As I headed toward downtown Los Angeles this morning on a bus packed with people carrying ‘No on H8 signs’ I felt like a true movement toward equality was  solidifying. Los Angeles in not a city to embrace public transportation, but folks of all shapes and sizes left their cars at home and packed together to raise their voices at L.A.’s ‘Join The Impact’ rally and march. Once we streamed off the bus we flooded into the crowd of thousands of others chanting and carrying signs- in the name of equal rights.

I met up with a group of volunteers from the Courage Campaign to help collect signatures to repeal Prop. 8. If you haven’t signed yet, check out the pledge here http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/repealprop8. The pledge was such a hit that one of my clipboards was literally carried away by a crowd of people who kept asking there neighbor to sign-on.

A moving line-up of speakers kicked-off the day.  Mayor Antonio  Villaraigosa helicoptered in leaving the worst fires the city has seen in years to speak with the crowd of 12,000. Reverend Lee from the SCLC who marched with Martin Luther King  gave an amazing speech about how far we’ve come and how far we have to travel for true equal rights. The vibe in the streets was a rare one for LA- it truly felt like a city of neighbors coming together to support one another.   To me, the most amazing stories were the ones told on signs like in the photos below- like those held by a couple who before Prop. 8 passed was scheduled to be married today and the ones two fathers were holding showing images of them and their kids with the words ‘un-marry this.’

I left today’s march feeling hopeful about marriage equality and the movement growing. We’ve got a lot of  work to do, but awareness and action are building. Hopefully the pictures and the images in this blog convey that for those who weren’t at today’s march. If you were there and you see that clipboard with the Courage Campaign petition that sailed away in the crowd- please send in the signatures to the address listed!