PSL petitioners in Utah came together in Salt Lake City from June 1-3. We chose this weekend as it is the time the LGBT community and supporters celebrate Pride month with two days of marches and rallies.
To get on the ballot, we must submit 1,000 valid signatures of registered voters. Since all signatures might not be considered “valid,” our goal was to collect over 2,000 in two days. Also, signatures must be separated by county and submitted directly to the County Clerks.
On the first day, we split into two groups: one group went to the Trans march and the other the Dyke march. The crowds were not enormous – a few hundred at the Trans march and many hundreds in the Dyke march. We were able to nearly saturate the crowd with our teams during the gathering, and were well received by both rallies. The two marches stepped off and converged into one just a few blocks later. We participated in both.
A local right-wing bigot who was protected by a wall of police provided an opportunity to engage people with our program and get signatures. We continued to petition at the festival for the rest of the day.
Pride organizers expected tens of thousands of people to participate in the parade and festival on the second, larger day. The schedule for Sunday was to get signatures from the people in parade contingents waiting to march, as well as parade onlookers. There were so many people there that in the morning alone we were able to collect more names than the entire day before!
We again continued to petition at the festival, and were well-received by the tens of thousands of people who came. When we reconvened in the afternoon, we estimated we had collected over 2,000 signatures for the entire weekend—surpassing our goal.
The Utah petition drive took place shortly after President Obama made his “personal statement” in favor of same-sex marriage. Nonetheless, there was very little resistance to signing for a socialist campaign when people asked about the candidate or the campaign. Participants in the festival greeted any political challenge to the conservative Mormon dominance over the state.
