Hi all - token Libertarian here, and I just wanted to say how inspiring yesterday's March for Equality on the National Mall was. Having been there for the Tea Party on 9/12, I can't begin to describe the world of difference I saw between the two groups of demonstrators: yesterday I saw a group of people who actually DO have historical reason to fear their government and their neighbors, and yet there was none of the hatred, anger, or overblown rhetoric that characterized the tea parties.
Make the jump for some pretty pictures and my own thank-you to everybody who turned out.
And to everybody who came out to show their support:
Or, for the YouTube-ily impaired:
It’s still October, but I just came from the National Mall and I’m in a Thanksgiving mood. It’s right to thank those who give their time, their effort, and even their safety for the sake of our nation, so I’d like to do that.
Thanks to everybody who turned out to support America. Thanks to the men and women, the families, the friends, the co-workers and the neighbors who came together in our nation’s capital to re-affirm the basic principles of liberty upon which our great nation is founded. Thanks to the high schoolers and the senior citizens, the college kids and the businesspeople, the activists and the soldiers who turned out in peaceful support of those basic values that every lover of freedom holds dear.
Thanks to those who came to speak, and to those who came to listen. Thanks to the heroes, like Lt. Dan Choi, whose fight to keep our country safe has become all the more powerful now that he can no longer wear the uniform he earned through his service to us all.
Thanks to those who came to support the United States of America, and to assert once again that our greatness, drawn from deep wells of courage, love of justice, and generosity of spirit, can be neither irreparably damaged nor permanently dimmed by a misguided few who would put their own prejudices over their nation’s great purpose.
Thanks to all those who came out to show their fellow citizens the truth of the words we speak to the world: that Americans are a free people, we are a just people, we are a people who believe in the value of families, in hope and in determination, and in the triumph of that which is right over any obstacle from any quarter. Thanks to my fellow citizens who came not to protest, but to demonstrate: to demonstrate that we truly are, in thought and action, the children of those who founded a nation conceived in liberty.
To all these, to all who were with me on the Mall and to all who were with us in spirit, thank you. I’m proud of everybody who’s working to win a fight that belongs to all of us; I’m proud of my little sister and her girlfriend, and I’m proud of my country every single day. Today, I just felt like saying so.
-L