Roughly 300 protesters marched down Congress Street in Portland on Friday night in reaction to the repeal on Tuesday of the state’s legalization of gay-marriage.
Cheering, chanting and waving homemade signs, the crowd marched to the banging of drums from Congress Square to the steps of City Hall where speakers such as Maine’s former Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate for 2010 Steve Rowe spoke words of encouragement through a megaphone.
“We can see the destination,” said Rowe. “It’s full equality, and we will get there.”?
Former student body president Andrew Bossie lead the crowd in chants of “1,2,3,4, love is what we’re fighting for.”
Pedestrians who had come out for the First Friday Artwork gawked at the passing parade. Some cheered. A few scoffed. Cars honked, some in approval and some in annoyance at being held up.
Mea Tavares, who kept time with an African drum in the front of the marching crowd, said the impetus for the protest came the night before, with 14 people sitting around a kitchen table, brainstorming ways to give voice to the anger and confusion they all felt over the passing of Question 1.
“It started as a sharing of feelings,” she said.
“For essentially 12 hours notice, it was incredible,” she said of the turnout.
“We’re not really trying to be in your face,” said organizer K.T. Crossman before the march began.
“We really felt like we were so hurt and angry and sad that we needed a public space for people to voice those emotions. We were worried about the safety of our community-not from outsiders, but in terms of the immensity of the emotional pain. We wanted to give them a space to be with family, chosen and biological.”
Crossman said her anger came from the people who didn’t vote as well as those who did.
“I personally am angry at people who believe my family is not worth protecting. I’m angry not at the people who actively campaigned against it, but at the people who didn’t do anything and stood by and watched as a whole group of people had their civil rights taken away. I’m almost angrier at the people.
“Having people come out and clap with us, walk out of their lives and stand with us in that moment-it was amazing,” said David C. Clark of Portland.
One of the protest’s organizers, Chris O’Connor, assistant dean of student life at USM, said the march was a call for solidarity during an emotional period for Maine’s same-sex marriage advocates.
(O’Connor oversees student groups at USM, including the Free Press.)
The afternoon before the protest, O’Connor said he was prepared for the possibility of being arrested. Although they didn’t warn the city of their intention to march, no police were called to intervene during the non-violent protest, which lasted for two hours and stopped traffic on Congress Street.
“My take is, war has been waged on our community, so this is our form of protest,” O’Connor said. Like many in attendance, O’Connor was a volunteer during the campaign for No On 1.
In Tuesday’s referendum election, Question 1 passed 53 to 47 percent.
But as he gazed out at the hundreds of supporters crowding the steps of City Hall, O’Connor was amazed at what had been accomplished with only a few phone calls and an event invitation on Facebook.
“As we sat around the table last night planning, I never would have imagined this,” he said.