There was torrential rain when I woke up this morning. Rain so hard that I could barely see my front stoop.

Uh oh, I thought. No one is going to show up to the anti-Prop 8 protest now. I pictured a sad, small group of a dozen people with black umbrellas (everyone in New York City carries black umbrellas, because we all buy them on the street when it starts raining.)

But by the time I met a group of friends for dim sum in nearby Chinatown, it was clear, if humid. By the time we headed to the protest, it was sunny -ish. And when we rounded the corner toward City Hall, the roar of the crowd and the full face of the sun struck us at the same time.

Thousands of people had come out. Thousands. They half-blocked Broadway, cheering whenever a tourist waved cheerily from a double-decker tour bus. My friends and I wove through the crowd, making it as far up front as we could, close enough to hear out lesbian Christine Quinn, head of New York’s City Council, roar that “the arc of history bends toward justice.”

Close enough to hear Daniela Sea, from the ‘L’ Word, thank us for being there. Close enough to hear a man (whose name I didn’t get) tell us to put in our phones the number of the Bronx state senator who is trying to block New York from getting gay marriage. He said to pass the number on to 20,000 of our friends – and all call on Monday. Close enough to hear Heather Matarazzo cry as she looked out over us all from the stage, saying that she couldn’t see the end of the crowd.

Close enough to hear former Miss America Kate Shindle say that she is straight and though she is conservative on many issues, she is on the right side of this one – we are on the right side – and we will lay down in the streets if we have to, in order to win our equal rights.

Today’s protest had a different feel from the one Wednesday night. Wednesday was strangely joyous, fiercely celebratory. Wednesday was gay men in their 30s in suits, and Park Slope lesbians with children, quiet professionals who were taking to the street to walk for something they feel is fundamental to the shape of their lives. It felt like the beginning of something.

Today’s protest was younger and hipper. There were more pairs of funky glasses. There was less chanting – but also a stronger feeling of anger. There was a clearer sense that people are now wondering what we should do next.

From the stage, speaker after speaker said that this was the civil rights movement of our generation. That it was our second Stonewall. Thousands on thousands of people cheered in response.

Finally, at the end of the scheduled speakers, the clouds came, closing up the open sky. It had stayed clear just long enough for us to make our voices heard, and for those voices to echo through lower Broadway’s Canyon of Heroes, ricocheting between the buildings until we made our own thunder.