Gay Activists to Announce "Full Court Press" on Marriage Rights
Thu. May 13, 2004 12:00 AM
News Conference to Announce Protest to Bring Massachusetts' Marriage Rights Here
Chicago, IL -
Activists at a press conference today will outline plans for an equal marriage rights protest in Chicago, one of dozens of protests around the nation timed to coincide with the beginning of equal marriage rights in Massachusetts. The press conference will be at 11 am, Thursday, May 13 in front of the Cook County Building, 118 N. Clark Street, Chicago.
The protest organized by Equal Marriage NOW! a coalition of local Chicago equal rights groups, will be demanding that the equal legal rights finally won in Massachusetts are spread throughout the country.
"We will be demanding equal rights HERE and NOW," said Equal Marriage NOW! spokesperson Bob Schwartz, an Edgewater resident. "I get very irritated when people tell us that we should just patiently wait for our equal rights. Well I'm 62 years old, and I want my partner to be able to access my Social Security survivors benefits if need be. We want either of us to be able to make medical decisions in the hospital on behalf of the other. We to be treated with the respect due to fellow human beings, and not this second-class citizenship that the leading politicians of both parties say they want to saddle us with."
Chicago's protest will be at 12 noon, Monday, May 17th at the same location as today's press conference: 118 N. Clark Street. May 17th is the day that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has said that the state must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It is also the 50th anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation.
"As part of an interracial couple myself," said Schwartz, "I am angry that on the historic 50th anniversary of the decision outlawing segregation and 'separate by equal' institutional discrimination, that leading politicians in both parties are asking us to sell ourselves short and settle for a separate, 'marriage-lite' institution for Lesbians and Gays."
The protest organized by Equal Marriage NOW! a coalition of local Chicago equal rights groups, will be demanding that the equal legal rights finally won in Massachusetts are spread throughout the country.
"We will be demanding equal rights HERE and NOW," said Equal Marriage NOW! spokesperson Bob Schwartz, an Edgewater resident. "I get very irritated when people tell us that we should just patiently wait for our equal rights. Well I'm 62 years old, and I want my partner to be able to access my Social Security survivors benefits if need be. We want either of us to be able to make medical decisions in the hospital on behalf of the other. We to be treated with the respect due to fellow human beings, and not this second-class citizenship that the leading politicians of both parties say they want to saddle us with."
Chicago's protest will be at 12 noon, Monday, May 17th at the same location as today's press conference: 118 N. Clark Street. May 17th is the day that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has said that the state must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It is also the 50th anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation.
"As part of an interracial couple myself," said Schwartz, "I am angry that on the historic 50th anniversary of the decision outlawing segregation and 'separate by equal' institutional discrimination, that leading politicians in both parties are asking us to sell ourselves short and settle for a separate, 'marriage-lite' institution for Lesbians and Gays."