Beating D.C. Councilman David Catania to the punch with autumn marriage equality legislation, Illinois State Sen. Heather Steans just introduced her own bill. The Equal Marriage Act, filed yesterday, matches the language of a marriage bill that gay Rep. Greg Harris introduced in the Illinois House — the first time the Senate did so.
Sure, neighboring Iowa already has gay marriage on the books, but Illinois is Obama territory! And while the president has so far been silent on individual states’ gay marriage victories (and silent on the use of his words to fight marriage equality in Maine), there remains a smidgen of hope the leader of the free world would lobby his lawmaker friends on our behalf. After all, if the man can head to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympics, surely he can spare a few phone calls for our equal rights?
Chuck
Sorry to inform you guys, but it would be totally inappropriate for the President to interfere with state legislation! Give it a rest, ok? I, for one, don’t understand why you’re so anxious to have something that clearly doesn’t work for the majority of the population! It used to be that being gay was like belonging to a special, secret club; today it’s become so mainstream that it’s almost boring!
Robert, NYC
@Chuck:
Well, of course he’s not going to support it but he won’t work against it either, he’ll probably say if anything that its up to individual states to decide and not for him to interfere. I suspect he will also state that the federal government should not be involved in marriage. However, it would be foolish to make such a statement because the federal government most certainly does get involved when it confers more than one thousand rights and privileges that can only come from marriage and only straight couples are entitled to them. Its borne out when he says that civil unions should also be at the federal level, direct government involvement if ever there were.
Actually Chuck, neither did full civil rights for the African American minority work for the majority of the population until a white President (Johnson) intervened to support full equality and the Supreme Court decided in favor of it.
DeAnimator
Since I live here, I can categorically say Illinois is a shit hole of racism and heterosexism. Be prepared for this to fail. Whoever supports it.
Chuck
Are you part of the Queerty team? I was addressing their unending need to blast the president at any chance possible. I did not attack anyone personally, so not sure why you felt the need to do so to me. And, btw, thank you for the unnecessary history lesson.
Chuck
I was replying to Robert in NYC, but the system didn’t process it that way.
mark
@Chuck: But the president is OK with interfering in state elections?
http://www.queerty.com/obama-doesnt-want-marriage-lover-gov-david-paterson-running-ny-anymore-20090921/
james
1) Queerty’s incessant Obama-bashing is getting tiresome. Yeah, I’m annoyed with him, too, and am not too happy with him treating us as a political liability, but geez, the whining does not look good on you, QTY.
2) This legislation hasn’t got a chance in hell, or Illinois. This may be a Blue state and the city of Chicago may not have had a Republican mayor since like 1950, and there may be a couple liberal suburbs on Chicago’s border, but this is hardly a liberal or progressive area. And while I appreciate what Heather is doing, as she is my state rep., I wonder if she is doing this because she faces a gay man in her next primary. And as far as I know, there has been no groundswell for equal marriage legislation in Illinois. I believe that Equality Illinois and a gay state rep. have been working on a civil unions bill in the state, but I thought marriage was something that would be way off in the future. And judging by the failure of the civil unions bill in Illinois, this marriage bill stands no chance of passing anytime soon.