Gay Riots in Los Angeles

I don't think there's been much coverage in the national media, but we have had protests and demonstrations supporting the rights of gay Americans to marry in California every day since the election. Much of the protesting is focused toward the Mormon Church, which invested over $20 million in California to pass the proposition amending the state Constitution against gay marriage. Now the protesters are demonstrating again in my neighborhood.

I was just watching TV a while ago when I heard loud chanting and crowd noises from outside. I opened the door of my apartment to hear distant sirens growing louder and the protesters chanting and moving down Melrose Avenue, which is visible two blocks north. There were flashing lights everywhere but no helicopters for quite a while, and that is very surprising because helicopters fly overhead every day and night around here.

Soon the helicopters arrived, but I couldn't find any live reporting on local television. The choppers buzzed around overhead and followed the mob west down Melrose. The crowd apparently shifted south a few blocks and turned on Beverly Blvd. because now I see a little coverage on the local late news that the marchers are near the Beverly Center.

It saddens me that so many people are still homophobic, especially in a live-and-let-live state like California. The encouraging thing is that young people get it -- they don't give a shit if you're gay, straight, bisexual or whatever. It really is nobody's business who I want to share my body with or who I want to spend my life with in a legally recognized committed relationship. That is an inalienable human right already recognized by advanced western allies such as Canada, the UK, and Spain. Yes, that right: even a traditionally conservative Catholic country like Spain has gay marriage, but the USA, the so-called "land of freedom" doesn't!

I'm not worried though. If we can elect a black man to be President, we will have gay marriage in the United States of America. It may take another generation, but it's a legal inevitability and several states are already making progress. California will almost certainly overturn this latest ban just as they did the previous ones. We can't allow an electorate blinded by religious dogma to legislate discrimination against a whole class of citizens. That's simply un-American!