Mon. March 25, 2013
Chicago, IL -
Nearly 400 gay rights activists and supporters of marriage equality rallied Monday in downtown Chicago as the Supreme Court is set to take up same-sex marriage this week.
Photos: Gallery I | Gallery II
Chicago was just one of over 160 cities participating in similar demonstrations. The local rally at Federal Plaza was coordinated by the Gay Liberation Network (GLN) and The Civil Rights Agenda (TCRA).
Speaking at the rally were Vernita Gray, GLN's Andy Thayer, TCRA's Rick Garcia and Richard Streetman, Kim Hunt and Rev. Suzanne-Anderson Hurdle.
"We are part of the fabric of America. We are your sons and your daughters. We are your sisters and your brothers. We deserve our rights as American citizens." said Gray to a cheering crowd waving rainbow flags. "I am not going to be treated differently. I am not going to be treated unequal. I deserve the right to marriage. I worked for it."
TCRA's Garcia declared, "We are going to be witnesses of a historic moment in the United States."
These rallies come on the eve of the Supreme Court's considering two cases that challenge the constitutionality of both Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and could determine much in the way of marriage equality on the national stage.
"Even if Illinois legalizes same-sex marriage, more than 1100 federal rights and responsibilities associated with marriage would still be denied gay couples here," GLN said in a March 22 press release, citing statistics from a General Accounting Office study. "The primary legislative barrier to this equality is the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)... which denies legal equality at the federal level even in states which have legalized same sex marriage, and allows states which do not recognize same-sex marriage to deny recognition of such marriages made in states that do."
On Wed., March 27, Judges will hear arguments from United States v. Windsor, a case involving a provision of DOMA related to federal benefits. While normally a person's estate can pass to their surviving spouse tax-free, DOMA limits this benefit to heterosexual couples. This prompted 83 year-old widow Edith Windsor to sue and challenge the $363,000 federal estate tax bill she received after her partner of 44 years died in 2009, leaving Windsor everything. A 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that the provision deprived Windsor of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.
The hearings open the previous day, Tue., March 26, with arguments on Hollingsworth vs. Perry, the Proposition 8 Case in which a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down California's ban on gay marriage. While they ruled on the rather narrow grounds that the state couldn't later take away the right to marry that it had already given gay Californians, the hearing of this case will present the Court with questions on the larger constitutional issue of gay marriage and whether LGBT Americans are entitled to the same rights as their hetereosexual conterparts.
According to an AP report from December that discussed the scheduled hearings of the two marriage equality cases "a decision in favor of gay marriage could set a national rule and overturn every state constitutional provision and law banning same-sex marriages." This would have dramatic effects for all 31 states that have amended their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage, including our neighbors to the north, Wisconsin.
With Illinois on the verge of becoming the 10th state to legalize marriage equality and events such as Minnesota recently overturning an attempt make them the 32nd state to ban gay marriage, general opinion seems to be shifting. This is further reflected in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, in which 58% of people answered that it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to get married. 64% of poll takers also stated that the issue of same-sex marriage "should be decided for all states on the basis of the U.S. constitution," with a majority of voters believing that homosexuality is an immutable trait and not a matter of choice.
"Increasingly, institutions that oppose legal equality for LGBT people are seen as out of step with modern society, if not downright bigoted," Gay Liberation Network co-founder Andy Thayer said in a statement before Monday's rally. Our challenge to the Court is that it can either join such relics, or it can keep in touch with modern society."
The rally was followed by a candlelight march through Chicago's Loop to Pioneer Court, located south of the Tribune Tower on Michigan Ave.
Watch the Rally & March in Support of Gay Rights via CAN TV
Photos: Gallery I | Gallery II
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