Planned Parenthood Rally and Project Condom

The rally we organized took place, as scheduled, in front of Jim DeMint's office on Monday.  I'm not sure he was even in his office that day, but the important part is that people figured out that we were there -- plenty of scowls from workers.  We had roughly 25 people there, consistently, throughout the duration of the rally, which was a large enough crowd (at least, in this little city) to get a cop to come and tell us to stop disrupting the flow of traffic.  We walked back and forth from DeMint's office (located in a bank building -- I shouldn't even have to point out the symbolism there) to the State House, chanting and showing off our signs.  For every person who took the time to roll their windows up so s/he (mostly he, what a surprise) wouldn't have to hear us, we got a thumbs-up or a cheer from another person, and we handed out plenty of flyers.  All in all, I'd say it was a success.

The next day, I participated as a model in Season 4 of Project Condom at USC.  Project Condom is a "fashion show" that is put on every year (in our case, by Carolina Productions) and is affiliated with The South Carolina Contraceptive Access Initiative.  Teams sign up to compete by making dresses out of condoms.  The best part is that the condoms aren't even going to waste...at least, not more than they already would have.  They're the condoms that failed clinical trials, which companies donate to Project Condom.  I'm all for making art or crafts out of something that's going to be wasted, especially if it's an activity like this, where there's a cause behind the craft, as well (not that there usually isn't).

Rally 2/28 @ Jim DeMint's Office, 4-7PM

I'm thrilled and excited to say that I'm a key member in organizing a rally in front of Jim DeMint's office on Monday. It should last three hours, and the time is set so that, ideally, the workers will be forced to walk through our protest against cuts for Planned Parenthood. We have fliers, and even though we're not directly affiliated with Planned Parenthood, the Columbia branch has been indispensable in helping us get this together. I have several friends working on this with me. It all started when I e-mailed a few of them with a certain blog post at BlogHer and said “What are we gonna do?” The rest is history in the making.

I'm really excited. If anyone reading this blog (currently few of you, but the support is appreciated) has any input and advice that you suspect hasn't been mentioned to us, I implore you, do tell! Help is always appreciated: Leave a comment or e-mail me at forreal.respect@gmail.com. Also, if you want a copy of the flyer to print and/or distribute, I'd be happy to send it to you.