Equality Illinois ( EI ) toasted the arrival of Illinois' marriage equality along with political, community and corporate leaders who had a hand in making the change with its Tribute Reception on June 8.
"First of all, it is wonderfully overwhelming that we are here in Pride Month celebrating that marriage equality is here in Illinois," said Equality Illinois founder Art Johnston. "It is a remarkable thing when so few years ago we could not even convince legislatures to protect us from being fired from our jobs."
Held in the downtown JW Marriott's ballroom, more than 200 guests celebrated with a champagne brunch. Among the guests, approximately 20 elected/appointed officials were in attendance. The event served to acknowledge the leaders responsible for the advances within the LGBT community, especially the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.
"Today was a great opportunity to thank many of those people and as I always want to do, remind all of us is that this didn't happen in a day or two and there are deep roots," said Johnston. "This has been going on for a long time and our combined communities have suffered horribly and pulled ourselves out of it to get to where we are today and it is kind of remarkable that we're actually here. It was a lovely event, lovely that we got a chance to talk about those things, lovely to look around this room of supporters and to see how far we have come in public acceptance."
Johnston led the program on stage introducing each speaker, including Equality Illinois Education Project Board Chair Dalila Fridi, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Gov. Pat Quinn, Sen. Heather Steans and Rep. Greg Harris. Fridi, John Parro, Cathy Sikora and Michael Jefvert, EI members finishing their service on the organization's board, were also honored with a plaque.
"What I loved today was the diversity," said Fridi, who said her work is not done, even though she delivered her "goodbye" on stage. "We had people from all kinds of organizations, different communities, a lot of elected officials, which was great. I'm very proud of the work we've done and the success of gay marriage is not one organizationit was the coalition. We have a governor's race this fall that we have to be very careful. We have to elect the person who supported us, not the person who said he will veto the bill if it ever came to him. I hope our community and allies go out and vote."