Gay-rights marchers protest federal law, rail against Prop. 8

Gay-rights marchers protest federal law, rail against Prop. 8

By Penni Crabtree (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer

2:00 a.m. January 11, 2009

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO — A rally and march by gay-rights supporters yesterday was ostensively about repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 federal law that defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman.

Yet what was on everyone's mind was Proposition 8, the state measure that California voters passed in November that amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

“I'm deeply offended by people trying to repeal our being married,” said Barbara Keehr, a San Diego County employee who attended the march with her spouse, Colleen Hines, and their 4-year-old twin daughters. “It's a slap in the face.”

Keehr and Hines were among the estimated 18,000 California couples married during the brief window between May 15, when a state Supreme Court ruling overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage, and Nov. 4, when Proposition 8 overrode the court's decision.

They were also among the 560 to 800 people – San Diego police and event organizers had different tallies – who attended the low-key march yesterday from the County Administration Building, down Harbor Drive, and back again.

The numbers were a fraction of the more than 20,000 people who gathered in San Diego on Nov. 15 for a protest in the wake of the Proposition 8 vote. It was widely believed to be the largest of the protests staged across the nation that day.

The measure's opponents have gone back to the state Supreme Court, asking it to overturn the proposition.

Zakiya Khabir, a spokeswoman for the San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality, one of yesterday's event organizers, said the passage of Proposition 8 hit a nerve and provoked an immediate backlash.

“I think this is a good turnout for something that is not in the wake of a devastating blow,” Khabir said. “DOMA is a 12-year-old piece of legislation that has been on the books for too long.”

Event organizers also collected signatures for an open letter to President-elect Barack Obama urging him to repeal the federal law, which says states don't have to recognize other states' same-sex marriage laws and, for federal purposes, defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Yesterday's march was one of several held nationwide and lightly attended compared with the large turnouts in opposition to Proposition 8 reported Nov. 15.

Nor was there a counterprotest of any note in San Diego – a lone pickup with two occupants, sporting banners that read “Homosexuality Is Sin” and “No Same-Sex,” drove alongside the gay marriage supporters.

Ronald Brock, the driver, said he was from Colorado and crisscrosses the country using the pickup as a “moving billboard” to deal with “moral issues from God's perspective.”