Gay Marriage Activists Take on Easter, the Royal Wedding
Marriage equality activists are stepping up their game this week, protesting increasingly high profile events to demonstrate for the right for gays to marry.
Yesterday, members of Queer Rising and Connecting Rainbows, along with Lt. Dan Choi, marched down Fifth Avenue in the Easter Parade. They were holding signs of LGBT people who have died due to homophobia over the past year.
In front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, they were protesting the Catholic Church's stance on same-sex marriage in general and Archbishop Timothy Dolan in particular (who recently equated the right to gay marriage to the right to marry his own mother.)
Last week, the appropriateness of taking on Easter was being debated by gay activists on Twitter, with some shrinking from getting in Christians' faces too much on the holiest day of that religion's year. But even despite the lack of arrests, the event got a lot more publicity than Queer Rising's last action, and the protests were not especially confrontational. It looked like that rarest of events: activists preaching beyond the choir, and talking to a new audience without screaming.
Meanwhile, across the pond, British marriage equality activists are planning a protest at Buckingham Palace today. The entire British nation is preparing to lose its collective mind over the royal wedding later this week and, just like with our Easter Parade, some Brits are non too pleased with gay rights activists trying to rain on their parade. But British gay activists hope the young William and Kate will take up their cause. (Besides, it can hardly be argued that committed gay couples have done anything more to hurt the "sanctity of marriage" than royal members of William's own family.)
And back here in New York, today, the League of Women Voters has become the latest group to join New Yorkers United for Marriage.
sthrasher@villagevoice.com / @steven_thrasher
Related:
"Ruben Diaz Sr. : Marriage Over My Dead Body"
"Who Do We Have to Blow To Get Gay Marriage?"
"Drag Queens Held Up 6th Avenue This Morning for Gay Marriage Equality"
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
