Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Illinois to be sixth state to allow civil unions

Illinois Senate approves civil unions; bill headed to governor - Springfield, IL - The State Journal-Register

The bill becomes law on June 1, 2011, even if the Governor does not sign the bill.  Governor Quinn made a campaign promise to sign the bill into law, so I expect he will follow through.  I'm still in shock that this bill passed!  
~ John

3 comments:

  1. This is wildly good news. And totally under my radar.

    Now I wonder, when the law goes into effect, will Illinois recognize gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions?

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  2. @Allen, Excellent indeed! Trying to do some preliminary planning here already LOL. The Spfld. paper said the law starts June 1, but another paper said July 1 (usually new laws here do start July 1). Anyway, I'm fine, thanks and hope you are too!

    @Cubby, Yes, good news. It surprised me! When the Gov. promised in his campaigning to sign it, I thought he was just saying that thinking it wouldn't pass!

    Sadly, NO when the law goes into effect, Illinois will NOT recognize any marriage except that between a man and a woman. We are one of the paranoid states that put that in the state constitution (if I'm not mistaken) a few years ago in an effort to make sure gay marriage would never be legal in this state.

    If I'm wrong about it being in the state constitution, I am still 100% sure that no marriage will be recognized here unless it is between a man and woman. I read that somewhere, but as you can imagine, I have been reading everything I can find about our new civil unions!

    Also NO civil unions are recognized by the Federal government :( meaning NO joint federal tax returns, etc for couples in a civil union. We ALWAYS get the SHAFT (no pun intended)!

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