The Chicago protest will be at 7 PM, Tuesday, May 26 in front of the "Center on Halsted," 3656 N. Halsted Street. The local protest was initiated by the Gay Liberation Network and is co-sponsored by JoinTheImpact/Chicago, the ANSWER Coalition and the Coalition for Justice and Respect. Other Illinois cities hosting actions include Champaign/Urbana, Peoria and Springfield.

While the court's decision preserved the 18,000 same-sex marriages already performed, the main point of contention — anti-gay Prop 8 — was upheld, and therefore gay activists will respond tonight with protests.

Day of Decision co-founder Robin Tyler and her wife, Diane Olson, were the first and only couple married on June 16, 2008 in Los Angeles County. They married during the months after the California Supreme Court embraced same-sex marriage rights and before Proposition 8 cut off that right. They were the first plaintiffs in the suit which brought about the original court decision and were co-plaintiffs in the suit just decided by the court today.

"Even though our marriage is preserved by today's decision, we take no joy in the fact that marriage equality for almost everyone else has been removed from our state," said Tyler. "The upholding of Proposition 8 by the court is a cowardly retreat from the pro-equality stance it took last year, and makes our state a laggard behind pro-equality states like Iowa and most New England states."

Andy Thayer, Day of Decision's other co-founder, is also co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network and recently received widespread news coverage for his arrest with 30 others while participating in a Gay Pride protest in Moscow, Russia.

After tonight's protests DayofDecision.org sees the next step for gay equality to be repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. DOMA prevents same-sex couples in even the marriage equality states from accessing federal benefits that their heterosexual peers take for granted.

Most critically, DOMA allows non-marriage equality states to directly flout the U.S. Constitution's "full faith and credit clause" under which contracts made in one state cannot be invalidated in others. Currently states that have, say, higher ages for legal heterosexual marriage are required to observe "underage" marriages performed in other states, but DOMA allows states to flout this same requirement for gay people.

"Many civil rights struggles historically have started with a state-by-state strategy to begin with, but at a certain point they must break out of that localism and take things onto the national stage if they are to be successful," said Tyler. "By taking on DOMA, the lynchpin of federal anti-gay policy, we will be doing that."

"The Democrats control both houses of Congress and the Presidency," said Thayer. "They gave us the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and now it's their responsibility to clean up their mess, and we will do all in our power to force them to do so."

"If President Obama does not repeal DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, both of which he promised our community while running for President, the only gay Divorce you will see, for those of us who supported him, is the gay community's divorce from the Democratic Party," adds Tyler.

A full listing of tonight's actions in over 100 cities in the U.S. and Canada can be found at www.DayOfDecision.org.