With an over 40-year record of accomplishment demonstrating its effectiveness in the advancement of LGBTQ civil rights, Lambda Legal is not only optimistic about the U.S. Supreme Court's expected ruling on marriage equality, but the agency is prepared to engage the legislative dogfights beyond that decision expected in June.
On April 22, the Modern Wing of the Art Institute served as both the venue for Lambda Legal's annual Bon Foster fundraiser and as a staging area for #IDo—a national public relations campaign that will run from now through the Supreme Court decision with a compelling and urgent message that the LGBT community must and will not retire from a war merely begun with a single victory.
Lambda Legal national board co-chair Karen K. Dixon and her wife of seven years Nan Schaffer announced their commitment to the #IDo campaign with a $1 million matching challenge grant—one which the organization must earn by raising the same amount from its donors. Dixon and Schaffer are former Chicagoans who now live in Washington, D.C.
There were many in the packed auditorium who stood to their feet with a resounding call of "I do" and a contribution to start Lambda Legal on its way to the largest one-time award it has ever received and a campaign that will not allow for a moments rest upon the laurels of marriage equality.
"Nan and I had this sense of foreboding that we were at risk of losing momentum within the movement if people mistakenly believed that a marriage equality victory was mission accomplished as opposed to a historic and important moment on the path to equality," Dixon explained. "A marriage equality victory will not help homeless LGBT kids find a home, it won't stop kids from being bullied in school, it won't stem the tide of fatal and criminal acts against our transgender brothers and sisters and it certainly won't keep misguided legislatures from passing hate, discrimination 'what would Jesus do? Not this type of law'."
As an impassioned and emotional testament to what has been achieved with momentum and unity of purpose within the LGBTQ community, one of Lambda Legal's former clients Pat Ewert described the moment she met, fell in love with and wedded celebrated activist Vernita Gray. The couple were the first to marry in Illinois before Gray died in 2014.
"[Vernita] was the best-dressed butch in the city of Chicago," Ewert recalled. "She had piercing brown eyes that laughed and danced and allowed you to see who she was. She could have a roomful of people on their feet inspired by her passion. She was a mentor, a friend, a leader and a lover. We were standing in my kitchen and until the day I die I will never forget [when] she reached across and put her hand on my waist and I felt a jolt of electricity like I'd never felt in my life. A little while later I walked her to the elevator, she gave me a little kiss on the lips and I swear I swooned. She started fighting the fight about 20 years ago without any idea that we would be the first gay marriage in the state and without any idea that I would be the recipient of that incredible right of equality."
"When we talk about momentum, it's not just the victories we have secured, the rights won, the freedoms defended," Dixon said. "We're at a place where if we don't recommit our time, our voices, our resources to stay in the fight we risk everything that Vernita won to get us here. Over the next 10 weeks we'll be waiting for the decision to come down and it's really important to find a way to get people to engage with us, to take a stand [and] for this message to resonate and be heard throughout the country."
The message was a single sentence which spanned the length of the auditorium's projection screen:
"The fight's not over," it read.
For more information about Lambda Legal and the #IDo campaign, please visit www.lambdalegal.org .
[Nan Schaffer is a minority shareholder of Windy City Times.]
