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.