March for Equality and Pride

The March for Equality and Pride was on Sunday. At 11am everyone gathered at the local park to listen to speakers and poets. The poetry was really excellent and featured winners of a "slam poetry" contest who were heading to the nationals. One Native American poet sang a song in Choctaw on equality. There was a black-trans-vampire comic who was hilarious. When she said only nerds wear New Balance I tried to cover my shoes. At least no one was looking at them and thinking "white supremacy."

At noon we headed to the main street, assembled behind banners, the disability trolley, and the percussion band and marched our way down an empty four lane street with police blockades. There was first aid, security, and a guy with a bullhorn leading chants like:

"What do we want?" 

("Equality!") 

"When do we want it?" 

("NOW!") 

"NOW" was what was supposed to have been the response, but most people were yelling, "YESTERDAY!" This march, although not the largest I've been to, was certainly the most organized.

It was fun. Lots of friendly people. Lots of stinky people. Hmmm....

And, of course, for me it was all about the signs. I took a hiatus from painting for a couple weeks since I got so sick last month so I was raring to go.

Initially my friend who is in charge of finding the protests told me it was for Equality. Equality? What kind? Gender equality? Racial equality? LGBTQ equality? She thought a sign saying "Love Not Hate Makes America Great" would cover everything and I thought that would be a good idea so it could be used at a number of protests:

It looks like one of those Valentine candies with the sayings on them. LOL.

Finally I found march information and confirmed was for LGBTQ equality or gay rights. However, during the march we did chant for every marginalized group in America so it did end up being all inclusive, as the world should be. I was inspired. I think some of the funniest signs are for gay rights. I saw one online that read, "Leviticus Also Said, 'No Hair Cuts', But I Guess We Are Skipping That One!" or "If God Hates Fags Why Am I So Cute?" My absolute favorite sign that had me laughing out loud was a painting of Jesus holding his head in frustration and saying "I said I hate FIGS!" HAHAHAHA! Gay people have a sense of humor. (They are gay...) I wish I could be so clever.

Anyway...I jumped into painting and it didn't take long before I became ill and my body hurt all over. Will I never learn? For some reason my mask and other protective gear didn't seem to matter. My body load hasn't recovered from May's overexposure, but does that stop me? Heck no. I decided just in case there were some religious nuts lining the march with "God Hates Fags" and "You Will Burn in Hell" signs, I wanted a protest sign that addressed religion. A counter-counter-protest sign.

Love was our theme for the day. The back of this sign is a rainbow.

Flags...I had no idea there were so many types of flags. Most people know the LGBTQ community uses the rainbow as a symbol. The various colors mean: red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sunlight/vitality), green (nature), blue (harmony/serenity), purple (spirit), and some flags add a pink (sexuality) and turquoise (art/magic) with some variation.

Did you know there are flags for bisexuality (pink, purple, blue), transgender (blue, pink, white, pink, blue), genderqueer/androgyny (purple, white, green), pansexual (red, yellow, blue), and asexual (gray, white, purple)?

It amazes me how much I don't know sometimes....

These two ladies hand painted their overalls with every protest slogan and filled them with buttons and patches representing the causes they support. They said they wear them to all the protests and don't have to carry signs! Great idea.

What was really fun is when we got to the rally at the end, there were many really excellent speakers. One woman represented a Black Alliance group and was a minister at a church. She started talking about Jesus and what he stood for "Jesus was all about love...I saw a sign that was perfect. Where was that sign?" She searched the crowd. Whoa! It took a minute to realize she was talking about my sign. I was sitting with my sign laying down beside me so I grabbed it and held it high

She yelled, "There it is! 'Love Thy Neighbor. That's It. That's All. The End.' That says it all!"

LOL! Whoa! Call out!! Very cool. Sometimes I make these signs and I often don't feel like anyone is really noticing them. Fun.

But my sign production momentum wasn't over. I had this urge and vision of one more. I think it's my best one so far and I've decided if I can create a handful of designs I really like, I might make them into cards and give them away as Christmas presents or something. LOL I'm saving this sign for a Black Lives Matter or Immigration protest:

Love it!