Ballots/Stones - Hostage Calm

You come out in droves;

Protectors of an ancient code

You’d like to know

What would become of you and yours

If left alone

So, with that pride destined to find

Itself on the wrong side of history

You take arms

Did you cast a ballot or a stone?*

Did it cast a shadow on their home?

Let’s go

To a place I know where men can share a home

By now the world should know

That your factions and their

Romance with interference

They have no business in these homes

Did you cast a ballot or a stone?

Did it cast a shadow on their home?

Your slogans echo loudly

From Edmund Pettus Bridge

Would you tear up like you did when the Lovings wed?

I’d give so much to see your assaults laid to rest

Would they be mourned like the rightless ones you’ve vilified?

Because at their funerals

When the priest gives the flag to her partner, she still cries

Four years before the state gave them the right

Did you cast a ballot or a stone?

[* This line was found on the picket signs of those who protested California’s

proposition 8

This song is dedicated to all those who fight on for marital equality

In the United States and across the world.]