A mother of young children wrote this story about what happened to her during the NOM rally yesterday in Providence.
Did you ever see that scene in one of the Narnia movies, where a battle is about to start and preparations are being made – when off in the distance there is a faint chanting and drumming? It grows louder and louder, till off in the distance the enemy is spotted. It’s terrifying. I’m not joking, the same thing happened to us yesterday in Rhode Island at the State Capitol. You see, Peter and I got this great idea to go a Rhode Island rally and support our counterparts in the defense of traditional marriage and visit our friends the Brown Family who would also be there. How was I to know that simply attending a “permitted” event – i.e., we had a permit, to show our support for traditional marriage would end with my family having to be escorted to our minivan by the police for our own protection.
You see, instead of wild enchanted animals drumming and preparing for battle, it was homosexuals in red shirts (and red-faced) with bullhorns and waving rainbow umbrellas. At least that is all I could see at first . . . just wave after wave of red shirts and rainbow umbrellas. It would have been comical if they were not all chanting and stomping their feet in unison coming around the capitol building toward us. They were actually organized so that they would stand still as a group (about 400 it seemed to me), (estimates range from 100-200 JRM) then march forward in unison toward our group. Pause, chant, march . . pause, chant march….
The red gays, as I will call them, tromped from their “permitted” area – i.e. the area they had a permit to congregate at the front of the Capitol Building – down a side street about 500 feet away from us at the back of the building. I didn’t realize anything was happening until the speaker asked that we focus on our rally and not spectate. The street with the protesters was parallel to where we were standing and we could watch them chant tremendously loud with bullhorns, stomp, and wave their umbrellas (I happen to own one of these umbrellas that I now want to chuck) all the way down to our street level. Having little children I tend to stand near the back of all public gatherings. Suddenly three squad cars pulled onto the grass behind me and the children. The protesters eventually gathered about 100 feet behind us. Between us and them were the 3 police cars, hastily parked. The incoming protesters gathered at the end of this grassy area near the street and, though upset that they were permitted to gather so close and interrupt our rally (Jennifer Roback Morse was giving a talk about adoption), I thought surely they would not come any closer….
I have a stubborn streak when it comes to Democracy and standing up for the right to petition the government, vote, speak, and peacefully assemble. I don’t back down from a fight, but it was at that point that I started to look for a way to exit. I gathered my bewildered and frightened children to the double stroller. Grabbed my giant purse/diaper bag and looked around. To my horror, it was at that point that the police completely failed. Our small group of pro-marriage attendees was surrounded on every side by the protesters. And, I’m not speaking “metaphorically” surrounded. I mean that they formed a tight circle with a perimeter about 3 feet from where I was standing. We could not leave. Rosie, my 3 year old, informed me at that point that she REALLY had to use the potty. I felt the same way, but I think it was too late for me. Nevertheless, it increased my urgency to find an escape.
