I attended this rally today for about 5 hours. It was organized by Enith from this board and by David Wilson, who has been organizing intact awareness demonstrations at the US Capitol every April for more than a dozen years.
Unfortunately I had a morning obligation, so I could not arrive until just after 1 pm. Attorney Spencer Aronfeld and mom of baby Mario Viera, Vera Delgado, had just departed after staying for an hour or more to talk with volunteers and the media. As I understand it, there were reporters from local and national TV stations as well as from Telemundo and Univision (Spanish-language stations).
We were a small group, only about a half dozen of us at the peak. David and Enith had chosen a busy corner for the event at US Route 1 and 62nd Ave in South Miami, on the same block as South Miami Hospital. David drove down with his trailer full of very professional-looking signs and banners, and we each took turns holding various of them up so the traffic could read them.
In the time I was there, most drivers and pedestrians just looked as us, some were obviously discussing it with others in their car or on the phone, and a few took photos and video with their phones. This being South Florida in the summer, just about all the cars had their windows closed tight. About half were tinted very dark and half the ones we could see were on the phone (FL has no hands-free law).
Not many drivers made comments, though I remember about 3 dozen horn honks with thumbs-up and about a dozen derogatory comments. The positive ones were brief, with comments like "foreskin is great" and "keep up the good work". Interestingly, the negative ones were visceral and particularly nasty. I can't come close to writing the string of expletives some drivers used. One yelled, "Not circumcising causes HIV! Go home now!" and another went to the great difficulty of rolling down his window 6 lanes of traffic away from us, yelling random expletives, then saying "All of you are out of your f------- minds. Get a life!" Honestly, I thought the ones who made negative comments were going to have heart attacks, based on how crimson they looked. It's stunning what a deep reaction our presence elicited in some people.
One pedestrian was passing us and mentioned that she was trying to stop her daughter from circumcising the grandson. David gave her a copy of "Say NO to Circumcision", which she greatly appreciated. When asked when the baby was due, she said "Oh, he just turned one year old, and all they do is talk about when they're gonna take him in to be circumcised. I think they're just saving up the money." We were all shocked.
I held various signs facing different directions of traffic until sometime after 6 pm. David and one more volunteer were determined to get in yet another hour or two of sign-waving. No reaction from the hospital at all.
I took several pictures of the event, and I'm sure friends will put them on their online albums and Facebook soon. All in all, I'm glad we were there but we sure could have used 10 times the bodies. We had enough signs. There was talk of having another similar rally in the coming months.
