Also among the crowd were a couple of noteworthy activists: Cynthia Nixon, a cast member from HBO’s “Sex and the City” who hopes to marry partner Christine Marinoni next year; and Judy Shepard, who became an advocate for gay rights after her son Matthew was killed because he was gay.
Many marchers were outraged after the passage of California’s Proposition 8, which canceled the right of gays to get married in the state.
Kipp Williams, a 27-year-old San Francisco resident, said he moved to California from the South seeking equality but realized after Proposition 8 that gay people are second-class citizens everywhere.
Contrary to the California Supreme Court’s decision on the legality of the referendum, he said “there is no exception to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.”