On November 5, 2013, the Illinois House voted by a narrow margin to create marriage equality in our State. The vote came after months of lobbying by tens of thousands of our supporters, a huge ad campaign, and the largest LGBT rights event in Springfield, Illinois, ever — the March on Springfield for Marriage Equality. Last week, Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Illinois added a court victory to our legislative win, and marriage equality is now reality in Cook County — 3.5 months early.
The November 5 vote was tough for some legislators. For some, their vote ran contrary to their religious upbringing. In other districts, loud and vocal opposition came from a minority of constituents. In others, wealthy constituents threatened to finance more extreme candidates. In the end, 61 Representatives — 58 Democrats and 3 Republicans - voted in favor of equality; one more than we needed.
Last year, we told our friends that if they voted for equality, we would have their back.
Next month, some of our supporters face tough primary campaigns. Illinois primary elections have historically low turnout — in 2010 just 23% of the Illinois registered voters cast a primary ballot. Low voter turnout puts candidates at risk and a few of our supporters are in danger, some because of their vote for equality.
We owe it to them, and to millions of LGBT people across the USA who will count on confident "yes" votes by our allies for years to come, to make sure that nobody in Illinois loses his or her seat because they voted in favor of marriage equality.
Volunteers from the Human Rights Campaign, Illinois Unites for Marriage, the March on Springfield for Marriage Equality and other coalition groups created the Protect Our Friends Project. In the spirit of the grassroots work that won us marriage equality, our campaign has a simple objective: calling constituents in select districts to identify supporters for Get Out The Vote campaigns.
This work is simple, effective, and — surprisingly — not often financially or logistically possible during primaries for in-state Assembly offices. We will work on several candidates at once, have a direct impact on candidate success, and send a very clear message: We Have Your Back.
The Protect Our Friends Project is already underway. Partial funding has already been raised and volunteers are already beginning to staff the phone banks. Equality Illinois has agreed to host the project in their downtown Chicago offices and the Equality Illinois PAC is the fiscal agent. Candidates will be EI-endorsed, are Democrats and Republicans, male and female, include African-American and Latino supporters, and all voted "yes" on SB10.
To stabilize the marriage equality victory in Illinois, and send a clear message to the rest of the country watching us, we need your help:
Donate … today.
We have a short window — just 2 weeks — to raise the rest of the Project's money. EI established a dedicated PayPal link to let us segregate Project funds. Donations of $100, $250, $500 or more are needed right away ( campaign contributions are not tax deductible ). Here is the link:
www.EqilPAC.org/protectourfriends.html .
Volunteer
We need phone bank volunteers. Go to EqualityIllinois.org, click "Volunteer" and select phone banking. Put "Protect Our Friends Project" in one of the fields.
The fight for marriage equality didn't end with the vote on November 5. Let's show our friends that we appreciate their vote, and let the rest of the country know that in Illinois we Protect Our Friends.
