About 16 Members of Gay Liberation Network on Oct. 26 staged a protest in front of state Rep. Greg Harris' district office, 1967 W. Montrose Ave.
GLN members have contended that Harris, the chief sponsor of SB10, is acting more out of loyalty to political colleagues than to the LGBT community by not yet calling for a vote on the legislation.
"Harris needs to represent the interests of LGBTQ people and not Mike Madigan and other Democrats across this state," said GLN member Bob Schwartz.
GLN members are calling for a party line vote by the Democratic Caucus.
"They have a supermajority," said GLN co-founder Andy Thayer. "They have the power to do a party line vote. They do it for any number of slimy, power-broking deals that are wildly unpopular."
Roger Fraser, GLN's treasurer, said, "The sad thing about this debacle is that we ourselves have not had the capacity or foresight to put the kinds of pressure on these politicians that we need to."
States with marriage equality, especially ones in the Midwest, overcame strong objections from fundamentalists and there should be no reason Illinois should be different, Fraser added. "Is the state of Illinois really one that should be compared to Mississippi, Alabama or Texas?"
The demonstration followed four days after GLN dropped a large banner outside Madigan's office in the Capitol rotunda, shortly following the close of the March on Springfield rally Oct. 22.
"People loved it," said Thayer, who also spoke at the main rally that day. "People were cheering in the rotundathe notion that we were taking it to Madigan's door really struck a cord."