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What Is Civil Disobedience?
There is a rich history and philosophy behind civil disobedience full of the names of heroes: Thoreau, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Audre Lorde, and others both recognized and unrecognized. This legacy emphasizes the non-violent, principled nature of civil disobedience as a tool to achieve justice in an unjust system.
Civil disobedience is often a very simple action: sitting on a bus, casting a vote, learning to read, asking for a marriage license, yet the message it sends speaks volumes about the plight of oppressed people. That, at its simplest, is civil disobedience: deliberately and peacefully disobeying the law to protest a form of oppression.
Why Civil Disobedience?
There are no more elegant defenses of civil disobedience than King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, a letter written in response to white clergymen asking King and the Civil Rights Movement to wait and be patient for their hopes to be realized.
In his eloquent rebuttal, he wrote of the impossibility of such patience, when "'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never'" and that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." Civil disobedience, he explains, is a way of bringing about that justice by "creat[ing] such a crisis and foster[ing] such a tension...[that] it can no longer be ignored."
The long history of discrimination against LGBTQ people, a history that promotes gay bashing, bullying, suicide, and lives of shame and desperation, has made civil disobedience a fact of our existence. In countries and societies that outlaw homosexuality, simply living day to day is an act of civil disobedience. In the United States, the same applies to any LGBTQ person who seeks to join the military, provide benefits for a partner, wed, or donate blood. And until the Supreme Court intervened in 2003, homosexual sex was an illegal, jailable offense. To this day it is legal to be fired, denied housing, ousted from committees and political office, and denied the right to adopt children simply because of who we are.
In the midst of such a struggle, it is time to act. There are calls for patience and separate institutions while our right to live lives of dignity and equality is further diminished with every popular election. The failure of many, though not all, communities, states, and the federal government to recognize the civil rights of LGBTQ people calls for an outcry loud enough to have our voices heard and our needs made manifest.
Our Actions
May 26, 2009 (Decision Day)
On Tuesday, May 26th the California Supreme Court announced its ruling on Prop 8. Prior to this an interfaith group of clergy and faith leaders from all over the Bay Area, organized by the Fellowship of the Rainbow, gathered at St. Francis Lutheran Church with members of One Struggle, One Fight and folks of the LGBTQ community and allies. There we joined in prayer and song before marching down Market St to Civic Center, led by the clergy.
At 10:00 am the decision was announced. The justices upheld Prop 8 6-1, to the deep disappointment of most of the people gathered by the State Building. Tears and loud booing of the decision ensued, and we immediately moved into action. Marching in front of City Hall with large banners which read SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL we crossed over to the intersection of Grove and Van Ness St. and joined hands, blocking all four sides of the intersection.
We began with 60 people and as the crowds from the State Building gathered around the intersection our numbers steadily increased. Within an hour more than 200 people had joined us in the streets who were willing to risk arrest in order to protest the injustice of the court's ruling. Around noon the police brought in barricades and reinforcements, and slowly began the process of arresting all those forming the intersection blockade. A trio of musicians (the Petrojvic Blasting Co.) showed up and played gypsy music and original songs for us as we continued to occupy the intersection. By the time the action was over 211 of us had been arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience!
We were arrested in an orderly fashion, handcuffed and processed before being put into the dozens of waiting paddywagons and taken to the Bryant St. Station. There we were uncuffed and put into barricaded pens where in the sunlight we tried to stave off heat exhaustion while waiting for our citations. We chatted and got to know one another, sharing the common bonds of a passion for justice and pending citations. One by one we were given our citations and released through the cement walls of the station to our waiting friends and support folks, in time for the evening rally at City Hall.
November 15, 2008
On the day of the Join the Impact rallies on Saturday Nov. 15, which took place in over 300 cities world wide, we escalated our second action by blocking the off ramp of Interstate Hwy 101 South. Our group of fifteen people (including four clergy) formed the blockade by linking arms and successfully kept traffic halted with an additional team of over 30 support people. Meanwhile thousands of people marched in the streets once again. After fifteen minutes of occupying the intersection we were warned that due to the massive backup along the highway we were creating if we didn't leave we would be arrested.
We stayed.
We were then asked individually by the police if we were really willing to be arrested, and we each confirmed that we were. Soon after, the police arrested us one by one, handcuffing us and loading us into paddywagons. As they left the intersection, we began to sing in spite of our handcuffs, and continued singing all the way to the station. Once at the station we were eventually taken inside and uncuffed while we waited for the booking process to be finished.
Five hours later we were released (after promising the sergeant that we wouldn't go back to the offramp!) with citations for one misdemeanor (disobeying a traffic officer) and two infractions (not being in a pedestrian crosswalk and jaywalking). Our awesome support team met us as we left the station, and we finished off the day with a celebratory take-out picnic in the middle of the Fillmore district. (Out of this picnic was formed the idea for a week-long Civil Rights March from SF to Sacramento, but that's a whole other story...!)
November 7, 2008
On Friday, Nov. 7, a small group which would eventually become One Struggle, One Fight blocked Market St. in San Francisco. Heartbroken and outraged by the passing of Prop 8 we felt it was time to take to the streets in civil disobedience. There was a rally and march already planned that evening and after most of the crowd of 12-15,000 had passed, nine of our group joined hands, forming a blockade across the street. We were supported by about 20 others in various roles and occupied the intersection for over two hours. After the crowd of protesters and marchers reached Dolores Park and had another rally, they heard that the intersection was still occupied and the street still shut, and decided to march back and join us. Upon reaching the intersection thousands of people sat down in the street behind the blockade: spontaneous mass civil disobedience!
We then rallied and chanted on the steps of SF City Hall, and ended up by leading everyone back down Market St (once again stopping traffic) to the middle of the Castro where a sit in began at the intersection of Castro and 18th St. Here people stood up to speak about their stories, struggles and hopes from that evening into the next morning in what was the most spontaneous, heartfelt and moving protest many of us had ever experienced.