Equal Marriage Rights Activists Target Mike Madigan for Protest

Grassroots activists on a campaign to revive Illinois’s equal marriage rights bill, SB 10, will target Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan for protest at his district office, 6500 S. Pulaski Road, Chicago at 12 noon today(Saturday, June 15th)  to express their anger at his failure to the bill through Illinois’s House of Representatives.

 

Following the Senate’s passage of the bill and Governor Quinn’s pledge to sign it, the activists contend that with Madigan’s party’s iron grip on the House, passage should have been a foregone conclusion if Madigan had made it a legislative priority.  Hence their main slogan, “WHERE IS MIKE Madigan?”

 

“As Rahm Emanuel cracks the whip over the vast majority of aldermen in Chicago, so too does Mike Madigan over the overwhelming majority of the House’s Democratic Party super-majority,” said Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network.  “Using his daunting campaign war-chest, army of lawyers and business connections to threaten primary challenges for any Democratic legislator who gets out of line, Madigan could insist on a positive vote for equal marriage rights if he so chose.”

 

A February Crain’s poll showed that Illinoisans favor the equal marriage rights bill by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, making a pro-equality vote hardly a difficult matter in most districts.

 

“If this doesn’t pass, LGBTs and our allies will remember Mike Madigan’s failure when and if his daughter runs for the governor next year.  Some may say that it’s unfair to punish the daughter for her father’s sins.  What this forgets is that there are many qualified people in our state, and an individual with the last name ‘Madigan’ got the Attorney General’s job due to her family connections.  So if the Speaker torpedoes his daughter’s career by failing to support equal rights, it will simply be a case of ‘what goes around, comes around.'”

 

Today’s protest at Madigan’s office was initiated by an open community meeting last Tuesday night at the Peoples Church.  The meeting was called to assess the failure of SB10, and make plans to pass the bill in the next few months.  The picket of Madigan’s office is a precursor to a large downtown march the group has called for Saturday, July 13, and a protest in Springfield at the start of the fall veto session.

 

For more information, contact the Gay Liberation Network at 773.209.1187 or email LGBTliberation@aol.com