The San Francisco Citizen

Well, it’s on SFGate so it must be true: “Thousands of demonstrators” gathered in front of San Francisco City Hall this morning to voice their beef with Prop 8. That’s a big improvement over coverage from the MSM from just a week ago.

Famous blogger Phil Bronstein now makes light of the erroneous estimate of 1000 souls from the Chronicle / SFGate / the Associated Press at last week’s march down Market Street. Apparently, being off by an order of magnitude or two on crowd estimates is par for the course in the mainstream media. (Be careful, else you’ll wind up on the “Gay Enemies List,” and you don’t want to be there.)

Count for yourself:

What’s interesting is that there appears to be no effort to figure out what went wrong with the 1000 person estimate. It was a mistake made by one person that didn’t get caught by the vaunted multi-layer vetting process that separates newspapers from the Internets. Oh well.  

Watch ABC News play it safe here:

One of the largest rallies was on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, considered ground zero in the battle for same sex marriage. Lesbian activist Carole Migden whipped the crowd up as she declared, “They hate us. Let’s just acknowledge it.” Then she pushed the crowd “to turn our rage into action.”

A partial speakers list:

Senator Carole Migden
Senator-Elect Mark Leno
Assembly Member-Elect Tom Ammiano
Amos Brown
Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis; Plaintiffs in the California marriage case
Mark Oliver and Clark Pingree; Representing “Mormons for Marriage”
Rev. Dr. Penny Nixon
Rev. Dr. Dorsey Blake

And speaking of SFGate, let’s take a look at a charming comment contained therein:

thechamp1 11/15/2008 12:27:51 PM FIRST COMMENT : EAT SH** AND DIE FAG*S

Oh well.  

Off the protesters went up Market Street.

To be continued…

This march looked like it was going to be huge before it even began at 5:30 PM tonight, what with eight choppers above the staging area.

As was seen with the recent candlelight vigil, there’s a lot of energy left in San Francisco to fight 2008’s Proposition 8.

Click to expand:

Local pols Bevan Dufty, Jose Cisneros and Carole Migden were last seen heading towards the march. This one had the look of having tens of thousands of participants, when all is said and done.

To be continued…

UPDATE: CHeck out the Comments section for the test of some of the signs, courtesy of petshop grrl:

“- IT’S ABOUT C-I-V-I-L MARRIAGE, STUPID
- WANT ACCESS TO 100% MARRIAGE NOT 90% CIVIL UNION
- STOP READING THE BIBLE W-R-O-N-G
(STOP READING THE BIBLE G-N-O-R-W)
- THE COURTS ARE THERE TO PROTECT MINORITIES
- EVERYONE STRUGGLES FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
- SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
- WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY, CALIFORNIA
- RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY HAS NO PLACE IN CIVIL LAW
- MY MOMMY IS “CIVIL-UNIONED”… GREAAAT
- “I’M MARRIED” “I’M CIVIL-UNIONED”:
IT SURE FEEELS DIFFERENT, DOESN’T IT?
- MARRIAGE ALWAYS WAS A CIVIL CONTRACT — NOT RELIGIOUS
- STILL WANT MY TAX-EXEMPT STATUS, PLEASE
- STILL WANT MY “WEDDING” PRESENTS — NOT CIVIL UNION PURCHASES
- SEPARATE CAN NEVER BE EQUAL
- SECOND-CLASS CIVIL UNIONS — NOT!
- I CAN’T TALK ABOUT MY TWO MOMMYS IN KINDERGARTEN CLASS
- SHARE, SHARE MARRIAGE
- 48 TO 52%
A BEAR MAJORITY IS BALANCE?”

A large crowd gathered at the steps of City Hall tonight to commiserate on the passing of Proposition 8.

See the people and read what Senator Carole Migden and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin had to say here.

An ocean of people on Polk Street. Click to expand:

Time appears to be on the side of the No on 8 people. They’ll be plenty of court action and elections in the future…

Maybe it’s too early for backbiting?

The people in the crowd seemed to have a lot of energy for future fights, anyway.

The streets of San Francisco were hopping yesterday what with the final day of Pride 2008.

See a slideshow of photos here and read all about it here.

Pride parade on Market Street with the Ferry Building in the background. Click to expand:

This fellow hung out at an intersection with his home-made bloodied crucifix for a good long while:

Perhaps he wouldn’t be too receptive to this mathematical identity: “Christian + Gay = O.K.”

And just when you think the whole world has gone gay, along comes a person who displayed heterosexual pride. His simple message: “I Love My Girlfriend.”

How sweet. See you next year.

By now, you’ve seen headlines: Marriage Ruling a Victory for Newsom. Which is fair enough.

But you might have missed this recent piece about City Attorney Dennis Herrera in glossy, fluffy San Francisco Magazine:

The mayor may get all the credit, or blame, for pushing the marriage-equality issue before the Supreme Court, but the person who deserves it—San Francisco’s real Marrying Man—is Herrera.

Well, O.K. then.

The author of the article, freelance legal affairs journalist Susan Kostal then went on to consult her crystal ball and opine:

My own bet was a 4–3 vote in favor of marriage equality

Bingo. She got it right. Three cheers for writer Susan Kostal as well as up-and-coming Dennis Herrera.