By A.J. Llewellyn

I marched to City Hall in Los Angeles yesterday with countless others to protest the passage on November 4 of the anti-gay legislation bill, Proposition 8.

At first we were a small group of friends and neighbors. We were there in peaceful, hopeful protest. We were there to say No on 8, or as we have come to call it, No on Hate.

My friends and I - about twenty in all - met at North Hollywood train station and took the Red Line downtown. My next door neighbor is a Jewish man whose Rabbi offered to hold a prayer meeting for us and as we all arrived just outside the train portal, he said a beautiful prayer of equality and harmony over suffering. It was a sobering reminder that there is injustice and intolerance in our country everywhere, not just for gay people who want the right to be married.

An old woman drifted toward our group. She’s not gay. She’s straight. But she is living with the man of her dreams because the stupid laws in our country dictate that if they get married, one of them loses their social security benefits.

Her friend who accompanied her begged me not to name them when I said I wanted to write about them.

“I got married,” she said. “I love my husband, but now we’re so poor we’re on our last can of cat food.”

She doesn’t own a cat. They are the ones eating the cat food.

Over and over again, people told their stories. Gay, straight. young, old…everybody has their wounds. They’re just not always visible.

I saw maniacs with signs protesting gay people, Catholic people, Jewish people…you name it. The good people far outweighed the bad. Many speakers were scheduled including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the worst thing to ever happen to L.A. except for his strong support of gay rights.

On a clear, beautiful morning in the city in which I own my own home, pay my taxes and try to be a good friend and neighbor, I prayed for peace. Not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but on my own doorstep.

I hope the creepy neighbors who insist on posting Yes on 8 signs on their lawn when they know their own neighbors are gay, stop promoting hate.

What I saw at the revolution yesterday when I opened my eyes was a thing of beauty. It is a profound moment I will never forget. I was holding hands with total strangers, watching the unstoppable tide of thousands and thousands of people coming out of the Red Line portal at Civic Center.

People who do not support H8T.

Aloha oe,

A.J.