Mike Tidmus

What an incredible day in San Diego. Could the sun shine just a little brighter on our cause? I think not. Six to eight hundred people turned out to remind President-Elect Obama of his campaign promise to repeal the heinous Defense of Marriage Act, better known as DOMA. Although as one citizen’s sign suggested, DOMA might be better known as the Destruction of Marriage Act.

Today’s event in San Diego was a joint effort of the San Diego Equality Campaign (SDEC) and the San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (SAME). I chatted briefly with SDEC’s media frontman Ben Cartwright and we both felt the official number of participants was underestimated. People were moving up and down the line with digital and video cameras, so an accurate count was nearly impossible. I watched the frustration on the face of one MSM reporter as he tried to count the marchers. There seemed to be as many people covering the event for blogs, Facebook, etc. as there were marching. Glad to be in that company.

Across the nation today, thousands more signed a letter addressed to the President-Elect to motivate the incoming President of the United States to honor his campaign commitment to equality for all American citizens. We will hold him to that promise.

The San Diego event began at 10:00 am under brilliant sunshine with a rally featuring a remarkably diverse range of both civil rights and labor speakers, became a march that met up with striking hotel workers demonstrating against Prop H8 backer Doug Manchester‘s Hyatt Hotel, and ended in a huge group portrait (below) and more inspirational speakers and some damn fine entertainment.

Sara Beth Brooks of SDEC and Zakiya Khabir of SAME, you knocked us out! What an amazing job both of you and your teams did today for queer family rights. Thank you, muchas gracias, yes we can and sí se pueda!

As usually happens with San Diego events of this nature, I ran into veteran reporter Rex Wockner who has his post on the day’s event up at his website. The local media was all over the scene today and reports of successful anti-DOMA/Join the Impact events across the country are showing up across the vast internets.

The day’s agenda is spelled out in three little words

Union workers, Socialists, Democrats, Greens, Republicans, straights, queers, transgendered folk, bisexuals, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans turned out peacefully to support our right to have our families respected under the law. Are you listening, Mr Obama?

SDEC’s Ben Cartwright handles the media tent … fabulously!

People of many faiths and non-faiths were well represented

Lady Liberty puts in an appearance

Harvey’s still with us in our hearts and minds. Mon ami, you are our Harvey Milk today for your courage in standing up and marching for our rights

We came together today in the best sense of what family’s all about

The march met-up with union demonstrators at Doug Manchester’s downtown hotel. Check out the backstory here. The San Diego Union Tribune has more about the boycott

Noisy but peaceful. Spectators cheered and motorists honked in support. OK, I saw one guy flip us off … meh … get a life, fascist

That dream was truly evident today

Our great big family group portrait — a few hundred of your closest friends and neighbors and co-workers and supporters of and advocates for your rights. It should be noted that I didn’t have a wide enough lens to capture the whole picture and there were almost as many people standing behind me taking pictures with cell-phone cams and other digital devices

The event organizers Sara Beth Brooks of SDEC (left) and Zakiya Khabir of SAME (right) take the stage during the post-march rally

We queers and our friends and families and supporters and all who made this a fabulous and important day in queer history owe Sara and Zakiya and their teams a huge debt of appreciation. As Zakiya pointed out in her closing remarks, the day wasn’t free of charge, so check out both website links above and cough up a few bucks for the cause — after all, the cause is your right to have your family, however you define it, respected under the law.

A big thank you is also due to our local City and County officials and, especially, the San Diego Police Department for their support and assistance in getting the march though downtown Saturday traffic. These folks really rock!