A little mid-marriage equality/LGBT civil rights rally PDA, under the watchful eye of St. Pat’s.  Ahem. [Photo: Cheryl Dumesnil.]

I like to think that love will conquer all. I like to believe that the more of us believe this, the more true it becomes. If we’re not there yet  – love victorious and everlasting; love unconditional; and it’s abundantly evident we’re not — still, I like to believe we’re en route. You have to have the long view.

Meanwhile, love’s healing, conquering power does hold true for me, my beloved, and the family we’ve hatched (with the help of what else? love!).  Sometimes, when push comes to shove — and daggone there’s been a lot of shoving lately — I have to feel that that’ll do.

So endeth a month of photos, or so it was supposed to be (photos only).  As expected, I couldn’t resist sneaking a word or two as accompaniment.  Sometimes it was just a word or two and no photo.  And as expected, I spent most of the month waiting for the other shoe to fall.  Shoe 1 being: the election which removed our constitutionally recognized right to support our family structure with state recognition equivalent to those our heterosexual brothers and sisters enjoy. Shoe 2 being: the Supreme Court’s decision on whether or not this was fair and right.

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THE POWERPUFF GIRLS SAY NO TO HATE! & YES TO LOVE!

This was taken just a little over a day ago, though it feels like a week.  On the Day of Decision, the afternoon after the CA Supreme Court released its cowardly ruling upholding Prop 8 for the thinnest and most internally contradictory of reasons, this young gal was at the front of the march from San Francisco’s City Hall to the Yerba Buena Gardens and its Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.  

I wish I could show you the full look on this gal’s face, but though I got her very enthusiastic permission to photograph her holding the sign, I didn’t have the good sense to locate a parent and find out how they felt about the little muffin showing up on the internet. So she gets more or less cropped.  Take my word for it, she had a smile a city block-wide and eyes bright enough to light up the street lights. Our Family Coalition and COLAGE led the march, as well they should have. 

I could have put up a much more somber image here (oh, like this one). But I’m thinking, today I could use this kind of inextinguishable optimism. When people talk about the future of LGBT civil rights and civil marriage rights, I think this will be the image I’ll try to conjure the most.

[Post Script: I thought I'd be writing up a big ole' Day of Decision post, and I am, but I think I will actually try to hold it 'til Monday, Blogging for LGBT Families Day, when I'm done with the Month o' Photos and off my "prose fast." ]

Slide show of images in and around San Francisco, the afternoon following the CA Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Prop 8 (though also uphold the June-Nov marriages).

As of the wee, wee hours of Wednesday morning, I gave up waiting for all my photos to load to Flickr, where I stash them all.  I put in the image at left as a placeholder, and then in the more civil hours of the morning, posted the above slide show of images from some of San Francisco’s reaction to the California Supreme Court’s decision upholding Prop 8.

It’s a companion slide show to yesterday’s morning scenes; they’re mostly of the afternoon/evening rally at City Hall, the march from there to the rally at Yerba Buena Gardens, and then a trickle afterward.

Plenty happened during the afternoon that I didn’t witness — for one, I went to City Hall to listen to the press conference, and wasn’t a part of (or witness to) the civil disobedience that folks did. Over the course of the day, 175 people were arrested (though all the public assembly I saw was shockingly civil). I also took a break in the afternoon to upload the morning pictures.

As with the AM slide show I posted earlier on Tuesday, I’ve captioned the images and provided some minor commentary here and there, which you see if you click through and view the set picture-by-picture at Flickr.. 

In due time, maybe tomorrow, more words forthcoming.

[Ed note: Want to see another  huge set of photos of they day?  Steve Rhodes has 392 great ones here.]

A slide show of images from this morning: first in front of the California Supreme Court before and after they released their ruling upholding Proposition 8, then inside City Hall, for the press conference.

Per usual, more to say here than I have time (or, right now, energy) with which to say it.  I hope the slideshow above works for you. I’ve captioned each image separately, so if you open the link (?) and view the images directly, you can find out what was up.

I will say that the morning had one bright spot.  I saw NCLR shero Kate Kendell before the decision was released, and was able to give her a hug, a kiss on the cheek, and an “amor vincit omnia” button as some kind of good luck talisman.  Which it will be. In the long term.

Now off to the Day of Decision rally.

“This looks like the end of the story; but it isn’t.” Old Brown may seem to have Squirrel Nutkin in a deathgrip, but our furry friend is wilier than you might expect. 

Today I will be in San Francisco on the steps of the California Supreme Court (and elsewhere), likely apoplectic, but possibly ecstatic; still, likely, apoplectic.  Either way exhausting myself on the babysitter’s time clock.

Whichever the scenario, this deathless moment from Beatrix Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin will suffice as a placeholder.   I know you’ll be getting your news & analysis elsewhere (certainly faster than here!), so I can simply promise to see you again later in the day, with images of the courthouse scene at the least (spoiler alert: it’ll be post #18th of 21).