The Katy Trail's morning exercise contingent saw something new today: a series of musings on the meaning of marriage. Every few yards, there was a message scribbled in sidewalk chalk, among them: "What is marriage worth?" and "What are marriage values?" There was one in Spanish: "Que es valor de casamiente¿"
According to Dallas Park and Recreation employees, who were busy scrubbing the messages from the trail, the chalking happened late last night or early this morning as a teaser for tonight's Day of Decision Rally.
The decision in question is the California Supreme Court's ruling on three cases challenging the state's now-notorious Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage that passed in a general election last November. Since then, opponents to Prop. 8 have appealed, but at noon Dallas time today, the California Supreme Court ruled to uphold it (but allowed gay couples who were wed before the election to remain married).
Tonight's rally, then, will be a protest, not the celebration for which Prop. 8 opponents had hoped.
According to Blake Wilkinson of the group Queer Liberaction, the rally
will begin officially around 7 p.m. (though organizers will be meeting
around 5:30 at Buli on Cedar Springs). The protest will start at the monument on the corner of Cedar Springs Road and Oak Lawn Avenue and will progress to the outdoor patio at Throckmorton Mining Co., where speakers including Cece Cox and Mike McKay of the Resource Center of Dallas and local TV-radio personality Rick Vanderslice will address the crowd.
"There was a lot of in the street activism after Prop. 8 [passed],"
Wilkinson says. "This time, we're hoping to change things in the
streets before something negative comes down the chutes in Texas." He
says tonight's rally should last until 9 p.m.
