Rally for Marriage, Boston Common

Self | Feb 8, 2004 | Self

[Little Bill]

I arrived at the Rally for Marriage at 2:30 while Don Feder was speaking missing the first speaker. The crowd was impressive, best guess would be about 3000- 3500, a good draw for a twenty degree day with a wind chill of below 0.

Across Tremont Street a group of sodomites, lesbians, and other off brands, about 125 or so, were cluttering up the sidewalk waving the fag flag and signs complaining about discrimination and despoiling the constitution, yeah.

I met JMT576 and his uncle and we desided to walk around, take some pictures for posting, and generally get a feel for what was going on. The crowd very diverse black, white, oriential and very well ordered, the cops kept a tight lid on disrupters of which there were a few.

I didn't pay a lot of attention to the speakers after Feder, they would be preaching to the converted, I will say that Ray Flynn did a good job running the Rally, it was the first time I have seen him without a Bud in his hand.

The high point of the Rally was Archbishop O'Malley, you could feel the fear and loathing eminating from the State House. The Rally broke up after that, very well done.

[Little Bill]

I did a lot of picture taking mainly to give people a feel for a Rally that wasn't WWP connected. Anyone who was there please post your views.

[Little Bill]

ping

[goldstategop]

What did Don Feder say? He used to write for the Boston Herald and is now a Boston talk radio show host who is a Jewish conservative in a very liberal state.

[rface]

thanks for the up-to-the-minute information

[JulieRNR21]

BRAVO......for being there & for your report.....hope those in the State House start listening to the people!

[rface]

when does the annual homo-parade happen out there (Cambridge maybe?)?

[Little Bill]

Pix. Click

[longtermmemmory]

ABC just announced they were going to cover the rally. Upcomming.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Thanks for posting those pics. Those people look cold. It was cold for me walking across the common to get to the rally, but it was warm enough standing in the crowd.

[Little Bill]

ping

[SuziQ]

Thanks for the ping! Don Feder was great at the rally here in Worcester week before last. Did he speak about Judicial Tyranny? He's so strong on that!

Looks like a great crowd. How long did Archbishop O'Malley speak? I think the high muckety mucks in Boston thought he'd be a pushover, being one of those 'peaceful Franciscans' and all. Woo Hoo, did they get a shock!

[Little Bill]

Judicial Tyranny, yes, and that Orthodox Jews support the Amendment.

[ThirstyMan]

Thanks Bill for starting the thread and posting the pics.

Yes it was cold! I liked Don Feder too. He was introduced as a " Jewish right-wing kook" or something like that and he said he appreciated the title. He gave us some Jewish history of how we learned about marriage from the Jews, people like Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Leah, etc.

He told how the Jews gave the world a moral base in which marriage was sacred and to pass this new definition of marriage would be the equivalent of going back to the land of the Canaanites. He gave Christians credit for Westernizing the concept of marriage.

The lady from CWA was very passionate and effective in her defense of marriage. Retired MA Supreme Court Justice Nolan was very forthright about marriage being a God given blessing to one man and one woman, not simply a right to be bestowed on whomever by the State of Massachusetts. He urged us to pray to God [and the mother of God] that marriage might remain a sacred institution composed of one man one woman.

A strong statement from Dr. Dobson was read

Seamole and I stood together at the rally, along with Rod [from the Meetup on last Tuesday]. Rod hasn't joined FR yet for some reason.

The coverage I watched after coming home made it look like the two sides [us and them] were equally represented at the rally. Not so at all. Whenever they started to be disruptive with their singing or whatever we began to chant "Let the people vote!" I brought a sign that simply said "One Man One Woman" which was pretty much the rally cry of the event as well.
I guessed there were five thousand demonstrating in favor of letting the representatives vote on this change in the definition of marriage.
Ray Flynn said the tide is turning our way and he felt that we must continue to contact our reps this week to let them know we want to vote!!!!

Lots of diversity in the crowd; old, young and all races. Bishop O'Malley spoke a word in Spanish for the Hispanics in attendance. Nice touch.

Wish I had hooked up with some other FReepers. Missed Electric's large American flag as a meeting place. Finishing with God Bless America was a meaningful touch.
Thanks all,
Thirsty

Don't Forget to call your legislators and tell them,
Vote on Wednesday February 11th to:
"Let the People Vote!!!!Let the People Vote!!!!Let the People Vote!!!!Let the People Vote!!!!Let the People Vote!!!!"

[Zechariah11]

We can't wait!

We're moving to Massachusetts!

[RaceBannon]

We have one coming up in Connecticut soon

[JulieRNR21]

Thanks for your report.

God Bless All who attended the Rally!

God Made Adam and Eve......NOT Adam and Steve!

[the invisib1e hand]

I saw the Yahoo!/AP piece called the good guys 'boisterous.'

[jmt576]

For those of you who didn't make it out today, you missed a really great event. I have to admit that I had a hard time following any of the speakers (I watched too much MTV growing up).

But the BEST part of the day was seeing so many "normal" people turn out for a good cause. It was freezing out there, but it seemed like the crowd just kept growing!

My media bias experience for today: I turned on WRKO so I could listen to Drudge, and I swear I heard the news person say that there were "two or three hundred" people out today! Try thousands, not hundreds. I love media bias!

As a wise man once told me, when it comes to estimating crowds it's really simple. Count the feet and divide by two!

[ahadams2]

Thanks for the ping! Obviously the people are standing up to the MA courts, and I bet the courts don't like it one little bit...too bad for them!