Defending Marriage

Early in the morning on Wednesday, October 23, I awoke, well before sunrise.  I drove from my Abuela's house to Queen of All Saints Basilica on Chicago's North Side, a distance that, at 5:15 AM, could be covered in about 5 minutes.  There, I planned to meet a bus that would take me down to Springfield, IL, for Illinois Family Institute's (IFI) Defend Marriage Lobby Day.  This trip came just a week after having been in Washington, DC, the US capital city.

A couple of weeks or so before this day, I had come across a news article online that mentioned opponents and proponents of the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness (RFMF) Act, also known as Senate Bill 10, were going to gather at the Illinois State Capitol, as Representative Gregg Harris had said he would call the bill for a vote in the House during its Fall Veto Session.  I was eager to head to Springfield to take a stand for marriage as God intended it.  So I looked around for details about the event, finding them at IFI's website.  Eventually, I found out about a bus that would go from Queens to Springfield, sponsored by the Respect Life Office of the Archdiocese of Chicago, which was pretty good to have the transportation covered.

So there I was, early in the morning dark, pulling up to Queens.  I didn't see the bus there right away, so I drove around the church complex to see if it was parked in a different spot.  By the time I had made a circle, I saw the bus pulling up.

I was among the first to arrive.  About an hour later, somewhere between 12-20 people were on the bus, and we were on our way south, on nearly a straight shot on I-55 from Chicago's southwest suburbs to Springfield.  Ashley Harris, who works in the Archdiocese's Office of Peace and Justice, served as the facilitator of our group's proceedings.  He gave us a number of resources, as well as instructions for what we would do during our time there.

Because of a traffic delay on a few-mile stretch south of I-80 and then a refueling stop outside Dwight, it took us nearly 4 hours to get there.  But upon arriving, we were ready to jump in.  I had been to Springfield on three different occasions in the past on visits to see the sites in the city.  More recently, I had passed through on the train while enroute to and from the AMS meeting in Austin, TX.  This would be the first time I had gone there for any kind of lobbying.  But I am already well steeped into the habit of contacting my government officials regarding important issues.  In fact, I started calling my Illinois state representative, LaShawn K. Ford, at his Springfield office so much, I decided to log his number into my cell phone contacts.

The bus driver, a wonderful man named Jose, dropped us off near Capitol Avenue a few blocks east of the Capitol building.  Upon reaching 2nd Street, we saw a rally of people by the Abraham Lincoln statue from a Chinese church in Chicagoland showing their support for marriage between one man and one woman.  I found a collection of signs with this group, and I picked one up, which I carried around with me throughout my time at the Lobby Day.

It was at this point that we were scratching our heads as to where we would find the Stratton Building, which has all the offices of the House representatives, which we had in our plan to visit first.  Some people in the group decided to head into the Capitol building, because there was a tunnel that connected it with the Stratton building.

So we got in the security line, at which point we started to get separated.  After I went through the metal detector, I found myself standing at the edge of a large crowd of people packing the rotunda for the Defend Marriage rally.  Unlike what I had envisioned from information I looked at online, this rally in the rotunda was an ongoing event for a number of hours, with various people, many of them ordained clergy, giving remarks.  Later, I saw Bill Brady step to the podium and make a few remarks.

Anyway, while I wanted to take in the proceedings in the rotunda, I wanted to get to Representative Ford's office, and was trying to find a way to get to that underground tunnel.  After a few minutes, I snaked through the crowd with a line of other people getting through, realizing as I did so that the side of the building I had entered put me right where the podium was.

I eventually got to an elevator that I took down to the lower level, and then followed the signs to the underground tunnel.  I caught up with another person in the bus group, and we went up to the 2nd floor of the Stratton building, where we found our respective representatives' offices.  (Among the resources Ashley had given us was a map with the location of all the representatives' offices in the Stratton building.)  The hallways of the building were a happening place in the middle of a weekday, with the fall House veto session going on, and the people there for IFI's Lobby day were among others lobbying and conducting business.

I went in to the reception area, which was essentially one long corridor where all the secretaries sat, with additional doors along another wall for the representatives' offices proper.  I saw Representative Ford go into his office and close the door, slightly wondering if I would be able to get a hold of him.  I got in line behind a group of people who had an appointment with another representative.  Then I stepped toward the secretary and told her I was there to urge Representative Ford to oppose Senate Bill 10.  She told me that Mr. Ford had just spoken to a number of people about it, and then said, "He got the message", about opposing it.  Then she said I could stand there with my sign, though not necessarily in a demeaning way, but more matter-of-fact.

I wasn't entirely sure what to do at that point, as I was doing all this on impulse.  I stepped into the hallway to look for a woman who was in the bus group with me, and was also in Mr. Ford's House Representative district.  Not seeing her, I stepped back into the reception area, and then asked the secretary if I could have a piece of paper and write Mr. Ford a note.  As soon as I finished writing, Mr. Ford stepped out of his office.  My impulses kicked in, and I said, "Mr. Ford, I'm Paul Rubio.  I've come here from Oak Park to ask you to oppose Senate Bill 10."  He then said, "Okay", and we shook hands.  We then both walked out into the hallway at the same time, he to the House chamber for the session, and I to lunch.  (When I talked with others in my bus group later, it appeared I was the only person who had physically met with his/her representative.)

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the diocesan cathedral for Springfield, IL, graciously provided lunch for my bus group and some others who had come.  So I walked out of the Stratton building, around the Capitol complex, and then due east a few blocks to the Cathedral, orienting myself with the map Ashley had given us.

I got there a few minutes after noon, and a few minutes later, there was a prayer, and then we had lunch: Jimmy John's sandwiches and Cokes.

After downing my lunch, I was eager to get back to the Capitol, but I took a quick peek inside the beautiful sanctuary of the Cathedral.  (It has the Cathedra for Bishop Thomas Paprocki, once an auxiliary bishop in Chicago.)

I got back to the Capitol shortly before 1 PM, with the speakers still continuing in the rotunda.  I had seen a number of people wearing buttons supporting one man-one woman marriage, and I wanted to get one.  When I asked about it, I was directed to tables that IFI had set up in the first floor north hallway.  It was there that they were also handing out short letters printed on slips of paper that people were encouraged to hand to their respective representative, House Speaker Michael Madigan, and Republican Minority Leader Jim Durkin.  I filled in the blanks with my info, and then went back to the Stratton building to give one of those sheets to Mr. Ford.  His secretary wasn't there, so I placed my sheet on top of a small pile of them on her desk.

Then, I went back into the Capitol, and went up the stairs to Mr. Madigan's 3rd floor office, which was prominently marked with "Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan" above the door.  There was a line of people waiting to get in, many with the same intention as I to deliver our slips of paper.  I decided to go to Mr. Durkin's office first, and so I went through a door near Mr. Madigan's office.  I walked down a hallway to Mr. Durkin's office at the end of the south wing of the building.  There were people from IFI directing letter bearers like me.  I walked into the office, placed my sheet on the desk, and then walked to the exit hallway.  As I was doing this, I realized that I was essentially walking around the House chamber, while the session was going on.  I could even hear part of the proceedings:  It appeared at this moment, the House was discussing legislation to limit the number of free days at museums, as I could hear a woman talking about the burden on low-income families not having enough access to Chicago's cultural institutions.  (If I had had more time, I would have liked to have gone into the chamber's gallery to watch the session, as it didn't require any kind of special pass.)

I walked out on the west side of the rotunda, and then back over to the line at Mr. Madigan's office.  After a few minutes, a man came out to collect the sheets from those who had them.  I handed mine in, along with those of two women who asked me to hand theirs in.  I then dashed down to the main level and out to the Lincoln Statue, where, from 1 to 3 PM, groups of people where going on prayer walks around the Capitol complex, in 15-minute intervals.

As I neared the Lincoln Statue after making my circle, I met an impersonator of none other than Abraham Lincoln.  We chatted for a couple of minutes, and then it was time for me to make my way back to the Cathedral to catch the bus back to Chicago.

We were all together by 2:30, and as we pulled out of Springfield, we watched a short film called Crescendo, developed by a pro-life group, telling the story of Ludwig van Beethoven's mother.  The film was in German, and it was a bit difficult to follow the subtitles, and as such, it was hard to follow the storyline closely, but I could nonetheless tell that the mother had some personal struggles that she went through to give birth to Ludwig, who would grow up to become one of the world's great musicians.

Then, we watched a series of episodes of the program The Apostle of Common Sense, which basically talked about GK Chesterton and his views on Christianity, religion, spirituality, and Roman Catholicism, according to his many writings.  I had read one of his books, The Everlasting Man, in my Christian Tradition class junior year of college, but it was hard to dissect the dense text to comprehend exactly what he was saying.  But this program did such a great job of explaining his ideas, many of which speak of why Roman Catholicism is not only the best Christian denomination, but the best religious practice among all the world's religions.  So there I was, taking in and appreciating GK Chesterton for at least a couple of hours, while riding through the open fields of central Illinois.

It was an interesting day.  I sort of just jumped in and did everything on the fly when I arrived in Springfield, not exactly following a plan I had envisioned to attend the planned rallies and meet with my representative.  I found myself scurrying around the Capitol complex, and the streets of Springfield.  Of course, I came to the realization that this wasn't all about attending rallies, but a Lobby Day, with the idea of going to urge the members of the Illinois House of Representatives to oppose Senate Bill 10.  The Illinois Family Institute did a wonderful job with the logistics, and helping to organize all the people coming to lobby, especially with the printed letter sheets.

And that's what made it a great day.  I went down to where the government action takes place, to take my stand for marriage as God intended it at the beginning of the world, between one man and one woman, as a source of stability for family and society.  What a feeling it was to be among so many like-minded people who believe the same thing about marriage, and to join in the cries of the people in the rotunda yelling out, "One man, one woman!" over and over, as I ambled around the Capitol.

I was also in a great company of people on the bus, who I was meeting for the first time this day, but with whom I already had a strong connection in our desire to stand up for what we know is right.

But above all, it was about how God was working in our hearts this day.  Indeed, each time the bus started up, from Chicago, Dwight, and then Springfield, we prayed, so as to be in tune with the Almighty Source of all, who inspired us to be in Springfield this day.

But He has done more than that, as put so well by one of the speakers in the rotunda, and I was fortunate to catch it as one of the snippets as I was going here and there.  This pastor recited the passage from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11: "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (NRSV).  This pastor, after listing the wrongful practices, then emphasized the phrase in the passage that speaks to what the people once were, going on to say that Jesus Christ has changed our lives by redeeming us and granting us the gift of faith, just as Paul speaks here.  I know He has changed my life, and now lives in me.  So I live His way, and stand up for His truth, even in the halls of power in Illinois state government.

 (This sign I'm holding says, "Strengthen Marriage Don't Redefine it".  I carried it with me throughout my the time at the Lobby Day, except when I went into the upper floors of the capitol, where they were not allowed.  I asked fellow lobbyists to get this picture and the one directly above with Mr. Lincoln.  The other two are mine.)