The Movement

I've been watching the news and checking blogs to see if anything bad happened during the simultaneous rallies around the country yesterday at 1:30 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Savings Time). Given the incidents that have taken place since the election and passage of Proposition H8, I was worried. I haven't seen a word about the rallies, and I'm taking that as good news.

I have to say that I am very impressed with the way the simultaneous rallies came together. It was a modern protest, communicated across the Internet at lightening speed. It was not organized by any existing protest groups. It was a more or less organic spontaneous event. To my admittedly limited knowledge, it's the largest such demonstration that has ever taken place. We even had a gathering here in Athens! I hope someone is tallying up participation so we find out how many people were involved nationwide.

I assume by the presence of directions and guidelines about how to (and not to) act at the rallies that I was not the only gay man disturbed by the thuggish behavior we've seen replayed all over the Internet. That makes me feel good, too. For a few days I thought I was a lone voice calling for more civil behavior.

I tuned in the Today Show this morning expecting to hear a report on the rallies. Not a word. Not one single word. There was a short article in the Athens Banner Herald this morning, but no mention of the gathering here in Athens. As of a few minutes age, there is very little on any of the blogs. I've noticed that most of the gay bloggers I read tend to take weekends off, so maybe I'll see more starting this evening.

The one piece of good news I glean from the absence of coverage is that there must not have been any significant thug behavior. If that's the case, it is GREAT news. It demonstrates that we can be sane and rational when voicing our concerns, and that means those concerns are more likely to be heard. It gives me hope that maybe this time, we'll succeed.