Defend the Halsted Street 3!

Equal Marriage NOW! (EMN!) calls upon the Cook County States Attorneys office to drop the charges against the Halsted Street 3, and encourages the Pride Parade Committee and other Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered 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 our community.

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. The cops then allowed the anti-gay forces to march for a few more blocks, and declined to arrest the anti-gay forces on any charges whatsoever. This double standard of justice should disgust all LGBT people and allies, regardless of political persuasion.

Three people now 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 our parade. 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!