Gay marriage passes the Illinois House, on a 61-54 vote (60 votes were needed).
And and hour and a half later passes the Illinois Senate!
The vote is now: 32-21, the Senate concurs on #SB10.
— IL Senate Democrats (@ILSenDems) November 5, 2013
The Illinois governor, a Democrat, has promised to sign it. It’s over, we won! Marriages will commence June 1, 2014. 
14 states and DC currently permit gay couples to wed, and Illinois will make it 15. The states that currently permit gay marriages are: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington state. President Obama has weighed in, calling this “huge” and adding “love is love.”
This is huge: The Illinois House just passed marriage equality. #LoveIsLove — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 5, 2013
More from the President:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 5, 2013Statement by the President on Marriage Equality in Illinois
Tonight, I applaud the men and women of the Illinois General Assembly, a body in which I was proud to serve, for voting to legalize marriage equality in my home state.
As President, I have always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally under the law. Over time, I also came to believe that same-sex couples should be able to get married like anyone else. So tonight, Michelle and I are overjoyed for all the committed couples in Illinois whose love will now be as legal as ours – and for their friends and family who have long wanted nothing more than to see their loved ones treated fairly and equally under the law.
I also commend the members of the General Assembly for approaching this issue in a fair and open way, and for recognizing the importance of our commitment to religious freedom by engaging the religious community in this conversation. Throughout this debate, they’ve made it clear that this is about civil marriages and civil laws, and made sure that churches and other institutions of faith are still free to make their own decisions that conform to their own teachings.
As I said in my Inaugural Address last January, our journey as a nation is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. And tonight, I’m so proud that the men and women elected to serve the people of the great state of Illinois have chosen to take us one step further on that journey to perfect our union.
This is getting crazy :) Follow @aravosis
I have never tried to use the contact button, and it doesn’t work for me either. Maybe someone else knows what is happening.
The contact button!
What wouldn’t let you email?
Hey America Blog editors! I just wanted to let you all know that in the second graph of this story you have two “AND’s.” I would have emailed you all, but it wouldn’t let me! Love the story and the blog! Have a great day!
1) Posts about the ongoing attacks and betrayals of Democrats and Republicans on LGBT rights are not old news, they’re current news and they began with in earnest with Reagan and the Clintons. Clinton didn’t champion and sign DOMA simply because he’s unprincipled, he did it because he’s a bigot.
2) Try the truth sometime. I don’t think I’ve ever said or implied that DOMA was a Democrat initiative. What I usually say is that Clinton championed and then signed a number of Republican bills and agenda points including NAFTA, the deregulation bills of 1999 and 2000 that caused the current, Clinton, Depression, DOMA and massively beefing up the cops and gutting welfare. I do point out that large numbers of Democrats voted for it.
3) Some will say that Clinton is a renegade and I’ve called him a Dixiecrat but the truth remains that what Clinton did on dozens of pieces of legislation, his lies about WMDs, his use of rendition and his mass murder of half a million Iraqi children are all proof positive of the lack of differences between Democrats and Republicans.
4) Finally, when GeorgeSantayana said “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” , who do you think he was talking about?
Are any comments being affected? I haven’t seen any edit buttons for anyone but myself.
Your posts about that are getting old. Yes Clinton campaigned on it and should be called out for that but it was vetoproof,nothing he could have done would have stopped it.
DOMA was a Republican creation all the way,be nice if you were stop portraying it to be something else.
May the force be with you.
The truth is I thought Illinois was going to beat us to it.
Another state that’s moved beyond Bill Clintons DOMA and as soon as Congress repeals part 2 of DOMA or the courts strike it down the better.
May? August? How time flies when you’re having fun.
Yeah, well, I can do it here at home as of June 1. It’ll take me at least that long to find a husband.
Approved in May, and we’ve been a -marrying since August 1. Minnesotans refused to vote for a Marriage Amendment last November. Also, there are much better roads between Chicago and the Twin Cities or a very easy Amtrak ride. The ride through Wisconsin is beautiful. Just don’t stop too long.
Twin Cities — Yeah, but that just happened a few weeks ago.
Wisconsin? Not while Scott Walker’s in office.
Going to the Twin Cities would have been less embarrassing.
Maybe Wisconsin will get the idea soon.
Whew! Now I don’t have to think about how embarrassing it would be for a Chicagoan to have to go to Iowa to get married.
How do you “enforce” a law making something legal?
Some of our straight, concrete, republicon brothers who lurk on this site aren’t all that adept at picking up less obvious messages.
You’re absolutely right, Myrddin, of course. I posted my earlier post just between late meetings at my job, when I much rather would have liked to be at home having dinner with my now legal again husband.
Capitalising all the letters of random words in your comment are not as effective as you think, to say the least.
The Cooch, while not BLOWN away by voters is, now SUCKING back tears since he was unable to RUB OUT enough votes from his white, male PECKERwood followers to SLIDE into the governor’s mansion. BUTT, I’m sure that the Cooch’s LIPS are not sealed. I hear that Frothy Santorum, the Hollywood studio HEAD, has persuaded an LA production company, BOHICA pictures, to give the Cooch a HAND, even though he’ll be SLIPPING into that studio through the BACK DOOR to gain ENTRY to the LAP of luxury. Perhaps the Cooch will find a HOLE lot of GLORY in his new POSITION and be able to LAP UP the attention that he craves. It would be a pity to see the Cooch’s CRACK ORAL skills wasted elsewhere. I’m sure that he could not FAIL to hear the CHING of all of that cash that will be available to him, his golden TONGUE and astute political HEAD. POLES show that failed Republicon politicians can make a go of WALKING this side of the STREET.
My apologies for being horribly off-topic again: Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Cuccinelli, who wants sodomy laws back, lost to McAuliffe 48% to 45.5% (6% for the Libertarian). L-o-s-e-r.
They always fly when they come here. I live 10 miles from O’Hare Field. I always fly when I go there.
I can confirm I’m seeing the buttons, too.
The state level wins build the case nationally.
If it was just MA with marriage equality then it would be very difficult to win a SCOTUS ruling that other states have to recognize them. With 15 states backing equality and heading to a majority of the population living in equality states, the case is a lot stronger.
The problem is that nobody wants to go to the SCOTUS until they think we will win. To go there and lose would put us back. We are getting to the point where the inequality states are reduced to the bigoted Republican rump of the old confederacy and the case will be as strong as it is likely to get. But I would still expect two round trips there. The first cases up will be forcing Texas etc. to recognize marriages in other states and then there will be the final case forcing them to allow marriages in their state.
Just wishful thinking so far, but from all of the polls, even ones by right-leaning pollsters, looks like he’s trailing by double digits. The Cooch will be following Perry in his good work later tonight. http://blurbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/corndog.jpg
Obama’s home state today, and hopefully his birth state is next. Too bad we have to wait till June 1 for the first people to get married. They couldn’t get enough votes to start it right away.
There’s more to it than that. We’re checking.
He’s gone??? Hoo ray.
Illinois up for gay marriage on the same day that the Cooch goes down (perhaps literally as well as figuratively) in Virginia! It’s doubly historic.
Um. I’m from Illinois. My first love died in 1992. But I wasn’t there with him. We had drifted apart for no obvious reason except that this development is LATE. Very LATE. 22 years, or more likely 42 years TOO FREAKING LATE. Several years ago after having found out he died in TEXAS, I took wine, bread and some music to cemetery. I put a rainbow flag into the ground near his headstone.
So all you marriagable chaps and ladies out there. Relish what you have.
EVERYONE. Right now in this thread, I get Edit buttons that seem to work for other than ME.
Moderators, please check? Thx! The edit box comes up, I put in an edit, but it doesn’t save it. Whew!
True. And who knows what motel, bed and breakfast and other service providers will do to insult people. ;o)
June Cleaaaaaver… ;o)
June. So, we gotta be celibate until June. ;o)
This is awesome! We are now over 57% of the way to getting a majority of the states to allow gay marriage.
15 down!
Just best make sure they fly, because the states in between, especially Ohio, are far less friendly to us gay and lesbian couples.
good news travels fast.
When you have a Hawaiian police officer making statements like this, it makes me wonder. Another oppressed minority hating on other minorities. And, moron that this man is, practically inviting people to kill him. What policeman in his right mind would do that? And he won’t enforce same-sex marriage laws! So he gets to choose what laws he enforces and which ones he ignores. Isn’t he just special?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/tenari-maafala-hawaii_n_4215848.html
I’m glad of this, and I’m celebrating this victory by living my very busy, very ordinary life. My husband and I will celebrate by not having dinner together tonight, because I have a late meeting, and he has a rehearsal.
Have to say, I’m a bit weary of the whiplash. First we were not legal in Massachusetts, and then we were. Then we moved, and we were only sort of legal in Connecticut, and then we were. Then we moved again, and we were only sort of legal in Illinois, and now we are. Half way through, we were not legal according to the Federal government, and now we are. Can we stop the roller coaster and just get the Supremes to strike down the rest of these odious state DOMA laws once and for all?
Now my son and his husband came come visit me in Illinois from NY and know they are legal in both states. HURRAY.
I was born and raised in the Chicago area though I live in Fort Lauderdale now. I’m sure that I’m not the only transplanted Illinois native celebrating tonight.
As a native Illinoisan and a current resident, this is news worth celebrating tonight!!
I live in Chicago, and I am so proud of my state! I am happy for all my friends that can now marry! I cannot wait to go to some wedding receptions.
I’m hopeful.
* = And more than half of New Mexico, by population.
And New Mexico by the holidays?
It’s not a done deal, but it is still looking very likely.
That’ll make 16 states.
Congrats, Illinois! Here’s hoping that Hawaii will follow in a few days.
Bravo, Illinois! 58 Democrats and 3 Republicans passed SB10. That works, which is all that counts.