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Huge Fort Lauderdale Crowd Shows Support for Gay Marriage

Huge Fort Lauderdale Crowd Shows Support for Gay Marriage
by Patrick Berkeley

The last election was a roller coaster for the GLBT community. The most gay-friendly president in history was elected while a strew of anti-marriage and anti-adoption laws were all passed through in California, Arkansas, Arizona, and Florida.

For days after the election, protests raged on throughout California, sometimes even turning violent, while in Florida people remained complacent.

Until Saturday, November 15th when protests throughout the entire county, including cities in Florida, were all taking place at 1:30 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Fort Lauderdale had a huge turnout, with over 1,000 people rallying on the streets outside of city hall in downtown.

A rainbow flag was held across the steps in front of the building with different minorities, sexualities, and genders all holding a piece. A woman in the front cried out, “But I’m straight, should I still hold it?” and the organizer of the event, Bishop SF Ma-Hee, proclaimed, “It’s okay, we want everyone fighting for us.”

And that was certainly a huge element of this event: people from all different backgrounds standing together for one cause. Older Fort Lauderdale residents in wheelchairs rallied alongside children. A mother nursed her child in one area, as two older lesbians held hands, waving miniature rainbow flags.

Rabbi Andrew Jacobs came to the speaking area holding his young son donning a Mickey Mouse hat. He explained to the crowd his purpose in attending: “I believe in a God that has no patience for these forms of hate…on behalf of the Jewish community we fight this lack of tolerance.”

There were many different religious organizations showing support. Bishop Reed of the Christian faith began the protests with an invocation, asking, “God the courage to believe we are indeed loved.”

The rally focused on using religion to help the GLBT cause, countering all the discriminatory ways religion has been used to keep gay equality from happening.

Bishop SF Ma-Hee led the Fort Lauderdale branch of this huge protest, and she brought a spirit of electricity to the crowd, jumping around and shouting different chants and words of strength.

She repeatedly asked participants to stay away from any forms of violence in the protest. The recent California protests were marked by sporadic instances of violence when protesters targeted the Mormon church (thought to have contributed lots of money to helping the marriage bans getting passed).

Bishop SF Ma-Hee also brought up another controversy concerning the election results: the idea that the surge in black voters led to the anti-gay marriage amendments getting passed.

As a black woman herself, she said she was particularly offended by that. “We have allies in the African-American community,” she spoke. “People who are racist and prejudice are also, always, homophobic.”

At that, she introduced Andrew Lewis, an African-American president of the Democratic Black Caucus of Broward County.

“Barack showed us what is possible. He showed us how to do it. Our voices should not be silenced. It’s not just about people who speak up with hate but also those who stay silent in the face of such hate. Silence is NOT harmless,” he said, calling to mind the words of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.

Also standing along the steps of city hall were protesters holding up signs of pictures of gay men and women killed in hate crimes, representing the organization Gay American Heroes.

Back in February, Simmie Williams Jr. was killed in a gay hate crime in Fort Lauderdale, and his mother showed up to speak, “We want you all to have equal rights like anybody else.”

The recent shooting death of a student at Dillard High School with gay subtext also affected the proceedings.
Kyle and Freddie, two 17 year old students at MacArthur High School were at the rally.

They are both members of the gay straight alliance at their school. “There’s not anything gay enough as a teenager, nowhere to really be gay,” Freddie said. “It’s nice to see this many people, as friends, loving everybody, except amendment 2.”

An event that started mainly through organizational efforts by Join the Impact using the website Facebook, the national protests were thought to be a huge success with over a million participants and more upcoming actions already planned.

These same sentiments were echoed at a similar rally in Miami Beach where Mayor Matti Bower addressed a large crowd and urged people to “never give up the fight.”

On December 10, Join the Impact is supporting “A Day Without a Gay” in which the GLBT community is encouraged to call out “gay” from work, and focus that time on helping the community, and not spending any money, contributing to the economy. After that, another protest is scheduled for January.

For a city that once seemed uninterested, Fort Lauderdale is strongly building up its gay supporters. Bishop SF Ma-Hee compared the GLBT cause to the recent rocket ship Endeavor’s trip to the space station.

“At 8:55 Friday night, we saw flames flying in the sky, from the rocket Endeavor. We endeavor too. We endeavor to put an end to bigotry.” And the 1,000 people holding up signs, banners, and flags cried out, “yes we can.”

In Gay Games Bid, Miami Beach Hoists Pride Flag

by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Contributor

Less than two weeks after submitting a letter of intent to bid on selection as host city for Gay Games IX, Miami Beach, Fla. reversed a city law banning the flying of the rainbow flag–and raised a multicolored banner high over City Hall.

The flag raising drew reportage from local CBS affiliate Channel 4, which posted a story online Nov. 11.

The so-called gay pride flag was created by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco artist, whose early version of the flag included two additional stripes, in comparison to the most common such flag of today.

Baker’s flag included the six stripes seen on most contemporary flags, along with a hot pink stripe and an indigo stripe, according to a Wikipedia article.

Baker’s flag was hoisted in the June 25, 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, the Wikipedia article said, going on to note that demand for the flag skyrocketed in the aftermath of the murder of openly gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, whose career–and whose struggle against a Proposition 8-like anti-gay ballot initiative–is the focus of a new biopic starring Sean Penn.

The CBS-4 story quoted Miami Beach mayor Matti Herrera Bower, who said of the newly-hoisted pride flag, “I think that this is just another step to making a whole city, a city that really welcomes gays and lesbians.”

The city commission struck down a long-standing ordinance forbidding the flying of the rainbow flag in Miami Beach–a curious anachronism for a city known as a favorite gay tourism spot.

The CBS-4 story quoted Miami Beach resident Luis Randazzo, who said, “It’s a historic day for us.

“The gay flag is a representation of diversity,” continued Randazzo. “It represents equality. It represents the cultural identity of the community.”

As another resident put it: “Miami Beach has a little bit of everything.

“I think that’s what makes Miami Beach what it is–so I’m okay with it.”

The presence of the flag might also help make Miami Beach the next host city for the Gay Games. Miami was one of four American cities to submit letters to the Federation of Gay Games expressing the intention of bidding to become the site for the next Gay Games in 2014.

Boston, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C. also submitted letters notifying the FGG that those cities, too, intend to throw their hats into the ring for the honor–and the profit–of hosting the games, according to a release from the FGG.

Site inspectors from the FGG will travel to each of the four cities next summer to determine which one will be chosen to host the 2014 Games.

Every four years, more than eleven thousand athletes and other participants join together for the world’s largest GLBT sporting and cultural event, according to the FGG news release.

The 2010 Games are already scheduled to take place in Cologne, Germany.

Past host cities have included San Francisco (twice: 1982 and again in 1986), Vancouver (1990), New York (1994), Amsterdam (1998), Sydney (2002), and Chicago (2006).

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