Our hero has a name! On to the next case, Dr. Watson! Mystery solved! It turns out he is even more courageous than we ever could have imagined! Justin will be joining me at Friday’s Equality Utah Dinner! Drop by and give this brave young man a big congratulations. For the last week, we have been scouring social media to identify this young man. He photobombed the creepy anti-family rally at the Capitol last week. Here is his story: Justin Anderson, an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a student of the LDS Business College had no plans to photobomb last Thursday’s anti-marriage equality rally at the Utah Capitol rotunda. In fact, he was only informed about the rally after the anti-gay “National Organization for Marriage” contacted him asking him to volunteer. His response: “I will be in attendance, but I wont be supporting you at the rally…I will be supporting marriage equality.” The organization’s caller fell silent and thanked him for his time. As Justin was standing outside the Capitol before the rally started, he knew he was going to be a minority. However, he had no idea that he would be the only person who stood out in support of marriage equality inside the rotunda. Once the rally started, people complained about his poster, which read “Unalienable Rights Trump States Rights”, blocking their view of the stage. He was moved up to the stairs where he stayed for the remaining 2 hours of child-bashing and anti-gay rhetoric. Unexpectedly, the media outlets focused in on him as they took photos of rally attendees. As Justin tried to interact with traditional marriage attendees, he was met with isolation, anger, and “protect our children” remarks. The comments directed at him ranged from “burn in Hell” to others approaching him with constitutions saying, “You should read this once in a while”. The event organizer approached Justin after the rally and began debating him on the issue of states’ rights. She professed that his sign was wrong and said that “inalienable rights do not trump state rights”. Justin then countered by asking her a question, “What about the inalienable rights of the child, which you infer is the most important issue here as the state intervenes?” At this point, around 20 reporters had surrounded them both. After being pressed on her assertions, the event organizer walked away in the middle of the discussion. Her excuse is that she was needed to help “clean up the rotunda”. Despite the fact that Justin didnt expect or plan his actions to be picked up by media outlets or go viral on social media, he expressed his desire to stand up for his marriage equality position in the open. He said, “People are afraid to speak out because they are concerned about what could happen to them from their community, especially here in Utah. I have almost every reason not to be involved with this due to the fact that I am straight, employed by the LDS Church, and I attend the LDS Business College. However, I hope others like me will see this story and feel like they can support this cause and be on the right side of history.”
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 18:28:47 +0000
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