Photos from Austin's Prop 8 Rally at City Hall Plaza
An estimated 3,000 people came out to the Prop 8 rally at Austin City Hall on Saturday afternoon, braving feisty winds to show their support for gay marriage. The enthusiastic crowd was nearly equal parts gay and straight, and young and old. Early attendees were entertained with a rousing pep talk by the Austin Chronicle's Kate X Messer, and by the official concurrent national start time (12:30 p.m. CST), the crowd had expanded to fill the entire City Hall plaza space.
The dozen or so speakers at the rally, including representatives from Equality Texas and "straights for gays" alliance Atticus Circle, supplanted vitriol with grace and tact. Instead of an angry backlash against those who supported California's Prop 8, the focus was on family, respect, and the need for our entire community, regardless of sexual orientation, to demonstrate to others that the only "gay agenda" at hand is, simply and genuinely, to be granted the right to love.
Photos from our sister -ISTs (we're adding to this as they come in):
Boston
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Seattle Part 1 Seattle Part 2
New York City
Chicago
Photos by Allen Y Chen, Stephanie Beasley, and KEB.
Update: Here's a video that reader Joey Castillo shot and edited from the rally:
Prop. 8 demonstration in Austin from Joey Castillo on Vimeo.
If you can't view the Flash slideshow above, an alternate version appears after the jump.
