Last weekend’s protest: “Stop the H8 Rally” for gay rights

By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

Click on photo for a slide show of the protest.

The temperature was low, but the energy was high as hundreds of Kansas City residents joined a nationwide protest against California’s new gay-marriage ban Saturday afternoon. With colorful signs calling for equal rights for gay and lesbian couples, the crowd was so large that those on the margins could hardly hear local politicians, including Missouri Sen. Jolie Justus, call Proposition 8 an act of discrimination and vow to fight for the LGBT community here in the Show-Me State.

Among the protesters crowded around the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain, causing a volley of supportive honking for the better part of an hour, was one Kansas City woman whose own marriage may be at stake.