Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Protest Against DNC Fundraiser Over DOMA

About 30-40 people came to protest President Obama's DOMA brief at today's DNC fundraiser at Fenway Park in Boston, headlined by Vice President Biden. It was part of a coordinated effort to close down the "gayTM" -- all the millions that the gay constituency gives to the Democratic Party, without any results.

The protests were in response to President Obama's Department of Justice, which issued a brief supporting the government's Defense of Marriage Act, preventing gay couples from receiving federal benefits even if in legally committed relationships. In the brief written by the DoJ, it compared gay relationships to incestuous relationships as justification for legally refusing to recognize same-sex marriages, going way beyond what was necessary in the case.

Some key moments of the protests: Lt. Governor Tim Murray and Mayor Boston both attended the event, but neither of them recognized the protesters. MassEquality's Scott Gortikov attended the fundraiser despite the protesters and Obama administration brief. Lastly, the police pushed protesters back beyond the original protest area, to the extant that it made it very difficult to have a fair voice in protesting.

Note: the Boston Herald covered the event here and I wrote a more expansive post of the event at Pam's House Blend.

Here's some videos from the event.



3 comments:

Quriltai said...

Dean has pulled out of the fundraiser, as I noted. That's what integrity is.

scottinsf said...

Awesome job on the protest! There may only be crowds of thirty or forty sometimes, but it IS noticed and helps to spawn larger crowds in the future. Keep it up!

Ryan said...

The people going in were very uncomfortable. People don't want to be paying between $250 and $5k and getting that when they walk in the doors, that's for sure. We were actually quite louder than appears in the video.

So I absolutely agree with you. If we get 30-50 people at every DNC fundraiser across the country over DOMA, the Obama administration and congress will definitely get the memo. Of that, we can be certain, because these people forking over big dollars aren't going to want to go to the next fundraiser.

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