Chicago Indymedia : http://chicago.indymedia.org/archive
Chicago Indymedia

News :: [none]

Protest FOR Lesbian & Gay Marriage!

The honor and respect society gives to committed heterosexual relationships is pointedly refused to Lesbian and Gay couples. The religious right campaigns against Lesbian and Gay marriage because it sees it as a "wedge issue" against all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered people, a convenient "hook" with which to deny us a whole host of rights. You don't need to buy into backward notions of "traditional family values" and gender roles to recognize that equal marriage rights are an important part of the fight for LGBT liberation. Regardless of your sexual orientation, we invite all who support equality to join this demonstration.
We Refuse to Be Treated Like Second-Class Citizens!

The honor and respect society gives to committed heterosexual relationships is pointedly refused to Lesbian and Gay couples, and to Transgendered and Bisexual persons. Federal and state government laws officially sanction this discrimination.

The denial of equal marriage rights discriminates against us economically as well, and puts enormous personal burdens on many loving couples --

* When one member of a Lesbian or Gay couple is hospitalized, their partners do not automatically get visiting rights. The partner is not always consulted in medical decisions if the patient is unconscious.

* Couples are forcibly broken up if one of the partners is a foreign national, because US immigration law refuses to respect Lesbian and Gay relationships and grant us equal immigration rights.

* Gay and Lesbian couples are discriminated against in access to health care. In most areas of the country, including Chicago, there is no legal requirement that employers grant an employee's same-sex partner equal access to health care benefits provided by our jobs. Even when an employer voluntarily provides such health care, the couple must pay for it out of pocket, unlike heterosexual couples.

* Adoption laws and foster children policies openly discriminate against Gays and Lesbians in some areas, and in others, they are subject to the whims of a sometimes bigoted judiciary.

* Individual Lesbians and Gays, particularly the elderly, are potentially left destitute if one member of the couple dies or is disabled. Equal Social Security and pension survivors benefits are denied to Gay couples. Discriminatory inheritance laws mean that heterosexual relatives, who hated their Lesbian or Gay relative while they were alive, can steal their property at death, leaving the surviving Lesbian or Gay partner penniless.

Many of the same reasons used by right wing forces to deny marriage rights to inter-racial couples a generation ago are today used against Lesbians and Gays. In a particularly sickening attempt to promote hate, some of these same right wing forces attempted to deny benefits to Lesbian and Gay survivors of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks.

The denial of marriage rights to same sex couples is an affront to the human dignity of ALL Bisexual, Transgendered, Lesbian and Gay (LGBT) people and their friends and families. The religious right campaigns against Lesbian and Gay marriage because it sees it as a "wedge issue" against all LGBT people, a convenient "hook" with which to deny us a whole host of rights. You don't need to buy into backward notions of "traditional family values" and gender roles to recognize that equal marriage rights are an important part of the fight for LGBT liberation.

Stand up for your rights!

Fight for them in the way that all rights have been won in the past!

Join a protest FOR the right to Lesbian and Gay Marriage -

12 noon, Thursday, February 14
(National Freedom to Marry Day)
In front of Chicago City Hall/County Building
118 N. Clark Street
(across the street from Daley Plaza).
 
 

Donate

Views

Account Login

Media Centers

 

This site made manifest by dadaIMC software