Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Hitting Home

Daily Herald | News: "Gay marriage question could shake up fall elections in the suburbs"

It was bound to happen eventually. Yesterday Protect Marriage Illinois, after a desperate last-minute call for every last signature it could find, turned in 345,000 to place a nonbinding referendum on the ballot this November. Unless Equality Illinois challenges enough signatures successfully to drop the total below the threshold of 283,000, Illinoisans will vote--albeit without any actual impact other than to express their opinions--on whether the following cutely-worded amendment should be added to the state constitution:
To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, a marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.
Nothing like making the "Think of the children!" argument right in the constitution, is there?

I would like to believe that Illinois will set an example for the rest of the country and vote against this nonsense. But I suspect that the next several months will be very ugly ones, and I'm not at all confident that the outcome will be the one I desire. We were cleaning out the garage this weekend and I found my old "Freedom means freedom for everyone" sign. I may be carrying it again this fall...

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