Why would a group of people sit indoors in a windowless conference room for hours on a beautiful Chicago spring day? They were fighting for the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.
"It's important to me as a mother of three sons. I cannot look them in the eye and say that one is unworthy of rights and privileges that the other two get," said Pam from Oak Park. Chicagoan Sean added, "I come from a country in the Caribbean (St. Vincent) that still criminalizes homosexuality. So this is very important to me, and is my contribution."
Those were just a couple of the reasons 14 volunteers spent three hours March 30 making 2,622 calls to Illinois residents, encouraging them to contact their State Representative and asking for a "yes" vote on the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act (SB-10).
Lindsey Clark has been running this Illinois Unites for Marriage Coalition phone bank since early February.
The coalitionwhich includes Equality Illinois, the ACLU of Illinois and Lambda Legal, among othersknew that its biggest challenge would be the coming floor vote in the House. This has fueled their work for the past eight weeks, with coalition phone-bankers making calls to constituents in House Districts across the state.
Many of the volunteers on a recent Saturday were repeat workers. Heather, from Chicago, talked about the first time she phone-banked with Clark. "I got a lot of positive responses from people actually wanting to do something about marriage equality in Illinois, and I just thought it was great and I wanted to come back and keep the momentum going."
Using an automatic dialer, volunteers are able to reach many more residents than in the days of individually dialed calls. Illinois Unites for Marriage is currently running five phone banks per week at the ACLU location, and a phone bank Wednesday evenings at the Equality Illinois office on Halsted Street.
Justin from Andersonville has been to this phone bank twice. "I like to try and make a little difference in the world, for not only myself but others; to make their lives a bit easier, and happier."
Illinois Unites for Marriage also has a remote phone-bank program that allows any Illinois resident with a computer and a phone (either mobile or land line) to automatically dial calls from home.
Heather summed up the motivation for many coalition volunteers: "I hope that people realize that their voice does matter and just a simple phone call can help change history."