Dozens protest gay marriage ban

CAMBRIDGE - It will go down as the Facebook protest against California's Proposition 8, participants said.

About 75 people huddled at Jill Brown-Rhone Park in Central Square to voice their solidarity with advocates of gay marriage in California, where voters last week approved a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.

Yesterday's rally was largely the work of a single college student and largely organized online through the Facebook social network site.

Ryan MacNeely, 22, a student at Boston Architectural College, said he organized the protest because he was angered by the California vote. MacNeely created an event listing on Facebook.com and invited more than 1,000 people. He also created a group on Facebook called "I Hate Prop 8," and scheduled a second protest for Nov. 23 at 2 p.m. at Cambridge City Hall.

"We want to send a message about gay marriage and that the decision in California isn't going to be tolerated. It's just absolutely ridiculous," said the Haddam, Conn., native.

He wasn't alone. The protest, scheduled for noon, started with about a dozen people, but gradually more and more emerged from the train station and surrounding neighborhoods.

Morgan Grenier, 17, woke up at 7 a.m. to make the trip from her home in Yarmouth. "It's a civil rights issue. . . . We were the first state to legalize gay marriage, and it's our duty to support the 'No on 8' campaign in California, and to get this overturned," the high school senior said, holding a sign that read "It's not too far. It's not too late. Fight Prop 8."

From Central Square, the crowd of about 75 people marched down Massachusetts Avenue to Harvard Square, chanting "Gay, straight, black, white, marriage is a civil right." Shop owners and tourists looked on, some cheering in support.

Many of the protestors were "Facebook friends" who were meeting for the first time.

"These are real kids who just wanted to do something after hearing the [Proposition 8] news. They organized by the Internet and social network groups. It happened organically," said Fumi Kanaya, 43, of Cambridge, who described himself as "one of the adults" at the protest. He, too, heard about it from Facebook.

Protester Matthew Meisel, 23, of Somerville, said that while the group didn't appear to be visibly upset, they were "terribly hurt and terribly angry. To have such a progressive and large state like California say so publicly, 'Your way of life is just wrong,' to me is a huge shock. It's something I've never felt before."

After the event, MacNeely said the plan is to "catalyze some kind of national movement, where we're having people all over the country protest this. It's not just for California. It's meant as a nationwide effort to push gay marriage to the forefront, so we can actually get something done."

John Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com