Hundreds March Downtown For Gay Rights

Updated 2:47 PM PDT, Sat, Jan 10, 2009

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Hundreds marched Downtown Saturday, protesting a law that prevents the United States from treating a relationship between gay partners as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.

The protest started at 10 a.m. at the San Diego County Administration building.

“We’re protesting the Defense of Marriage Act… and we’re calling for it to be repealed” San Diego Equality Campaign spokesperson Ben Cartwright said. “We’re trying to remind President-elect Obama of his campaign promise to overturn this law.”

Cartwright says he’s marching for equal opportunities.

“Personally as a gay man with a long-term partner, I am unable to get married and if I were to get married in a certain state, it wouldn’t be valid across the United States,” Cartwright said. “We’re not asking for anything special, we want to be able to marry the consenting adult that we love,” Cartwright said.

But not everyone agrees.

“The homosexuals and lesbians want equal rights. They don’t deserve equality,” passerby Tony Sottile said.

Energized by the passage of Prop. 8, conservative activists say they want to apply the same formula they used to outlaw same-sex marriage in California to prevent other states from recognizing gay unions and President-elect Barack Obama from expanding the rights of gays and lesbians.

Police say Saturday’s march was peaceful, no arrests were made.