Protect Marriage Petitions Filed
For a first time petition effort, it was pretty good.
421,801 signatures were collected. And, that's not counting the ones that were stolen from the office of Crystal Lake's St. Thomas Catholic Church.
In any petition campaign, there are good signatures and bad signatures.
Bad ones can be on petitions which are not notarized.
Under the flaky Illinois law, which is designed to discourage citizen petitioning, bad petitions can also contain signatures from more than one election jurisdiction.
For example, in Kane County, people from Aurora must sign different petitions from the folks in the rest of Kane County. Those in the Kane County part of Elgin must sign one petition, which cannot be mixed with those from the Cook County side.
The minimum number of signatures required is 283,111.
345,199 were filed.
One would assume that only the ones considered most valid were filed.
Residents of all counties signed petitions.
More than one-third of the petition signers represent minority communities, the organizers say.
11,581 people passed the petitions.
2,635 church congregations participated. 
Illinois Family Institute and the Family Taxpayers Network did the heavy organizational lifting.
The Daily Herald says it could help elect Peter Roskam and David McSweeney to congress.
Two other citizen initiatives were attempted this year. One was a constitutional amendment (called the Redfern Amendment) which would have limited the General Assembly to meeting once every two years and re-instated cumulative voting in 3-member Illinois House districts. The other was an advisory referendum that would have sought approval of what sounded like this year's version of socialized medicine. Its web site is www.illinoishealthcarenow.com.
So liberals seeking health care reform failed to reach the minimum number needed for filing, while social conservatives succeeded.
The last advisory referendum was the so-called Thompson Proposition. Signatures were gathered by precinct committeemen in 1978. Legislation resulted, from which newspapers have been making money on ever since. The ads warn taxpayers when tax districts seek to increase their tax take by more than 5%, if memory serves me correctly.
How ironic that the petitions should be filed the same day I received my state retiree Benefit Choice Options announcing that Governor Rod Blagojevich's adminstration has extended taxpayer benefits to "same-sex domestic partners"...without any legislative authorization, of course.
With Crystal Lake's Donald Udstuen scheduled for sentencing Wednesday, McHenry County Blog may be the place to find as much about him in one place as anywhere.
28 comments:
how many of those 421,801 signatures were duplicates? i am told that there were numerous duplicates (same voter signing more than once) on the petitions.
How much of a favor is this now for JBT? How much of a bind does it put her in?
I would vote against this for two reasons:
1) I don't want to see marriage constitutionalized.
2) I don't have a problem with same-sex marriages.
I accept a conservative case for it. In fact, it's one solution for many of our problems for families. (Problems for which folks from IFI deserve some credit for keeping on the front burner).
That said, I also agree with Scalia when he said Judges no better to decide moral issues then Judges.
Therefore a referendum is the best way to gauge the publics opinion, the ultimate Judges, on this issue. I sure don't want courts deciding this.
So I'm guessing JBT, Duckworth, McSweeny and plenty of others will come out saying vote for this (or vote no strictly on the cluddering constitution aspect) but comeout against same-sex marriage but maybe offer some civil union alternative instead.
That's probably the best solution.
sorry, Sclaia said Judges no better to decide then anyone else... it's early... And I don't feel like recopying to correct..
final afterthought for opponents of this...
Imagine how much better your case would be if you had come out in Support of the Coalition in Iraq and the whole effort against Bin Laden and extreme Islam.
If you had demanded a right to fight and supported ROTC on campuses.
If you had said when radical Islam targets a secularist, a trade unionist, a democrat in Iraq; they target us all... and their fight is our fight, it is a univesal fight for liberty and we belong with them.
Imagine how much sense your case for freedom to marry would make in that context... if you had agreed to condem our own local extremeists like Farrahkan.
Instead we'll find the exhibitionists again in the gay parade and the condemnations that the tradionalists are bigots.
I'll vote againsts this knowing many of the people voting against it with me well deserve to lose.
You can dance around it all you want, but this is motivated by one thing and one thing only: ugly bigotry. I hope you enjoy knowing how much pain this causes gays and lesbians who want nothing more than to live their lives in peace with the same rights that straight people take for granted.
Imagine how much better your case would be if you had come out in Support of the Coalition in Iraq and the whole effort against Bin Laden and extreme Islam.
Imagine that I don't accept conventional Beltway wisdom at face value and know that Saddam Hussein HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH AL QAEDA and that your attempt to link the two is disingenuous at best and outright lying at worst.
Imagine how much REAL terrorism the $300 billion dollars poured down the Iraq hole (much of it ending up in the pockets of well-connected American corporations, of course) would have fought. Imagine how much nearly 2,500 dead American soldiers could have done to fight al Qaeda and similar terrorists if they weren't dead from this disastrous war of choice.
Spare those of us who have been right about pretty much every action of the Bush administration your gag-inducing sanctimony, Bill.
Bill-
As history has shown us, marriage has up until more recent times been arranged marriages often with spouses seeking romance outside of their spouses. In some societies, marriages were between relations, sometimes close. In others, spouses were allowed to take on more than one partner.
So, I have to ask, as a 'traditionalist', are you an incestuous, adultering polygamist?
Or do 'traditionalists' get to pick and choose what constitutes 'tradition'.
(By the way, I do not assume Bill is any of those negative types of people. This is more of a wayward argument on the topic of 'tradition'.)
By the way, I keep trying to figure out that magical moment I made the choice to be heterosexual. I can 't quite seem to pinpoint it. That makes me think maybe it wasn't a choice but I know that can't be right because that would make opponents of same-sex marriage 'bigots'.
Imagine that liberal activists aren't the only ones voting against.
This is only an advisory vote, so we're not actually changing the law, whatever the outcome.
The healthcare referendum website isn't down. http://illinoishealthcarenow.org/
Gish, one reason I support same sex marriage (not civil unions) is because the tradition has changed over time... Stephanie Coontz has written some good stuff on this.
I think marriage and family will have to be redefined.
As for being sanctimonous, the leftish gay activists who speakout shamelessly turn their backs on someone like Farrahkan and Sister Muhammed...
Peter Tatchall is a Gay Activist in the UK. He's probably the one guy who got homosexuality unclassified as a disease...
He wrote this about today's liberals and progressives,
We are witnessing one of the greatest betrayals by the left since so-called left-wingers backed the Hitler-Stalin pact and opposed the war against Nazi fascism. Today, the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values. While it deplores the 7/7 terrorist attack on London, only last year it welcomed to the UK the Muslim cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who endorses the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. These same right-wing leftists back the so-called 'resistance' in Iraq. This 'resistance' uses terrorism against civilians as its modus operandi - stooping to the massacre of dozens of Iraqi children in order kill a few US soldiers. Terrorism is not socialism; it is the tactic of fascism. But much of the left doesn't care. Never mind what the Iraqi people want, it wants the US and UK out of Iraq at any price, including the abandonment of Iraqi socialists, trade unionists, democrats and feminists. If the fake left gets its way, the ex-Baathists and Islamic fundamentalists could easily seize power, leading to Iranian-style clerical fascism and a bloodbath. I used to be proud to call myself a leftist. Now I feel shame. Much of the left no longer stands for the values of universal human rights and international socialism.
I'll vote agianst this proposal, but I'll flip channels quick when Garcia comes on TV telling us why.
Two women are objectively beautiful like art. Two men are inherently disgusting.
But despite the possible subjective artistic analysis above:
1. Homosexual (male on male) sex acts are inherently unsafe and unsanitary. It is unnatural to the extent that a scientific, medical, and obvious analysis will indicate that the male penis was not meant to be inserted into the anus and there is no evolutionary or complementary function. However, the male penis does naturally insert into the female vagina and does have a biological aspect.
2. Homosexual (male) is unsanitary for the above reasons and the bacteria from fecal matter and the increased incidence in disease even beyond HIV. Homosexual males are at a much higher risk of AIDS/HIV.
However, for female lesbianism there is actually
1. less of a risk of AIDS
2. It is not as unsanitary and less unsanitary (or more sanitary) than homosexual sex
Most people (male or female) are repulsed by male on male sex BUT most people (male and female) can appreciate the aesthetic beauty of two female forms interacting.
Even from a traditional/cultural/theological point of view---Sodomy is an abomination NOT 69ng. Female homosexuality is not dealt in as such a harsh way in the Bible.
The United States is at war Vik.
It's the fight of the sodomites as much as any other freedom loving person.
The Army has movies on how to stay clean if that's an issue for you.
anon 2:29 PM Thanks for the better link to Illinoishealthcarenow. I have put it in the article.
Cal, how can a libertarian support this nonsense? If someone wants to get married, why should the state have a right to stop them? If a church will recognize a marriage, what is the ethical basis for the state not to recognize it?
Carl,
It's illegal for first cousins to marry in Illinois before age 51.
Polygamy is illegal.
There are a few conditions for marriage, age, some counties require 24 hour wait.
There are rules and Illinois entitled to set them within constitutional boundaries.
Illinois clearly has an interest in marriage laws... I'd allow it.. but if it has to be decided, voters should do it, not judges.
How libertarians view it I don't know...
...I remember when the new left considered all marriage a form of bondage. Now the left thinks its a right.
Consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they please.
@Vik: LOL at your analysis. In nature there are more animals that perform male/male sexual acts than there are female/female acts. It appears, this is a part of life and people need to stop acting like it just started.
Bill,
Please remove your head from the sand and join us here in reality. "The left" you continually refer to is a strawman ENTIRELY of your own invention. On what planet did I or millions of others on the left ever approve of the actions of the Iraqi "resistance" or any of the other extreme actions? Not wanting to pour hundreds of billions of dollars more into the black hole known as Iraq--not to mention God knows how many more brave American military men and women--does not make me complicit in anything. The responsiblity for this war and the death and misery it has caused lies 100% with those who supported it, which I NEVER DID. I and millions of others on "the left" were right, and we're tired of getting lectured by the likes of you. We're the ones who have earned the right to lecture. To repeat: WE WERE RIGHT.
And by the way, you are wrong: this country is NOT at war. Only Congress can declare war, and it has not done so. Read the Constitution.
vik,
What's with the right's OBSESSION with sexual acts? I'm gay and I don't give it nearly this much thought, ever. Methinks you doth protest too much.
anon 11:04
right, officially it was the Vietnam Conflict, not war, but we still called it an anti-war movement. And most of the folks I hear protesting, are protesting War.
You're right in a sense that what's going on now in Iraq, while brutal and lethal, doesn't quite seem a war.
The anti-war left is hardly a strawman... I know many personally.
They think George Bush a greater threat to the world than the Mullah's in Iran. Push 'em a bit and they'll say Israel is driving Bush.
There's a lethal and corrisive ideology in this country and the world.
They'll call Bush a bigot on gay rights but turn in indifference to the hanging of gay teens in Iran or Farrahkan's condemnation of Israel for allowing a gay pride parade (go figure that).
Read Nick Cohen's column on the split within the left in his column on Iranian Communist Maryam Namaize: One woman's war.
Namazie is on the right side of the great intellectual struggle of our time between incompatible versions of liberalism. One follows the fine and necessary principle of tolerance, but ends up having to tolerate the oppression of women, say, or gays in foreign cultures while opposing misogyny and homophobia in its own. (Or 'liberalism for the liberals and cannibalism for the cannibals!' as philosopher Martin Hollis elegantly described the hypocrisy of the manoeuvre.) The alternative is to support universal human rights and believe that if the oppression of women is wrong, it is wrong everywhere.
To my knowledge, IFI has never called for Israel to be washed in blood because it allowed a gay pride parade in a holy city.
Farrahkan has and Garcia doesn't have much problem sitting with Sister Muhammed on an anti discrimination panel...
...so these are the odd times we find ourselves in. The Christian right a better friend maybe of Gays throughout the world the the leftist gay activists.
Now, the message the IFI should ponder is that gays fight today in the force in significant numbers (probably, that was my Army experience) despite don't ask don't tell. So before using oddball language like Viks, they shoud think about that service in a great cause.
It does sound strange BUT Christian fundamentalists and conservatives ARE better friends to Gays WORLDWIDE than Rick Garcia, it is a complicated and nuanced argument or at least not easily seen at first but it is correct.
yes anon... thanks for letting me know I'm not alone.
It is complicated and nuanced until we listen to Garcia waffle on Farrahkan's talk of a Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem, and the need to wash the city with blood.
Then the truth is clear for all.
Bill, if you want to marry your first cousin before she turns 51, the state of Illinois shouldn't stop you.
Bill,
You make no sense. WHO ARE "the left" you constantly cite? I want names. I don't think you actually know anyone who promotes the bizarre stew of ideas that you claim they do. I have few if any Republican friends, but I have liberal/"left" friends who run the whole spectrum, and not one comes close to holding even a partial combination of the contradictory ideas you seem to think "the left" holds en masse.
They'll call Bush a bigot on gay rights but turn in indifference to the hanging of gay teens in Iran or Farrahkan's condemnation of Israel for allowing a gay pride parade (go figure that).
I'm a member of "the left," I'm gay, I think Bush may not personally be a bigot but he consorts with and promotes anti-gay bigotry for cheap political ends (which actually makes him worse than a true believer), I am horrified that gays in Iran are hung, and I think Louis Farrakhan is an extremist who shouldn't be let near a microphone.
(In case you didn't notice, I just destroyed your strawman. One contrary example makes your blanket statement about "the left" false. Or don't you know how logical reasoning works?)
To my knowledge, IFI has never called for Israel to be washed in blood because it allowed a gay pride parade in a holy city.
So I'm supposed to like them? Because they don't want to burn me at the stake (yet), they just want to enshrine me as a second-class citizen in the state and federal constitutions and take away any domestic partner benefits to which I might be entitled, I should thank them? Are you sniffing glue? What the hell?
Btw, Bill, the fact that I'm gay doesn't mean I automatically like Rick Garcia, despite what you may think (you're so wrong about so much else it wouldn't surprise me if you actually thought liking every gay and lesbian person is a requirement of being gay). Garcia's unhesitating support for the disastrously incompetent John Stroger--and his gag-inducing apologias for G-Rod and Sister Muhammed--slid him into the "doofus" column in my mental ledger long ago.
Rick Garcia is a sick joke
non 12:53,
in this case Rick Garica and the folks who support him....
I'll go to Church Sunday and listen to lots of folks panic about the Religous Right's take over with Protect Marriage.
Few will have heard of Garcia's indifference to Sister Muhammed and Farrahkan.
I'll tell them.
Bill, Don't think that Garcia speaks for the entire gay community. Both the Illinois chapters of the Stonewall Democrats and Log Cabin Republicans publicly called for the removal of Sister Muhammad. I believe you can still find it on their websites.
It's just that Garcia is the designated talking head of the gay community thanks to our mainstream media.
I know your right; that Garica doesn't speak for the entire Gay Community.
I know too many Gays who would be appalled by him. (If they paid attention to him; and they should.)
My other gripe though is with the efforts to drive ROTC of campuses over don't ask don't tell.
Left-Gays have that one entirely backwards. They should be demanding ROTC on Campus and joining it.
Democratic leadership finds it impossible to arrive at a principled accomadation on marriage. It's frustrating and just enforces distrust of them.
I simply trust someone more (Bill Brady a great example), even though I disagree with them, who takes a stand based on religous doctrine, and tradition on marriage, then I do Howard Dean who waffles around like this,
Democratic chairman Howard Dean mischaracterized his party's platform on gay rights in an interview courting evangelicals, then set the record straight Thursday when an advocacy group called him on it.
Dean told Christian Broadcasting Network News that the 2004 Democratic platform declares "marriage is between a man and a woman" - just one of the points he made in reaching out to religious conservatives who are largely hostile to the party.
But the platform does not define marriage that way, and his remarks prompted the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to return a $5,000 donation from the Democratic National Committee.
What kind of party is this that so blantedly talks out of both sides of its mouth.
There was a moment of real insight when Bush and Kerry were asked in the debates if homosexuality was learned or nature. It was a classic Bush look and he had the good sense to say I don't know while Kerry went on and on about Mary Cheney is a Lesbian... Kerry tried to play both sides. It was a revealing moment about these candidates and about much of their parties. We see it again now with Dean's comments. We'll see plenty more in Illinois with this referendum.
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