Day Without A Gay – Wednesday Is The Day To Call In Gay

Have you heard? Wednesday is the day to call in “gay” – not sick, but gay. Don’t worry, it’s not a negative thing, it’s a protest.

From SF Gate:

Since California voters approved Proposition 8 last month and repealed the right of gay couples to marry, initiative opponents have marched, held rallies and blocked intersections.

On Wednesday, they’re asked to do something different: nothing at all.

Modeled loosely after the 2006 immigrant rights demonstrations, “Day Without A Gay” is scheduled for Wednesday and billed as “a nationwide strike and economic boycott” at www.jointheimpact.com, an organizational site for supporters of same-sex marriage.

In San Francisco, the day will be marked by a 6 p.m. rally and march in the Mission District. But local organizers say they don’t expect all Prop. 8 opponents to “call in gay” and instead spend the day doing volunteer work, as some proponents urge.

“I’d like to take the whole day off myself, but it’s not possible,” said Ryan Rudnick, a pre-school teacher who also helped organize a Nov. 15 rally outside City Hall that attracted an estimated 7,500 supporters of same-sex marriage. “That’s why we wanted to hold a rally and march in the evening, to show our support.”

Like many actions in the five weeks since Prop. 8′s passage with 52.3 percent of the vote, “Day Without a Gay” took shape informally.

The name was coined by Sean Hetherington, a personal trainer and comedian in West Hollywood who added the idea of doing volunteer work, rather than pursuing civil disobedience or other tactics.

The web site Hetherington created for the event, www.daywithoutagay.org, also offers a list of activities for people who don’t feel able to walk off their jobs.

“With the economy the way it is, this isn’t a time for not showing up at work and then perhaps not having a job,” said Hetherington, who will spend the day teaching joke-writing at a school in the Los Angeles area. “We want people to go in and make whatever opportunity they can.”

Read the rest of the article at SF Gate HERE

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