The View From Your Protest: Madison, Wisconsin

A reader writes:

I am a straight woman in my 40s. My husband and I went to Madison's Library Mall today to lend our voices in opposition to California's Proposition 8 (and Wisconsin's similar anti-marriage amendment passed two years ago). The crowd skewed toward younger folks and same sex couples, but we were not the oldest folks, nor the only straight folks, in the crowd.

I saw a couple of older women in electric rascal carts, one with an enlarged dry-mounted copy of a California marriage license on the back. There were a lot of home-made signs.

 

As we began our march to the State Capitol, some of the organizers (with megaphones) attempted to lead the crowd in chanting. However, they had trouble making themselves heard, and we heard different chants going on at the same time. I remember thinking (and saying to my husband): "This crowd needs more old hippies to teach these kids how to organize."