The Way Things Shape Up

"Yes on 8" Rally Provokes Spontaneous Counter Demonstration

In our little desert town, we still manage to keep a strong frontier ethic of "your business stops at my fence." We have that whole live and let live thing going on.

Last night a demonstration in support of amending the California Constitution to specifically deny rights to a whole segmet of our population was organized and put on by the self named "Coalition for Christ." This is a loose association between the Assembly of God (John Ashcroft and Sarah Palin's church) and the local LDS ward. Usually those folks are pretty much on opposite sides of town and most other issues.

The faithful had their pre-printed signs, they had their talking points ready rehearsed in order to spit out on cue. There were nearly 200 of them.

Two of my sisters, with their children (except for Dani who was with me, making pies) grabbed some cardboard, a couple of cans of spray paint, and went down to where the demonstration was happening. To make their voices heard.

My sister, Dani's mom, who is a nurse in the prison system here and my baby sister, who is a high school drama teacher said that the counter demonstration was mostly spontaneous, mostly unorganized, but by the end of the whole thing they outnumbered the supporters nearly 2 to 1.

Noting the organization and regimentation of the supporters, and the spontaneous, homemade nature of the opposition I said "Wow. That's really cool. They were the redcoats, and ya'll were the minutemen."

I asked about the singing. Gatherings like that always have singing. She said the "Yes on 8" crowd was singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

I asked "What did ya'll sing?"

She said "We Shall Overcome, of course."

Hoookah Hey!