Okay kids, let me tell you all how this went down.
There is a guy here called Peter Madden who decided recently that it would be okay, as part of his political plan to get some votes (from God knows who), to drive a truck around with signage all over it saying that homosexuals are evil pedophiles and that gay marriage will lead to child abuse and all sorts of horse-shit like that.
Needless to say, the gay community got pretty pissed. But what’s more, Peter Madden intended to hold a “prayer rally” at King George Square, in my hometown, Brisbane, with the intention of bringing awareness to what he calls the “dark side of same-sex marriage” and swinging people’s votes to keep GBLTI folk under the government’s thumb, just after we were finally allowed civil unions.
Thankfully, Brisbane’s GBLTI folk caught on, and decided to set up a counter-rally at the same place, an hour earlier.
This is the really great part, guys. If you were hoping this story has a happy ending, it does.
There were about five hundred peaceful protesters, including my good mates Michelle and Frankie.
It was raining on the day, not badly but everyone kept getting caught in drizzle and everyone brought along a rainbow umbrella. It cut our numbers down from the Facebook-promised 1200+, but ultimately I’d say we numbered about five hundred.
The night blazed on as we all shared a sense of comeraderie, we were all there for one reason and it felt great. I ran into some other gay friends of mine and even made a few new ones.
It was basically a street party. At one point we wondered if the original prayer rally was ever going to materialise, but then we had our attention turned to an upper balcony…
Who are those guys up there? Surely, no, it couldn’t be…?
Why, it’s Peter Madden, and his grand total of seventeen supporters! We were immediately chanting at them and playing our music so loud that he had to use a megaphone to speak to a small group of people from about a metre away. It wasn’t long - about an hour - before most of them began to leave. They probably didn’t realise there were actually that many people in Brisbane who are happy to be out and not happy to be treated like pieces of shit, and it apparently got to them because for a very long time it was just Peter Madden playing guitar (I assume Kumbaya?) with one sad fucking woman trying to dance along while hundreds of us raved below to our own PA-blasted music.
They were immolated by as many police officers to prevent them, I assume, from getting lynched by angry gays.
This Youtube video even features one of Madden’s supporters attempting to show us through sign language that Jesus died for our sins. Before a cop told him to walk away.
Too bad for him Jesus was already on our side.
That one guy (who continued to do his Cross thing until the police had a good word to him) was eventually left alone reading a bible before the police finally forced him to leave the premises. The following cheers were deafening.
We won. That’s all there is to it.
