ICC Student Experiences History
CHICAGO — On Wednesday, Nov. 20, Illinois made the step to the “right side of history,” signing a historic bill to become the 16th state to legalize same-sex marriage. The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act was signed into law around 4:30 p.m. CT at The University of Illinois at Chicago Forum.
Illinois governor Pat Quinn, a long time proponent of LGBTQ rights, officially signed the bill into law on the desk used by Abraham Lincoln for his 1865 Inauguration Address. “It means a lot to our state of Illinois that we are a welcoming society,” Quinn told ABC Chicago, “I think the people of our state can understand that this law is going to make a difference for hundreds and hundreds of people” (huffingtonpost.com).
One of those people is ICC student and LGBTQ activist Seth Hannan, who was one of the ceremony’s nearly 2300 attendees. When not at ICC, Hannan is a dedicated activist who has worked online and offline, serving many communities throughout Illinois.
Outside of the community, he has marched in the Chicago Gay Pride parade, rallied for March on Springfield for Marriage Equality and attended numerous LGBTQ rallies across Illinois. Here, he has been an organizer and pioneer of many movements, including his “Why Marriage Equality Matters” group, and a day to wear purple at his high school for homosexual suicides of 2010. He also worked as the LGBTQ advocate for Corn Stock Theatre’s “The Laramie Project,” a story of a gay teenager murdered for his sexual orientation.
Most notably, Hannan is an intern at The Civil Rights Agenda, an “Illinois statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization and political organization established to continue the fight for equal rights and guarantee equal protection and treatment for all” (jointcra.org). He has been with TCRA since January 2013, and is their only intern outside of Chicago.
Given all his work for the cause, one could imagine Hannan’s happiness for the bills’ passing. “It’s a personal and professional victory, but its so much more than that to myself. This bill is about people’s lives,” Hannan acknowledged. “To put so much of your heart, soul, time and energy into something – it’s unbelievably rewarding to see the payoff, especially when it’s going to enrich the lives of so many fellow Illinoisans.”
Now that the bill has been signed, Hannan can focus his energy on his goal, to “hopefully one day work and/or create an organization that focuses on LGBTQ youth in rural areas.” For now, he plans to continue his education at ICC, and has just recently applied to be a wedding officiant. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but as a political statement and personal choice, I wanted to wait until all Illinois couples can legally marry.”
And now they can. The bill will take effect on June 1, 2014, and will grant same-sex couples in Illinois the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples. As Hannan puts it, they “will have marriage. Not civil unions, not gay marriage – but marriage.”