In celebration of his 200th birthday—and featuring one of only five original copies of his immortal Gettysburg Address, which is on special exhibit at the museum—”President Lincoln” read the list of sponsors of the event.
Lincoln wasn’t the only cause for celebration; the Iowa Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to legalize same-sex marriage in that state is Lambda Legal’s most recent in a long list of successes in the courts. After receiving a standing ovation from the hundreds of people in attendance, Lambda Legal’s Midwest Region senior attorney, Camilla Taylor, described her experience in Iowa. She explained that this case was brought by people in Iowa, and not imposed on them from the outside. Taylor found that Iowans live their state motto: “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”
This annual event honors the memory of Robert Bonvouloir “Bon” Foster, the late civil-rights activist/attorney who died of AIDS-related complications in 1991 at the age of 36. Through his bequest to Lambda Legal, the Midwest Regional Office was opened in 1993. Text by Mel Ferrand; photos by Kat Fitzgerald (MysticImagesPhotography.com)