Several hundred people bundled up against the cold and raised their voices to show President-elect Obama that he needs to follow through on his campaign promise to repeal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
DOMA was signed by President Clinton's in 1996 and has two provisions which affect the LGBT community (as taken from Wikipedia):
- No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
- The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states
President-elect Obama has voiced his support of the repeal of DOMA and today a national protest was held in more than 100 cities. Even though Chicago was in the midst of a huge winter storm with temps in the low 20's, it didn't stop the vocal LGBT Community from joining at the State of Illinois building to voice their displeasure.
Prior to the DOMA Rally, several scores of protesters rallied outside of the Hyatt Hotel HQ as Equality Illinois delivered a signed letter to show their displeasure about their lack of repudiating Dough Manchester. Manchester is the owner of the 2nd largest Hyatt Hotel in the US and donated $125,0000 to ProtectMarriage.com to help get Prop 8 on the ballot. The protesters then marched to the Thompson Center where they joined the Protest Against DOMA.
At the Thompson Center several hundred protestors huddled around as speakers from Join the Impact, The Gay Liberation Network, Equality Illinois and others continued to spread the word about the need to repeal DOMA.
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