Update!

I'd first like to acknowledge that yesterday was my friend Rachel's 22nd birthday, so happy birthday Rachel!

And now the news from Washington. Things are a bit melancholy tonight. My good friend Laura is flying home to Sweden tomorrow, and we don't know when we will see each other again. I'm getting job hunt fatigue from trying to figure out the future (soon to be present...). My friend Juliana is moving next weekend to Virginia which, at least when compared to Sweden, isn't really all that far away.

On a happier note, the Prop 8 & Frienemies protest in DC was awesome. Somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 people were there with some of the most creative protest signs I've seen. We started out in front of the Capitol Building, where I got an incriminating picture taking. I was climbing up a lamp post to try and spot my friend in the crowd when some freelancer took my picture. I'm sure it's floating out there on the internet with the caption "CRAZY GAY PROTESTERS ATTACK PUBLIC PROPERTY!!"

From the Capitol Building, we hit the Washington Monument and eventually the White House. It felt very surreal, after all the MLK references with Obama, to be protesting (at least for a short period of time) in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I suppose it's fitting. We've made a lot of great strides - particularly this month - but there's still all sorts of injustice. Separate is still not equal.

It was interesting to hear people's reasons for coming to the protest. One man spoke about his friend, who was denied bereavement time to go to his domestic partner's funeral in Florida. His domestic partner was his girlfriend. Obviously laws like Prop 8 and the rest are wrong because of the basic rights they deny to LGBTQ people. But the story is very telling about how when you mess with the laws to hurt one group, you risk hurting everybody.

Pictures to come, because they don't seem to be loading properly.