On Saturday, Nov. 15, about 60 protestors braved 30-degree temperatures and driving snow while standing in front of the post office on Washington Street holding rainbow flags, banners and signs with sayings such as, “Can we vote on your marriage, too?”
The protestors took to the streets in solidarity with other such groups across the country to voice their disapproval of California’s Proposition 8 – a measure which banned same-sex marriages across the state of California. The Proposition nullified the California Supreme Court’s May 15 decision to allow gay marriages.
Many may wonder why Michiganders would brave the November weather to protest a California law. The answer is simple for event organizer and NMU student Randi Mae Clayton, who said that the protection of equal rights was worth standing in the cold.
“I don’t think that people consider Northern Michigan to have a really large gay community. I just wanted to open the eyes of the people who probably don’t get the information-that there are people being discriminated against,” Clayton said. “I, as a straight person, wanted to get involved because I was really sure that it was not the gay community that voted against their own right to marry.”
Eden Cepela, a senior at NMU and member of OUTlook felt that even allowing Proposition 8 on the ballot was discrimination in the first place, since heterosexual marriage has never been, and probably will never be, in jeopardy.
OUTlook is a student organization that supports the LGBTQA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning and Allied) community on campus.
“Proposition 8 is, to me, a concrete form of regression, opposing the progressive ideas our country was founded on, which are bound in the notion of equality. Unity is always essential in the struggle for equal rights, and knowing this, we chose to voice our disagreement.”
Freshman Katelyn Hough, member of OUTlook, said the protests were part of a bigger movement.
“It wasn’t just us protesting that day. Saturday was a day that there were protests across the nation, all at the same time, all for the same reason,” Hough said.
While the group did not organize the protest, she said it was especially important to members of OUTlook.
“This event was not an OUTlook-sponsored event, just something that pertained to what we are; we did have a lot of participants from the group,” she said.
The protest lasted for two hours, Hough said, mostly because of a city mandate that the protestors disperse at dusk.
Hough said it is likely the protest would have gone longer were it not for the darkening skies.