About the March

The March on Springfield for Marriage Equality will take place on Oct. 22, 2013, the scheduled first day of the fall veto session of the Illinois state legislature. The “March on Springfield” is part of a broad grassroots strategy to secure final passage of Senate Bill 10, the “Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act,” already approved by the Illinois Senate.

Once adopted, Illinois will become the 14^th state plus the District of Columbia, to treat all of its citizens equally under state marriage laws.

More details are available on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MarchOnSpringfieldForMarriageEquality and on Twitter at @IllinoisMarches.

For Questions about the March on Springfield see the FAQs Page.

 

Biographies

Solomon Arnold: College student, media personality, and HIV/AIDS educator in the African American house ball community.

Tracy Baim: Journalist, filmmaker, author, Co-vice chair of the Chicago Gay Games and publisher is publisher of Windy City Times newspaper.

Kevin Boyer: Marketing professional, community organizer, former Co-vice chair of the Chicago Gay Games, and co-chair of GLAAD Chicago’s Leadership Council.

Buff Carmichael: Longtime media professional, former publisher of the Prairie Flame, and activist in Springfield.

Brandy Donaldson: Rock Island-based media professional and activist within the African American lesbian community.

Emmanuel Garcia: Latino youth activist working with Association of Latin Men for Action, Crossroads Fund, Chicago’s largest queer youth prom and Cicero’s LGBT community.

Brent Holman-Gomez: Activist working within the welcoming church movement, immigration equality, and international LGBTQI organizations.

Kim Hunt: Executive Director of Affinity, an African American LBT women's group, who was also an organizer of the Chicago Gay Games.

Naomi Lahiri: Queer feminist with expertise in Asian issues, outreach for trans* people of Asian descent, immigrant issues, and domestic violence outreach.

Alexis Martinez: Transgender activist working on cross-generation work, the Dyke March plus Latino, living wage, education and healthcare issues.

Chris Mullins: Activist and LGBT rights advocate and Chair of Lambda Legal's Chicago Leadership Council

Edith Nieves: Long-time activist on union, lesbian, sports and Latina issues; runs Sisters 4LGBTQ Community, a lesbian social network.

Max Smith: Activist for four decades especially focused on African American men and religious issues, and as a member of Adodi, an African-American men’s organization.