This weekend I went to the National Equality March in Washington DC to march for LGBT(QQA...LMNOP) rights. Here I have my favorite shots I grabbed while marching:
A little New Hampshire pride; his shirt reads "Live free or die." I took this photo for a friend from New Hampshire. We're going to search for this shirt online, it's fantastic!
Putting down our signs and flags and listening to the speakers at the Capitol building where the march finished. The sign reads: "Homophobia. Now that is a choice."
Finding new and creative places to put rainbows!
The lawn was littered with signs when we got to the capitol building.
The boy holding his really cute sign is great ("Somone [sic] drew a circle to exclude me... So I drew one BIGGER to include them"), but my favorite part is his friend next to him. Really priceless expression on him!
This photo is the most powerful one I think I took all weekend, mostly due to the signs these men had ("38 years together/Too long a courtship!/Ready for right to marry" and "Beaten by cops in 1965/Still waiting for equal rights"), but also because I caught them in an interaction, which is hard when you're marching in a crowd. I felt really lucky that I noticed when the crowd parted at just the right moment, and got this shot. Here is a slightly bigger copy since I'm having trouble making the photos enlarge when you click them.
All in all it was an amazing weekend. One thing I didn't expect - Lady Gaga spoke! She said it was the most important moment of her career to date, which gained her a few points from me. My favorite speaker was Cleve Jones, a name you might recognize if you saw the film Milk (he was played by Emile Hirsch) or because he invented the AIDS memorial quilt. He was one of the first gay rights activists, and it was very inspiring to hear him speak about the progress that's being made, and the many things that need to still be done. I heard him both the day before the march at a coffee shop, and then again at the Capitol. I heard many inspiring people talk about their inspiring work, and I hope that equality will be completed in my lifetime. It would be nice to not be a second-class citizen under the law anymore.
