Proposition 8 Demonstration Planned for West Hollywood
Angered by the fact that the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay to proponents of Proposition 8, gay rights activists are now planning a demonstration on Thursday night in West Hollywood. 
Patrick Range McDonald Proposition 8 protesters in Westwood in November, 2008.
"There's a sense of frustration for why people can't get married this week," says Arturo Sernas, a Los Angeles-based gay rights activist. "There was supposed to be a celebration tonight."
Sernas, who's organizing the demonstration, is referring to the fact that U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling, which found Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional, was supposed to go into effect tonight at 5 p.m.
At that time, gay and lesbian couples would have been allowed to marry, but the Ninth Circuit granted anti-gay marriage forces a stay, which now puts gay marriage in California on hold until at least December and possibly longer.
Officials in Los Angeles County and West Hollywood were gearing up to wed gay couples tonight before the stay was ordered.
Sernas suggests that gay and lesbian couples who were planning to marry, as well as anyone else upset with the stay, should gather in West Hollywood at the corner of Santa Monica and San Vicente boulevards at 6 p.m. on Thursday night.
The protest, Sernas says, is a way to remind the public that "the LGBT community will continue to fight until full federal equality has been achieved."
Sernas, who's in his mid-20s, sounds similar themes that other twenty- and thirty-somethings spoke about in the L.A. Weekly story "Young Gay Dreams of Matrimony," in which they discuss marriage and equality.
Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.
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