Whiskey brought this photo essay to my attention. It covers the San Francisco Walk for Life and the Pro-Choice counterdemonstration. It is incredible.
It seems like this is where life is--being in the orderly column of pro-lifers surrounded by the furies. I can't believe that I've let every chance to be there (or at a similar Walk for Life) slip by. It's not going to happen again. Next year I'll be there with the handy digital camera that my loving family provided me with (no doubt they foresaw some such occasion).
I mean that this is where life is in two ways. The first is simply in the way expressed by saying "This is living!" where you feel like you're doing something more than simply transforming oxygen into carbon dioxide. The other sense can be seen by looking at the pictures. The pro-lifers all look like decent people. Even the crazy independant fundamentalists have nicely embroidered jackets proclaiming the judgment to come. In general they seem serious and somewhat sad. On the other side are the pro-choicers, many of which have obviously taken far more care with their appearance than the pro-lifers. Many of the outfits seem uncomfortable, so only a desire to be fittingly adorned would make a person don them. However, they are all truly hideous and wrong. There is a girl wearing a buckled girdle over her red T-shirt and a white wig that has mini red clotheshangers stuck in it. She is also carefully made up in a Rocky Horror Picture Show style. The ensemble demonstrates the line where ugly meets evil and well-groomed meets self-hate. Her expression is closer to smugly complacent than frenzied with wrath (the other option for the pro-choicers). The signs against heterosexuality and "breeding" simply add to the overall effect: these poor people hate the human race, themselves, and life.
