Thousands march in Seattle to support gay rights

Thousands of people marched peacefully through downtown Seattle Saturday afternoon as part of a national protest of the California vote that banned gay marriage.

Marchers also took to the streets in Tacoma and Spokane.

Police and event organizers estimated the Seattle crowd at 3,000 to 6,000. Marchers of all ages, many accompanied by children and dogs, carried signs, colorful banners and a giant U.S. flag.

"The Church of Latter Day Snakes," one sign said, pointedly aimed at the Mormon church, which supported Proposition 8 in California. "You can't stop love," another sign said.

"The passing of Proposition 8 in a state where it was expected not to pass is cause for outrage and ignited the civil rights movement for the 21st century," said event organizer Kyler Powell.

Courts in California legalized gay marriages earlier this year, but that decision was overturned Nov. 4 by the voter initiative Proposition 8. Massachusetts and Connecticut now are the only states to recognize same-sex marriage.

Several politicians spoke to the marchers, who gathered at Volunteer Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood - the center of Seattle's gay community - and then proceeded to Westlake Center downtown.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels called Proposition 8 "a hateful measure which should never have been on the ballot."

Nickels told the crowd he had declared Saturday as "Marriage Equality Day in Seattle."

King County Executive Ron Sims, an African-American, compared the quest for marriage equality to the fight for racial justice.

"It won't be easy, but it will happen," Sims said. "It will happen. We're not tired - we're just getting started."

Marchers agreed.

"The more people see we are normal and nice people the better our chances are at equality," said one of the protesters, Laurie Cox, 35, of Seattle.

Her partner, 36-year-old Molly Metz, said the passage of Proposition 8 "gives the entire country the right to call us second-class citizens."

Seattle blogger Amy Balliett, who started the planning for the protest when she set up a Web page after the California vote, said persuasion is impossible without civility.

"If we can move anybody past anger and have a respectful conversation, then you can plant the seed of change," she told KOMO-TV.

"We need to show the world when one thing happens to one of us, it happens to all of us," she said.

In Tacoma, about 150 people assembled for a rally at First United Methodist Church. They chanted slogans, held placards and waved flags as they marched between the church and nearby Wright Park.

Sherrie Orlob, a 57-year-old University Place resident who is active with the group Old Lesbians Organizing for Change, said she has been waiting for years for the opportunity to marry her partner.

"It was quite surprising, maybe shocking. I really thought the country had come further - especially in California, which is a fairly liberal state," she told The News Tribune. "For me, I never thought this would happen in my lifetime anyway. Every step we take is a step forward. This was a minor step backwards."

Brita Barry, who lives in Athens, Ga., was visiting friends in Tacoma and said she felt the need to support the gay community. She said she left left West Germany in 1970 and worries about parallels between her native country’s past and the passage of Proposition 8.

"I left my country because it had such a dangerous and evil past," she told The News Tribune. "I come to this country, and I find the same bigotry. And it horrifies me."

In Spokane, more than 100 people gathered outside City Hall to protest Proposition 8. KHQ-TV reported the rally was peaceful, but Spokane police were on hand, and rally organizers had received a threat while planning the rally.

Similar demonstrations took place in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., and many other cities.