{"id":546585,"date":"2010-04-28T16:20:48","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T20:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0133ed06aaf3970b"},"modified":"2010-04-28T16:20:48","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T20:20:48","slug":"state-rep-deb-mell-presses-colleagues-to-legalize-civil-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/546585","title":{"rendered":"State Rep. Deb Mell presses colleagues to legalize civil unions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Michelle Manchir<\/em> at 3:20 p.m.
<\/br><\/p>\n

SPRINGFIELD — State Rep. Deb Mell took to the floor of the Illinois House today to promote legalizing gay marriage in Illinois, but longstanding resistance to gay rights issues at the Capitol and election-year politics make approval unlikely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am aware that our governor and many of you on both sides of the aisle
\n do not consider me equal to you and our relationship equal to the
\nrelationships you share with your spouse,\u201d Mell told her colleagues today. \u201cI think we are more alike than we are
\ndifferent.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The remarks by Mell, the daughter of Chicago Ald. Richard Mell, 33rd, and sister of former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich, came after she publicly announced her engagement<\/a> last night on a Chicago TV news program. Mell said she likely will go to Iowa to state her vows with Christin Baker, her partner of nearly six years. Baker was with Mell today as the lawmaker gave her speech.<\/p>\n

Legislation to legalize civil unions passed a House committee nearly a year ago, but the sponsor, Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, said today that he’s still trying to muster up the 60 votes needed to send it to the Senate.<\/p>\n

Illinois has been slow in approving gay rights measures — it took more than 30 years to win approval of a law that outlaws discrimination against gays and lesbians by landlords, real estate agents, employers and lenders. Then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Mell\u2019s brother-in-law, signed that bill in 2005.<\/p>\n

Gov. Pat Quinn, who succeeded his former running mate Blagojevich as governor last year, voiced his support for civil unions today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI favor civil unions,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cI think that\u2019s an issue that we could pass in Illinois, I hope, you know, soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Michelle Manchir at 3:20 p.m. SPRINGFIELD — State Rep. Deb Mell took to the floor of the Illinois House today to promote legalizing gay marriage in Illinois, but longstanding resistance to gay rights issues at the Capitol and election-year politics make approval unlikely. \u201cI am aware that our governor and many of you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}