With excitement still buzzing over President Obama's recent support for marriage equality, an estimated 40 LGBT Chicagoans chose to spend Harvey Milk Day with his Chicago campaign staff.
Team Obama and openly gay Ald. James Cappleman held a Harvey Milk birthday party May 22 at the Holiday Club in Uptown, with the focus on encouraging LGBT Chicagoans to volunteer for the campaign.
"This campaign is about continuing the change that Barack Obama started," said Nellie Sires, Obama campaign LGBT outreach coordinator for Chicago, in a volunteer pitch.
Cappleman echoed the need for continued change in the country, and also encouraged attendees to get out the vote.
"We're going to really have to put feet to the ground," he said.
LGBT rights hero Harvey Milk was briefly honored on the anniversary of his birth, but the main focus was on Obama's re-election bid.
Attendees were shown a documentary-style campaign commercial that touted Obama's approaches to the economic crisis, healthcare reform, the war in Iraq, the killing of Osama bin Laden and the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," among other things.
Still, much of the talk among partygoers centered on Obama's recent announcement that he supports marriage equality.
Andrea Crain said that she only put weight behind Obama's campaign after he came out for same-sex marriage.
"I felt it was a deeply moral thing for him to do," Crain said.
Crain used to reject campaign donation appeals, even though she planned to vote for Obama come November. The moment she saw the president supported same-sex marriage, she went online and donated to his campaign.
Brandon Fox planned to back Obama regardless, he said.
"The marriage announcement was surprising, but he had my support 100 percent," Fox said.
Fox said he was more interested in the president's pro-LGBT policies than he was in his words.
Still, for some like Cunyon Gordon, Obama's marriage support may have been too little too late. Gordon questioned why LGBT people forgave the president for holding out on the marriage issue.
"We just celebrate as if he came roaring in a champion of our cause, but he didn't come roaring in," she said.
Gordon said the president has been too conciliatory with conservatives, something overlooked by progressive people because he seen as better than Republican candidates.
Gordon did not realize she was coming to an Obama event, she said. She thought she was coming out to celebrate Harvey Milk's birthday.