  “I am who I am because of the people who influenced me growing up, and many of them were gay. No one has any right to tell anyone what makes a family,” Barrymore said.

The actress, who is straight, said she came to the event because the issue meant a lot to her. “You choose your battles in this world,” she said. “If you fight for everything, you’re just someone on a soapbox. This is something that means everything to me.”

On a raised stage in the middle of San Vicente Boulevard, across from the Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who is gay, spoke to the crowd, saying he was “angry and outraged” at the Supreme Court decision.

-- Carla Hall

Comments

[Dr. Peter Evans]

You Go....and...Go...and Go, my brothers and sisters, in WeHo and around this wonderful country of ours. To ultimately WIN full 'Equal Rights', we must all come out and each and every one of us needs to show these misguided, Bible clutching, bigots that we are whom we are, and be a living example.

Dr. Peter---an openly Gay 65 year old totally 'out', and proud to be so!

[Richard]

Come on LA Times...lets get the story right. I was there. The crowd started small but grew quite large by the time the rally was nearing the end....much more than one thousand. The mood was energetic with people chanting, cheering the speakers and making noise. You did not even mention that Mayor Villaraigosa showed up and gave a rousing speech in both English and Spanish.

When the rally was over, the crowd marched down Santa Monica Blvd. to Highland (from my vantage point the streets were filled as far as i could see on both sides) with police on horseback lined up and blocking off streets. People chanted the whole way and were peaceful and respectful. Once at Hollywood and Highland there was a big sit-down that blocked the intersection and closed down Hollywood Blvd. Then we marched down Hollywood Blvd to La Brea and down to Sunset and back to West Hollywood. All the way peaceful and loud with chanting, drums and cheering crowds from overlooking buildings.

Low key..? Hardly.

[Dave Steele]

The question to the Gay community is whether you have the guts to protest in Black and Hispanic communities? It is the Blacks and the Hispanics who are against Gay marriage. And they are far more powerful than the Evangelicals.

What happens if the Hispanics start moving against Gays the way that they are forcing Blacks out of California? These folks are not whites who have guilt but folks who see themselves as victims and that Gays are just as much their oppressors as anyone else.

[Sara Pollaro]

1,000 people? This has got to be the most horrible reporting ever. Thanks LA Times for doing us so wrong. I've worked hard with about 25 organizations to help throw the event last night, which was a huge success. The crowd was estimated at 15,000. If your only highlight is that Drew Barrymore showed up (thank you Drew) you missed the message. We clearly have a lot of work to do. To all the people that have busted their asses for the last several months I am in awe of you, I love you, and I can't wait to keep fighting along side of you. To all the people that showed up last night, you are champions and get ready to pound the pavement because we have to have one on one conversations with our neighbors, our friends, and familiies. We cannot allow the spread of hateful lies by our opponents. We have no choice but to fight and we will win!

[Danny Schmitz]

Oh, come on! Who is this sheriff's department spokesman that claims there were only 1,000 people there? I know they have a habit of under-estimating the number of people attending anti-prop 8 protests, but this is ridiculous. There were at the very least five times that number marching.

[JK]

1,000 demonstrators? Might I suggest an errata column for this article, or maybe an edit to correct the huge disparity in numbers? I believe the crowd was more along the lines of fifteen or twenty times the number mentioned here.

Or, wait, just print "Dewey Defeats Truman!"

Thanks for the journalism!

[Zach]

Dave, the protests do not just involve the "gay community," with plenty of straight people and indeed half of California opposed to Prop 8. Further, no one is interested in taking on other groups of people (except maybe political and religious institutions that manipulate them), just defending the equality of those affected by 8. That's why if there is a protest in a hispanic neighborhood, as there have been, it's because its gay residents and supporters want to speak out and not to protest its people. The only people who want a racial conflict are those people who are baiting it, and somehow I doubt they have any of these groups' interests at heart.

[Danny Schmitz]

At the beginning of the march, I raced to the front to look for some friends in the crowd. I stood in one place on the median in the middle of Santa Monica Blvd. for at least 12 - 15 minutes (based on the times that I received two text messages) scanning the crowd. It was curb to curb people across both lanes and protesters were moving at a quick pace. If 30 people passed me every five seconds (it could have easily been more like 50 - 100) that's 360 people passing me per minute. According to my most conservative estimate, there were over 4,000 people there, but there could have been up to 9,000.

Please ask Steve Whitmore of the Sheriff's Department what his method is for estimating crowd numbers. I'm guessing it's less scientific than mine.

[Jamie]

1000 people....wow! Hardly a "minority" worth recognition. You people need to get over it, 1% of the population trying to change the fabric of our nation - not gonna happen!!