Equal Marriage NOW! calls upon the Cook County States Attorney's office to drop the charges against the Halsted Street 3, and encourages the Pride Parade Committee and other LGBT organizations to make similar appeals.
After many years of harassment of our Pride Parade from the sidelines, this year anti-gay bigots took the unprecedented step of busting into the parade. Seen in the context of President Bush's use of the marriage issue to ratchet up hate against the LGBT community, the invasion of our parade was a calculated effort to humiliate and intimidate ... .
Several appeals by EMN! activists to parade organizers and police to stop this travesty were met with indifference. Police only intervened after some members of the Chicagoland Anarchist Network and the EMN! contingent surrounded the anti-gay forces and made it clear that they were not welcome in our parade, at which point fisticuffs broke out. Police then roughly shoved several LGBT activists off of the street and arrested three queer anarchists on felony charges. ... This double standard of justice should disgust all LGBT people and allies, regardless of political persuasion.
Three people face possible felony sentences for the 'crime' of standing up for our community because police and parade organizers failed to act when anti-gay forces invaded ... . In the context of the increasingly shrill political climate our community faces at the national level, we allow such a state of affairs to go forward at our peril. — Equal Marriage NOW!
www.windycitymediagroup.com for previous letters and responses on this topic from Parade organizers.