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…

Things were a little hateful around the area of 606 Sanchez Street in San Francisco a few days back when people could see a large, fuchsia “F*CK MORMONS” banner from all around. While some caution against starting a holy war, others aren’t as circumspect.

The whole affair is still the talk of the town.

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via Daniel R (MisterDarcy)’s photostream

But lo, the offending message got taken down lickedy-split post-haste, even on a quasi holiday. Here’s the same scene from this afternoon: 

See? The houseboat house is now message-free. Credit for getting the sign down might go to Michael Thomas, a blogfather who seems to have a lot of pull in the area.

[UPDATE: Joe Vazquez burns the shoe leather and basically confirms the above here, but he also garners a flurry of quotes from the engineer in question.]

On to new bidness, the next big rally. They’re calling it the Million Gay March, or something. It should be under sunny skies, regardless.

No on Prop 8 Rally
When: November 15, 2008 - Saturday, 10:30 a.m.
Where: City Hall, San Francisco
What: Protest against Prop 8

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.

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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.

This was the scene yesterday on Grove Street as early voters made their way to City Hall.

The woman on the right turned away from the discussion as if it were a driving rain. The woman on the left remained adamant about supporting Prop K.  

But leave it to ABC “News” to bring it all home for us:

“Prop. K Could Thrust Prostitutes Into Pop Culture. TV, Film’s Affair With Prostitutes Could Intensify if San Francisco Bill Passes. Pretty soon, a “pretty woman” may be able to work the streets of San Francisco legally.”

O.K. then.

UPDATE: Per commenter Palmer: “The woman on the left is Mary Ellen “Maxine” Doogan.  She wrote Prop K.  She was convicted of running an escort agency in Seattle.  She now runs something called the Erotic Service Provider’s Union which doesn’t seem to actually do anything.  She writes on a Blog called “Bound Not Gagged” and makes the argument there that pimps should be considered “sex workers” because they are really just “support staff.”  She had a restraining order put on her in Berkeley after harrassing ex prostitutes who were putting on a play in the one of the theatres.  She is beyond adamant.”

Despite some criticism for this and that, the No on 8 campaign seems to back on track. At least that’s the way it appeared yesterday at the Market Street headquarters. Mayor Gavin Newsom, California Assemblymember Fiona Ma, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, Supervisor Tom Ammiano, Assessor Phil Ting, and Treasurer Jose Cisneros were all on hand to encourage the No on 8 workers at HQ.

Talk of the day concerned how much Pro-8 “Mormon money” from Idaho and Utah was coming into the state of California and how many phone calls the hundreds of volunteers were making.

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The mayor went off on a tangent about how constitutions have “never been changed to take peoples’ rights away” and how the U.S.(?) Constitution has been amended 17 times since the time of the Bill of Rights (which is true, they’re called the “subsequent amendments“) for the sole purpose of giving people rights. This would be correct only if you ignore a few, such as the 16th, or the 18th, or the 22nd, or the…  

But don’t worry about that, just sign up for the campaign if you want. And ask about perks you might get, such as free massages:  

It can’t hurt to ask them, anyway.

Will Attorney General Jerry Brown get the credit for defeating Prop 8, as this article suggests? Only time will tell.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom addressed a crowd of about 300 at the No on Proposition 8 campaign kick-off on Market Street this morning.  Also on hand were City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, Mark Leno, Fiona Ma, José Cisneros, and Carmen Chu.

The No on Prop 8 people are ahead in the polls, including the most recent one from Public Policy Institute of California, so it almost seems unfair to unleash the awesome power of the fully operational mothership that is the Alex Tourk operation.

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Now of course, the Yes on Proposition 8 people (protectmarriage.com) have their own supporters, such as Doug Manchester (so much to answer for) of the San Diego Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Knights of Columbus and the California Catholic Conference. 

And plus, they have a Facebook, a MySpace and a Twitter. But it’s going to take more than that to get Prop 8 voted into law in November, 2008

Read all about it at Equality California’s website.

California Assemblymember Mark Leno spoke out against Prop 8 at an event last night in San Francisco:

The kick-off rally tomorrow, September 6th, should be well-attended:

No on 8 Kick-off Rally
Saturday, September 6, 2008 – 10:00am
2278 Market St., 2nd Fl. (map)
San Francisco, CA