Illinois Republican Chairman Pat Brady // AP Photo
The momentum continues to build for same sex marriage in Illinois.
On Wednesday, Pat Brady, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, said he was putting his "full support" behind marriage equality legislation pending in Springfield.
"More and more Americans understand that if two people want to make a lifelong commitment to each other, government should not stand in their way," Brady said. "Giving gay and lesbian couples the freedom to get married honors the best conservative principles. It strengthens families and reinforces a key Republican value - that the law should treat all citizens equally."
"Importantly, the pending legislation would protect the freedom of religion," Brady added. "No church or religious organization would ever be required to perform a union with which it disagrees."
Wow. A Republican being reasonable. Good for him.
I hope Mr. Brady turned out the lights when he left that building.
U better be glad u don't live in my state. We would foust u out next election. I am a conservative Republican and would like to say that u r not standing on the same platform that I thought the Party was standing on. That does not strengthen the American Family. Boo to you.
As usual, "the best conservative principles" are simply liberal principles the conservatives were decades too late on.
It's a relief to see conservatives finally coming around on this issue (to position themselves politically - nobody believes they actually mean what they say). But make no mistake: this is yet another issue on which conservatives are simply abandoning their traditional backwardness and adopting the liberal position, then claiming it is conservative. From abolition onwards, including suffrage for blacks and for women, birth control, aid to the poor (EITC was a Nixon program), gay rights, and so many more, conservatives devoted themselves to decades, if not a century or more, of misery for those under their thumb, then caved completely when being on the wrong side of history became a political liability. Gay marriage is just another one (and the third or fourth such example just involving gays alone - even when they're right, conservatives manage to be wrong for decades before they finally join with liberals all the way).
This is a benefit to all who believe in equality, but mostly a benefit to Republicans who can finally put another one of their vile embarrassments to rest. (Those groups do not overlap.)
What am I missing here, Is this The Onion?
That's why I'm no longer a Republican. The GOP no longer represents people of Christian moral conviction. Anyone who thinks they do is fooling themselves.
This is a great bill for the state of IL.Its the only thing that they can pass that wont increase my state tax bill....this state is so broke I'm glad they have something to do that makes them look buzy in Springfield...Bob Mulhall McConnell, IL.
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@Tricia and you other liberals... You love to applaud equal treatment for Gays. F those rich folks though right? We have long since left "equality" for dead. Now the new form of equality is the communist one. The equality where you take from the successful, hard working and family fortunes made with risk, smarts or fortitude. Then give it to the derelict, unlucky, unfortunate, lazy, irresponsible or otherwise disadvantaged.
Who appointed you the conservator of "Christian moral conviction"?? Because Christ sure never said anything about it. That must mean you or some other human made up your hatred for gays. Which makes it Christian exactly how?
Finally, a Republican who understands that gays and lesbians seeking marriage equality are just trying to live their own lives. Yes, government should not stand in their way.
It's hypocritical for other Republicans to push for limited government yet throw up every barrier they can think of to keep gays and lesbians from living their own lives, be those barriers laws against marriage equality or civil unions, laws against the adoption of children by gays and lesbians, or opposition to anti-discrimination laws (Do those laws give the other groups protected by them "special rights"? No!).
The way they demonize the gay-lesbian lifestyle is despicable. Draping homophobia in religion doesn't make it right. Religion didn't make Jim Crow, bans on interracial marriage or the subjugation of women right. You change a few words in their homophobic rhetoric and they sound just like the segregationists of old.
I'm a libertarian Republican who would like to see to religious right with its big-government social agenda go jump off a cliff.
Jo - obviously you are not a big fan of Modern Family. Today's American Family is much different from the Family of the 1950s. Look around you. open your eyes. turnon something but RUSH and Fox News.
Sorry to bring you the bad news, but your “as usual” ain’t so usual, unless you replace your painting of conservatives/Republicans with liberals/Democrats. FYI, the Republican party was founded by anti-slavery activists, who put that activist language in their 1860 platform, before any Democratic party platform had it. Did you not know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican? Did you not know that it was Republicans who passed the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, prohibiting the denial of the right to vote based on race, color or previous condition of servitude. Did you not further know that it was Southern Democrats who devised ways to limit the voting rights of blacks in their states? Did you not know that the first black US senators and representatives were Republicans? Why? Because it was Republicans, not Democrats that were more favorable to their situation. Did you not know that Susan B. Anthony proudly “voted” “straight ticket” Republican in her attempt to cast a vote in the 1872 Presidential election? Why? Because it was Republicans, not Democrats that were more favorable to her cause. Regarding birth control, are you equating opposition to mandating employers to pay for their employees birth control with opposition to birth control? Isn’t birth control still available whether your employer pays for it or not? Isn’t it still legal to obtain and use it whether your employer pays for it or not!? Are you serious!? And I’m not sure where you are going with the EITC. I would think that most Democrats would find it favorable, yet you are in the same breath giving credit to a Republican president while calling Republicans “backwards”. Now, who should be embarrassed?
Since you're familiar with history then surely you know the term Dixiecrat? They were the democrats from southern states like Alabama, South Carolina, etc. Why? Because the Democrats were the party of the south. What happened? After Lyndon Johnson (A Democrat) pushed heavily for the passing of the 1964 civil rights act and eventually signed it into law. Johnson famously said "I just gave the south to the Republicans for the next hundred years." The dixiecrats felt betrayed by the Democratic party and left. Where did they go? Gee, lets look at what party all those southern states belong to now. Republicans stopped being the party of equality and progress when they allowed bigotry into their midst.
So, please, take your doctored history and stuff it. The republican party today is a pox upon it's noble history and your shoddy history lesson can't polish that. And, yes, it's you who should be embarrassed.
Marriage Law
This nation’s founding fathers, being always well aware that we as mortals fall short of the realm of perfection, constructed laws and principles of living based on positive and concrete framework – more explicitly, the teachings of God towards moral soundness and ethically positive structure.
To be sure, the founding fathers enhanced the legal system with various regulations lending to cohesion which were derived directly from Biblical standards. In so doing, the laws and principles of living could enhance human stability as well.
Today, many of those original standards and laws are now negated, much towards the enhancement of uninhibitedness and individual agendas.
We have become a nation unbridled, seeking self wants and desires quite opposite to the groundwork instated by our founders. New laws and behaviors unequivocally indicate same. We are travelling a road such as Rome once followed and fell most loudly from. We have instituted legislation removing the sanctity and soundness of correct practices, thus negating and nullifying those practices. We speak of good as though it were bad and aspire to make bad better. Daily, we see the negative results and still we continue to lesson our principles for the good of self- want and not the good of society. We choose a progression which diminishes our growth and stagnates our continuation.
New marriage is a prime example of growing descent in our society. We seek to degrade the authenticity and structure of natural marriage by transpiring to make it into something ambiguous, unnatural, and determinedly unhealthy. We’ve often, in our progression, lessoned the sanctity of marriage by performance. Now we wish to destroy its structural foundation altogether by adding elements which will lead it to physical decay and ultimate destruction. We propose new marriage laws that will produce the basis for mental and physical chaos, as well as produce a new generation without stability, without direction, and without ethical or moral cohesion. Quite frankly, discouraging results are already making themselves self-evident where such new practices have emerged.
*Conclusively, the more proven evidence is ignored, the greater our chances of non-recovery from that which we unwittingly unleash.
*Let us restore the wholesome sanctity of marriage and help rekindle the innate dignity granted us by our Creator in that season of brief but rooted human perfection - called the beginning.
***Sharon A. Stone
Sharon,
You've got to be kidding! Marriage was created in history for one reason and one reason only. As a real estate contract. Time to remove your personal moral issues and do some real research.
Ted