PROTESTS Against Prop 8 Tonight in Over 100 Cities!

[dayofd...@gmail.com]

Pro-Gay Activists in Over 100 Cities
To Protest California Court Decision
On Prop 8 Tonight

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 -- With the California Supreme Court's decision
minutes ago upholding that state's anti-gay Proposition 8, pro-gay
activists in at least 108 cities have vowed to react with angry
protests tonight to denounce they see as the brazen taking away of
their equal rights.

While the court's decision preserved the 18,000 same-sex marriages
already performed, the main point of contention, the anti-gay Prop 8,
was upheld, and therefore gay activists will respond tonight with
protests.

Day of Decision co-founder Robin Tyler and her wife, Diane Olson, were
the first and only couple married on June 16, 2008 in Los Angeles
County. They married during the months after the California Supreme
Court embraced same-sex marriage rights and before Proposition 8 cut
off that right. They were the first plaintiffs in the suit which
brought about the original court decision and were co-plaintiffs in
the suit just decided by the court today.

"Even though our marriage is preserved by today's decision, we take no
joy in the fact that marriage equality for almost everyone else has
been removed from our state," said Tyler. "The upholding of
Proposition 8 by the court is a cowardly retreat from the pro-equality
stance it took last year, and makes our state a laggard behind pro-
equality states like Iowa and most New England states."

Andy Thayer, Day of Decision's other co-founder, is also co-founder of
the Gay Liberation Network and recently received widespread news
coverage for his arrest with 30 others while participating in a Gay
Pride protest in Moscow, Russia.

After tonight's protests Tyler and Thayer see the next step for gay
equality to be repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. DOMA prevents same-sex
couples in even the marriage equality states from accessing federal
benefits that their heterosexual peers take for granted.

Most critically, DOMA allows non-marriage equality states to directly
flout the U.S. Constitution's "full faith and credit clause" under
which contracts made in one state cannot be invalidated in others.
Currently states that have, say, higher ages for legal heterosexual
marriage are required to observe "underage" marriages performed in
other states, but DOMA allows states to flout this same requirement
for gay people.

"Many civil rights struggles historically have started with a state-by-
state strategy to begin with, but at a certain point they must break
out of that localism and take things onto the national stage if they
are to be successful," said Tyler. "By taking on DOMA, the lynchpin
of federal anti-gay policy, we will be doing that."

"The Democrats control both houses of Congress and the Presidency,"
said Thayer. "They gave us the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in
1996, and now it's their responsibility to clean up their mess, and we
will do all in our power to force them to do so."

"If President Obama does not repeal DOMA and DontAsk,DontTell, both of
which he promised our community while running for President, the only
gay Divorce you will see, for those of us who supported him, is the
gay community's divorce from the Democratic Party," adds Tyler.

A full listing of tonight's actions in nearly 100 cities in the U.S.
and Canada can be found at http://www.DayOfDecision.com