Thirteen gay activists were arrested
Thursday after staging a sit-in outside of Illinois Senator Dick
Durbin's Chicago office.
The activists, who represent two gay
rights groups, Gay
Liberation Network (GLI) and Join
the Impact Chicago, presented a Durbin aide with a pink slip that
read: “Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people and our allies
hereby discharge and fire Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and the
Democratic Party. Your actions and inaction constantly fire,
discharge, separate, deport, impoverish and diminish LGBTs. In turn,
we fire you.”
While the 65-year-old Democrat has
signed on as co-sponsor to major gay rights measures before the
Senate, including repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” the 1993 law
that bans gay troops from serving openly, and the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would ban workplace
discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity
(transgender protections), he did vote in favor of the Defense of
Marriage Act, the 1996 law that defines marriage as a heterosexual
union for federal agencies and “Don't Ask.”
Durbin, activists say, has done little
to advance either measure in the Senate.
“Today [Durbin is] a sponsor of ENDA,
but has done next to nothing to advocate for it,” Brent
Holman-Gomez of the Gay Liberation Network (GLN) said in a statement.
“He says he opposes employment discrimination, yet his 1993 DADT
vote ensures that the nation's largest employer continues
discriminating and he has refused to demand that President Obama
issue a stop-loss order for outed military personnel.”
“Will he round up votes in the Senate
to repeal DOMA, get ENDA passed, and take the lead in speaking out
for an immediate end to DADT?” Roger Fraser of GLN rhetorically
asked. “No, he has showed himself unwilling to do any of these
things before an election.”
Activists said they fired the
Democratic party because all Democrats are “playing it safe on
'controversial issues' like LGBT rights.”
As majority whip, Durbin holds the
second-highest leadership position in the Democratic Party in the
Senate after Majority Leader Harry Reid from Nevada.
When told that Durbin was not in the
office, the activists demanded to speak to him by phone, but aides
refused, and instead called federal authorities, who removed the
activists.