‘No on 8′ activists on Oakland’s streets
By Josh Richman
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 pm in Elections, General, same-sex marriage.
Sitting at my desk yesterday afternoon, I listened on the newsroom scanner as a police dispatcher sent officers to Fruitvale Avenue and Interstate 580, where activists for and against Proposition 8 were engaged in… well, agitated discussion.
Apparently no arrests ensued, but after taking a call from one of the “No on 8″ folks this morning, I decided to take a spin up there today to watch as they returned. I sat in my car for about half an hour and watched five or six activists holding signs with slogans such as “Don’t teach the children to hate — No on 8″ at the corner of Fruitvale and Harold Street, facing the off-ramp from eastbound I-580. I saw no “Yes on 8″ signs and nary even a rude gesture, just a lot of honking horns, friendly waves and thumbs-up, at least for the duration of my stay.
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October 24th, 2008 at 7:05 am
well… in concord (at treat and clayton), one of the demonstrators yelled out “f-a-g-g-o-t” as i gave them the thumbs down when i drove by… i guess they taught him that at church.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Sounds exciting!
Both my immediate neighbors have “Yes on 8″ lawn signs. Sigh.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Coming home on the bus along MacArthur Blvd on Thursday night, there was a small group of both Yes and No proponents at Lakeshore, but the biggest kerfuffle was at the High and MacArthur intersection.
Inexplicably, since the shouting was good-natured and the Yeas and Nays were elbow to elbow, there was a large OPD presence, and they’d blocked traffic continuing up High St to MacArthur Blvd, making them go onto 580 instead.
I posted a short video, taken at about 6:30pm on YouTube. A protestor I spoke to said that the police had been there for about an hour already at that time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbsW_Yj6lLg