Being gay is something Diana Nielsen doesn’t discuss much with family members. Nielsen, a Weinberg junior and community outreach chair for Rainbow Alliance, officially came out to them as a lesbian this summer.
“It’s not like they actively oppose homosexuality,” said Nielsen, whose family lives outside Sacramento. “It’s just a topic we learn to steer away from, so they can see me as a person rather than a gay person.”
Still, she was surprised to learn her mother voted for California’s Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to ban gay marriage after the state supreme court declared it legal in May. According to Nielsen, threatening advertisements saying children would be taught gay marriage in schools – a claim later found to be inaccurate – eventually swayed her mom to vote yes.
“It’s just confusing to me when people try to make opposition to gay marriage about anything other than equality,” she said.
On Saturday, 11 days after Proposition 8 passed, Nielsen and nearly a dozen Northwestern students joined thousands of protestors in Chicago’s Federal Plaza to rally for equal marriage rights.
After a frenzy of online organizing led by jointheimpact.org, Chicago’s protest was one of nearly 300 simultaneous protests in all 50 states, as well as Canada and the U.K., all held at 1:30 p.m. EST. Two Chicago police officers estimated the crowd at Federal Plaza to be 3,000. Another 4,000 people rallied in New York City. The largest protests were in California, with 20,000 gathering in San Diego and 12,000 in Los Angeles.
Members of NU’s Rainbow Alliance carried signs with slogans like “Marriage is a civil right, not a civil union” and joined in an impromptu march, where the thousands flooded streets for two hours, forcing police to block off mile-long stretches of major streets like Michigan Avenue.
“Just being on Michigan and seeing everyone on the sidewalks, waving and cheering … even if we made a couple people more aware of the cause, it was successful.”
Signs ranged from the sentimental – a young boy carried one that said “Let My Dads Get Married” – to the tongue-in-cheek, like “Keep Your Gospel Off My Gonads.”
Jill Grove and Keren James, a lesbian couple from San Francisco, brought their 7-month-old son Gryffen to the rally in Chicago. They were married in California in June, and were shocked when Proposition 8 passed.
“I couldn’t believe that five million Californians could look at that box, and say, ‘Yes, let’s take these rights away,'” said Grove, who is in town to perform with the Chicago Lyric Opera.
Addressing the protestors, James said they were a family like anyone else. “We’re not doing anything different at night – we’re watching Top Chef!”
Several prominent Chicagoans spoke, including Illinois’ only openly gay state representative, Greg Harris, D-Chicago. Many called for a boycott on businesses with executives who supported Proposition 8. One such business is Cinemark Corporation, which owns Evanston’s Century Theatres, 1715 Maple Ave. Cinemark CEO Alan Stock donated $9,999 to the Yes on 8 campaign, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Some members of NU’s Rainbow Alliance will join a protest outside the theater Saturday, Nov. 21 at 5 p.m.
There were about a dozen counter-demonstrators from Protect Marriage Illinois across the street, although their number dwindled to three about an hour after the rally started.
Despite gay marriage bans passing in three states Nov. 4, members of NU’s Rainbow Alliance said they are hopeful. Connecticut recently legalized gay marriage, and New York began recognizing gay marriages performed in other states in May. The Illinois legislature will likely vote on the state’s first civil unions bill in January.
“The other side is living on borrowed time,” said Weinberg sophomore Caroline Perry, the Rainbow activism chair. “We know where this is going. Even if we lose battles, we’ll win the war.”
Nielsen hopes the wave of national attention in the wake of Proposition 8 will help her parents become more comfortable with her sexual orientation.
“They’re from a social climate where gay is not normal,” she said. “I think that by meeting more gay people, talking to me a little bit about it, they’ll develop an understanding. With time, they’ll come around.”
