“The response we got almost all the time was, ‘I can’t vote for this because I’m Catholic.’ And Rick was a devout Catholic who’d done a lot of work with Catholic organizations, and his idea was to reach out to the nuns who’d taught the aldermen when they were in school, and the nuns would counter their arguments and say, ‘I’m Catholic, too, and you can vote for it.’ Sister Donna Quinn was the main nun who helped on this, she ran Chicago Catholic Women, and they were, in their own way, radical do-gooders.
Art Johnston quoted in an obituary for Rick Garcia by Mitch Dudek at WBEZ Chicago. Rick Garcia, activist who fought for gay rights legislation, dies at 69
Garcia’s efforts were integral in the passage of legislation in 1988 that made it illegal to discriminate against gays in Chicago. Similar legislation followed at the county and state level.
