Join the Fun as Activists Celebrate Illinois Marriage Equality Victory

Chicago DOMA Ruling Rally (Photo credit: chicagopublicmedia)

Andy Thayer of the Gay Liberation Network invites gays and allies to celebrate the successful vote by Illinois’s House (and Senate) on the state’s equal marriage rights. There will be a community victory rally at 7 p.m., Nov. 7th, at the corner of Halsted and Roscoe Streets in the heart of Chicago’s LGBT entertainment district.

“Just two weeks ago this bill was widely seen as dead in the water for this fall veto session,” said Gay Liberation Network co-founder Andy Thayer, one of the organizers of the rally. “What changed? It was the people that forced this bill onto the agenda for this Fall Veto session, not the politicians and insiders. It was the explicit threat of political retribution to those in Springfield who stood in our way or only half-heartedly supported equal rights. Like with so many justice struggles before this, it was grass-roots efforts that made this bill pass.”

The Gay Liberation Network has been organizing numerous rallies, marches and pickets for equal marriage rights for over a decade. Thanks to on-going grass-roots efforts by ordinary folks and with virtually no help from politicians, the people of Illinois now in favor of equal marriage rights for same-sex couples by a nearly two-to-one margin.