Prop 8 Exclusive: Young gay marriage activist leads national protests
“You know that book, The Tipping Point?” asks the young Internet maven, referring to Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 work exploring cultural shifts and the small things that incite them. “Well, on Sunday night, I said to myself, “Holy crap. We’re at the tipping point!”
Little did she know how viral this thing would become.
“Join the Impact” began as a blog post and email template by Willow Witte, a friend of Balliett’s who had sent the missive to inspire friends after the passage of California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 8.
The success of similar propositions in Arizona and Florida, as well as an anti-gay adoption measure in Arkansas, only added gravity to the situation. Witte encouraged contacts to forward the note to their local LGBT groups to solicit plans of community action. Balliett responded to her friend’s email saying, according to a post on the site, “We shouldn’t wait, we need to mobilize now, and we need to on a national level, at the exact same moment, throughout the country.”
And mobilize they did: this past Friday, Nov. 7, ‘”Join the Impact” hit the web. Five hours later, the site logged 10,000 visitors. Apparently a lot of other people shared the young women’s desire to turn despair into resolve.
By midnight, 20 cities’ worth of young volunteers had signed on to organize protests against the discriminatory propositions.
The next evening, Nov. 8, the site had tripled its hits.
By Monday morning, a plan had emerged: Cities around the country would organize their own efforts to coordinate a synchronized protest for Sat., Nov. 15, 10:30 a.m. PST. The movement became officially global with hits from the UK and France, and by Nov. 11, over one million visitors had come to the site...."
Las protestas ocurren por todo Estados Unidos, este es el caso de Nueva York, como comenta Andrew Sullivan en su blog:
The Awakening Grows
A reader writes:
I just got home from the NYC protest and I am invigorated! My partner and I started seeing signs on the subway and followed a crowd up to Columbus Circle. We met up with some of our church friends in front of the Mormon temple and ended up following the crowd as it marched down Broadway back to Columbus Circle. There wasn't a clear plan, nor direction, but it was fun!
People chanted "HEY HEY, HO HO, HOMOPHOBIA'S GOT TO GO" and "WHAT DO WE WANT - EQUAL RIGHTS, WHEN DO WE WANT IT - NOW!" I noticed that negative chants quickly died and positive chants had more lasting power. What was even better was that the chants and yelling started spontaneously from different areas. I was even motivated to rally those around me with leading several rounds of chanting. It was exhilarating and distinctly peaceful and very NYC. Young and old, multi-ehtnic, many who came right from work. When we got to Columbus Circle and chanted for a while, someone who looked official (a man with a sparkly blue ribbon tied around his arm) came to our area and announced we were finished. He thanked us, told everyone that there were 10,000 people and that the next protest was on Saturday. My partner and I took off for the subway, though most people were staying. We left behind quite a crowd. As we we were walking along the Southern end of Central Park we noticed that the protest had effectively stopped traffic all throughout midtown. We had seen plenty of cops directing traffic around us on Broadway, but noticed that a whole line of cop cars, sirens blaring speeding towards Columbus Circle while we were going.
(Photo: Supporters of gay marriage demonstrate in front of the Mormon Church November 12, 2008 in New York City. Following the passing of Proposition 8, a measure to stop gay marriage in California, last week, many gay activists have been blaming the Mormon Church for the passage of Proposition 8 due to the church's significant role in activism against gay marriage. By Spencer Platt/Getty.)
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