Our Liberal Left Wing Date

I haven't been exercising much lately. Let's not kid ourselves, I haven't been exercising at all. Though you think that doesn't affect you, you're wrong. Because now that I don't have any enthralling sports related anecdotes, I'm going to talk about other things. Like the politics of humanity. In fact, let's talk about some of the items on the agenda in the most recent election out here in California. There are three things in particular I want to discuss.

First, the national vote: there was a black man that was running for President of the United States. Lots of Californians voted for him. He won. You probably heard about that one already.

Secondly, Proposition 2: There was a vote to require that chickens, veal and other assorted "dinner animals" live in cage free environments, at least part of the time. I suppose the thought here is that they should get some good healthy exercise before we chop off their heads and vacuum seal them in styrofoam. California residents, ever the animal loving tree huggers, voted that one in too.

Thirdly, Proposition 8: Gays were allowed to get married in California. Proposition 8 was presented to repeal that. That one went through as well - no marrying for the Gays.

So here's what it all comes down to... Californians appreciation level, broken down by type, goes something like this:

1. Blacks
2. Chickens
3. Gays

Needless to say, if you look at the residents of California, it's pretty safe to say that the blacks and the chickens are pretty ecstatic, but the gays, not so much. There have been a lot of rallies and protests and the sort out here, hoping that with enough noise maybe the state government will figure out a way to get their homophobic heads out of their heterosexual asses.

Last week Catherine and I decided to go to one of these rallies. Mostly because we think it's absurd that, in todays day and age, people who love each other aren't allowed to be married.

We met up with three friends (two of whom are homosexual and had adopted a child a few years back and seem to have a better relationship than most heterosexuals I know), and went over to where the protest was starting.

Word of warning: parking is very difficult at protests. If you're thinking of going to one, get there early.

I'm not going to bore you with the details of this particular protest. Suffice to say, if you've ever been to a protest before, you know how boring they already are. Basically what you do is stand around and wonder what you should do. Periodically this will get broken up with such group chants as:

Bullhorn carrier: What do we want?

Crowd: Freedom!

Bullhorn: When do we want it?

Crowd: Now!

And that repeats about a hundred times before everybody has had enough and goes back to their previous conversation about where they should go for dinner or how much of a douchebag Eddie is on Top Design. After awhile, you just start people watching and hoping something catches your fancy. One thing I've learned, the protesting gays sure are witty. These are the top 3 signs I saw at the rally:

Chickens - 1
Gays - 0

- - - -

We need you now, Oprah!

- - - -

Cage-free gays.

- - - -

So after standing around for about an hour, feeling like we really wanted to do more but not really knowing what that should be, the crowd started marching west. That seemed to be our cue, so we started marching east. Enough rallying for us. All that passive protesting made us hungry.

We looked around for places to eat and decided to choose the Vegetarian Vegan Restaurant, which is an odd choice for us since we really like to eat things that had parents. Then again, we're already having a liberal left wing evening, we might as well go full turkey. Or, rather, full tofu.

The meal, as it turned out, was amazing. More importantly, Catherine and I had fun and felt like we were actually standing up for something right. Yes, we weren't the ones behind the bullhorn, we weren't leading the crowd in the march, we weren't running around with witty signs, but we showed up - and that's half the battle.