The Illinois State Capital Building was alive with sounds of marriage equality on Tuesday, October 22, 2013. More than 5,000 people attended the march and rally downtown to get the Illinois House of Representatives to pass the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act (SB 10). The Bill cleared the Illinois State Senate on February 14, 2013, but was stalled on in the House on May 31.

The organization that put the march/rally together, Illinois Unites for Marriage, has been having marches and rallies throughout Illinois since the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness act didn’t pass this past May. Advocates are determined to make sure that does not happen again. The rally marks the beginning of the fall veto session.

Senator Dick Durbin, Secretary of State Jesse White, and Governor Pat Quinn were a few of the major political figures present. “This is our hour, this is our moment,” Governor Quinn said to the record-breaking crowd. “We need love to sign a marriage equality law and I’ll sign it as quickly as possible.”

In addition to politicians, there were pastors, priests, and other religious figures from various towns and cities in Illinois.

Bishop Carlton Pierson, the founder and director of New Dimensions in Chicago, said, “I need to apologize, as a clergyman, and as a Bishop in the Lord’s church, for the arrogance and ignorance and the obstinacy that we have had for so many years. For the abuse, the mistreatment, the demeaning attitude we’ve had toward gay people.”

The people at the rally said, “Civil Unions aren’t the same; not in rights, and not in name,” during the march. It is special to think that people, once again, have gathered to fight for civil rights, and there may be no better place to do so in Springfield, the place where Abraham Lincoln began his political career. There surely will be a rainbow coming from the capital after a rainy day filled with thunderous LGTB pride.