(Editor's note: The following post is from the organizer of the amazing D.C. Prop 8 rally and march that drew well over 5,000 people)

Over the last few days, I have received numerous phone calls from the media in the DC area, wanting me to weigh in on whether the District's March for Equal Rights on Saturday, November 15^th was a success. My answer is always one of grateful astonishment, because the march was incredible. It exceeded my wildest expectations, especially when there were only five days to plan it. But even as I answer, I cannot believe the question even had to be asked. How could it be called anything but a triumph for hope and love when 5,000 people brave a downpour to march more than two miles down the Mall in support of equal rights for their fellow Americans?

I am a native Californian, accustomed to saying that California is the best state in the nation. Maybe it's just my obsession with my home state speaking, but after the ruling last May by the California Supreme Court that threw out the state's ban on same-sex marriage, I saw America's most populous state as our best hope for decisive progress on the extension of full civil rights to same-sex couples. Then, on November 4, the forces of bigotry conquered California's ballot boxes, and I was left speechless with shame and anger. How could this have happened? How could a bare majority of Californians fear their gay neighbors so much that they would vote to strip them of the right to demonstrate the depth of their love and commitment to each other? It was a crushing letdown after the euphoria of watching Barack Obama win the presidency, and I spent more than my fair share of time staring blankly at the news stories on the internet, wondering how there could possibly be a future for the movement to secure full legal equality for LGBTQI people after the defeats in California, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas.

At some point I finally pulled myself out of my funk long enough to open Google and type in a few words. Not "Proposition 8, defeat, despair", but "protest Proposition H8": protest the hatred, protest the intolerance, protest the hijacking of the democratic process for the purpose of enshrining discrimination in the very laws that are supposed to protect all citizens equally. At the top of the results list was the Join the Impact site, featuring a call for volunteers to organize simultaneous demonstrations in cities across America in opposition to Proposition 8 and all hateful legislation that treats LGBTQI Americans as second-class citizens. I put my name down for Washington, DC, turned news of the protest loose on Facebook, and the rest is now history – history that every single one of us who marched on November 15^th across the United States has a hand in making.

One of my favorite signs at Saturday's march in Washington said, "Jim Crowe called – he wants his proposition back." The lie of "separate but equal" was long ago exposed. History is on our side, and I have no doubt that the marches on Saturday are part of a rising tide that will help sweep away discrimination in America. But we cannot forget that we will have to keep fighting to the bitter end, and we cannot do it alone. We have to build bridges by reaching out to potential friends and even enemies to show them that our cause is about love. We have to constantly remind our government that our cause is about justice. And all of us, LGBQ Americans and straight allies alike, have to continue to build on the momentum that brought us out as a crowd 5,000 strong in DC and that drew more than a million people across the country to march for equal rights for ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities, and even distant strangers on the other side of the country.

This is an issue that touches us all, as we heard from the many people who stepped up to the megaphone in Lafayette Park on Saturday to testify to their reasons for joining the march. Transgender and transsexual people deserve equal marriage rights. Gay families with children deserve equal marriage rights. The list could go on and on, because the fundamental truth that the fundamentalists missed is that any couple in love deserves the equal protection of the law. We must keep pushing until the federal Defense of Marriage Act is repealed and discrimination against LGBTQI people is banished to the dustbins of history. We will get there – as the crowd at the Capitol sang on Saturday, we shall overcome, regardless of the obstacles in our path. Martin Luther King, Jr. observed as he prepared to lead the march on Washington during the original Civil Rights Movement, "We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Whatever our personal stories are, wherever we come from, whatever we believe in, and whomever we love, we all deserve dignity, respect, and the liberty to pursue happiness wherever we may hope to find it. Think of the rainbow that arched over the path of our march here in Washington, and have faith that the sun will soon break through the clouds. Thank you to all who march in person or in spirit in support of equality in America, and let us stride out together on the road to victory.