As 40,000 people
prepare to gather at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium for a
12-hour prayer and fast in support of Proposition 8,
marriage equality supporters will march down the
Hillcrest neighborhood's University Avenue in a
candlelight vigil. San Diego's Republican mayor, Jerry
Sanders, and his gay daughter are expected to
distribute candles.
For weeks, places
of worship throughout California have been calling on
their congregations to fast, pray and worship -- all to
“protect marriage.”
On the heels of
the California supreme court’s landmark ruling
legalizing same-sex marriage, churches across the
state have organized to combat the effort, collecting
the necessary signatures to land Proposition 8, which
would nullify the ruling, on the ballot.
In San Diego an
expected 40,000 people will descend on Qualcomm Stadium
this Saturday in a mass prayer that Proposition 8 will pass.
The event is sponsored by a group called The Call,
born out of the 1997 Washington, D.C., Promise Keepers
event in which a million men gathered to commit to a
“lifestyle of purity and godliness.”
According to The Call’s
Website, the 12-hour fast and corporate prayer event was
organized to protect “traditional marriage and the
soul of our nation -- through the upcoming elections
and beyond.”
The Call is the
largest gathering of people in California using group
prayer as a means to combat same-sex marriage, but churches
all over the state have organized smaller groups to
support the proposition, including fasts and prayer
circles at more than 100 California churches.
Not to be
outdone, the opposition has formed groups of its own, though
most in the form of streetside rallies urging people to go
to the polls and support equality.
In San Diego,
Meaghan Yaple and the group 607 Productions are organizing
a candlelight vigil in San Diego’s Hillcrest
neighborhood this Saturday to counter the nearby mass
pray-in. San Diego’s Republican mayor, Jerry
Sanders, who came out in support of same-sex marriage last
year, will be handing our candles with his gay
daughter at the city’s Gay and Lesbian Center
beginning at 8 p.m.
Several
nondenominational and progressive churches throughout the
state have expressed their support for defeating the
ballot measure, sending the general message that
despite how people may feel about marriage, the
proposition condones discrimination.
Currently, the
two sides are neck and neck in the polls, with No on 8
funding pulling ahead of the opposition for the first time
in weeks. No on 8 has recently recruited the cast of
Ugly Betty and other entertainers,
including actor Samuel L. Jackson, for a series
of spots in support of marriage equality. (The
Advocate)
Click here to follow The Advocate on Twitter.
Page 1 of 1