"To me, marriage is a recognition of love, and the state should not be in the business of discriminating," Emanuel said. more ›

State Representatives Greg Harris, Deb Mell, Ann Williams, Kelly Cassidy, Sara Feigenholtz and Sen. Heather Steans are in talks with Illinois organizations about introducing a bill that would establish marriage equality in Illinois, according to the Windy City Times. more ›

Opposite-sex couples in Illinois are opting for civil unions, in solidarity with gay couples who aren’t legally allowed to get married in the Prairie State. But it isn't the main reason. more ›

State Rep. Deb Mell, while happy that Gov. Quinn is signing the Civil Unions Bill into law Monday at the Chicago Cultural Center, told WBEZ that Illinois still has a way to go in the gay rights department. Mell still plans on traveling to Iowa, where gay marriage is legal, to wed her fiancée. "(We) sat down with our accountant recently to fill out forms and we had to check 'single,'" Mell said. "And that wasn't true." more ›

A college administrator at Benedictine University in Springfield is accusing the university of firing her over a wedding announcement she and her wife filed in the Springfield State Journal-Register. more ›

In a conversation with the Daily Herald earlier this week, Governor Pat Quinn affirmed his optimism that civil union legislation will pass in Illinois by the year's end - a crucial deadline of sorts for LGBT activists as they look toward a gubernatorial race whose polls have continually favored Bill Brady, who staunchly opposes such legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples. more ›

With California's Prop 8 likely en route to the Supreme Court and poll after poll revealing ever-broadening support for same-sex marriage, bordering on majority support in more states than ever, one would expect the country's most visible socially conservative talking heads would be frothing at the news. But, it turns out, they're not. And one suburban Chicago group is really, really not happy about that fact. more ›

Would Illinois voters support gay marriage or at least civil unions? It's a hot topic, especially in the wake of the recent Prop 8 legal wrangling in California, and one that may not be resolved any time soon. But that didn't stop the Tribune from polling 800 "heads of households" in the six-county Greater Chicagoland area about their opinions on same-sex marriage and civil unions. Among their findings: more ›

A federal judge in California has lifted the stay on gay marriages tied to the Prop 8 ruling but marriages won't be allowed until August 18. Our sister sites LAist and SFist have more info on the ruling. more ›

The judge presiding over the federal trial challenging Prop 8, which banned same sex marriage in California, has overturned the initiative. Our sisters sites LAist and SFist have more on the decision. Official court documents in the case are available here. The battle is hardly over, though, as supporters of Prop 8 filed a stay on the judge's ruling before it was even announced, meaning there's another appeal to come and a potential trip to the Supreme Court still looms. more ›

A ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker in the federal trial challenging the constitutionality of California's gay marriage-banning Proposition 8 is due late this afternoon, alerting activists on both sides of the issue nationwide who have anxiously awaited a decision in the unprecedented trial since it began in January. In Chicago, LGBT activists have planned a rally for Daley Plaza at 6 p.m. Other cities nationwide have scheduled similar rallies. more ›

The issue of gay marriage will come to the forefront of Illinois politics for a brief period today as State Rep. Deborah Mell plans to address the state legislature about her engagement to her long-time partner, Christin Baker. The pair got engaged on April 10 but won't be getting married in Illinois. That's because there are no laws allowing gay marriage - or even civil unions - in Illinois. Instead, Mell and Baker plan to go to Iowa to be wed, but not before Mell brings up the issue to fellow lawmakers. Mell hopes to light a new spark in the battle for equal rights. Both the Equal Marriage Act (Senate Bill 2468) and The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act (House Bill 2234) remain mired in committee and likely won't see passage any time soon. Talking to Carol Marin on Chicago Tonight, Mell expressed her consternation. more ›

State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington) may have just narrowly won the GOP's stamp of approval for his gubernatorial run, but a bill he authored was not as successful this week, as SB 3447, which would allow certain tax-exempt religious organizations to discriminate against prospective employees on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or religion, was not called to vote Tuesday. more ›

Recent months have seen a number of setbacks for gay marriage advocates, including notable losses in Maine, New York and - most recently - New Jersey, but Illinois activists have hit the ground running in their quest for same-sex civil union protections in the new year. more ›

We know it's not Chicago-related, but we know many in Chicago are following the proceedings of the Prop 8 trial out in California. Our sisters sites LAist and SFist will have ongoing coverage throughout the trial. Get caught up with LAist's Guide to the trial and some of SFist's coverage from earlier today. more ›

Openly gay State Senate candidate Jim Madigan was in for a surprise last Thursday when Leo Smith, husband of 7th District State Senator Heather Steans, arrived at his campaign fundraiser party at The Call in Andersonville to sulk in the corner for an hour before drunkenly confronting his wife's rival. more ›

State Sen. Heather Steans made headlines when she filed the Equal Marriage Act (SB 2468), a bill introducing the topic of gay marriage to the Illinois state senate for the first time, yesterday. more ›

• The B.F. Shaw Printing Co., parent company of the McHenry County-based newspaper Northwest Herald, has sued Cal Skinner Jr. of the McHenry County Blog for damages based on a post Skinner made regarding an alleged loan to the paper, claiming such a loan never happened.
• The City has filed applications for grants that would provide upwards of $106 million meant to hire 400 new police officers. But the grants, good for three years, contain the provision that the officers have to remain on the city payroll for at least one additional year after.
• At yesterday's Pride Parade, Sen. Roland Burris supported civil unions but stopped short of endorsing gay marriage - a view shared by Pres. Barack Obama.

Yesterday's announcement by the California Supreme Court that they would upheld Prop 8 had many gay rights supporters upset, even here in Chicago. Over 600 supporters showed up in spite of the rain for a rally held in front of the Center on Halsted. more ›

Update: The California Supreme Court has voted to uphold the controversial Prop 8. The final vote was 6-1 in favor of upholding. The 18,000 gay and lesbian marriages already recognized will remain legal. Sister site LAist has more coverage. Salon has the full decision here [PDF, all 185 pages of it]. more ›

Today in Iowa, the same-sex marriage ban was officially lifted, meaning same-sex couples could apply for marriage licenses. A judge also waived the three-day waiting period for one couple, meaning they could get married today, the state's first same-sex marriage since the ruling. In the wake of these events, the Tribune has published an editorial in favor of civil unions in Illinois, which also coincides with a bill currently before the Illinois General Assembly. more ›

After the recent decision to allow gay marriage in Iowa, there's been cause for optimism amongst supporters in Illinois. Whispers grew a little louder on Monday when Gov. Quinn, speaking at Harper College in Palatine, indicated that a civil union law may not be far away for Illinois. Said Quinn: "I think that's probably where the legislature is headed in the state." With a civil union bill currently in the General Assembly, it's a distinct possibility. However, there are indications that a law allowing gay marriage isn't in the state's near-future. The Times and Democrat - a paper based out of South Carloina, of all places - addressed the issue this week. more ›

Puppy love will be in the Oak Park air this weekend as the town readies to break the world record for simultaneous dog marriages. At the "I Do, Doggone It!" mass canine wedding event going on this Saturday, pet owners hope to match more mutts than ever in holy matrimony. According to the almighty Guinness (book, not beer) the current record set in May 2007 in Littleton, Colorado stands at 178 canine weddings. In an effort to beat this number, a doggy "speed dating" event will take place first, which we imagine will include a lot of quick n' dirty butt sniffing among the dogs and plenty of giggly awkwardness among the owners. A wedding reception, photos ops and games and prizes will follow. Register here. more ›

44th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney has introduced an amendment to Chicago’s domestic-partnership ordinance. The ordinance allows for registered domestic partners of city employees to receive benefits. The proposed amendment will modify the language so that any city employee can keep his or her benefits if they legally marry in another jurisdiction. The amendment is just a technical change. more ›

New York Times reporter Monica Davey took an "unscientific survey" of people at the Cultural Center yesterday, asking them questions from the new citizenship test. People didn't do too well. We decided to do our own "unscientific survey" of Chicagoist staffers and friends, and ... wow. Somewhere, our history teachers are in a corner gently weeping. Highlights of our wrongness: 42. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of... more ›

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried... more ›

As John Edwards buckles down and tries to keep his presidential bid moving forward while his wife deals with the return of cancer, the two other major Democratic players — Hillary and Barack — have been in the news lately for their stands not just on gay marriage, but the morality of homosexuality in general. After Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Chicago Tribune that "homosexual acts between... more ›

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend... more ›

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it a few more times, just for fun? For example, SFist is sure the San Francisco Chronicle wishes they could blame server problems for this error. But this San Francisco man that appeared on "The Daily Show" is, sadly, no glitch in the system. It's going to take more than server problems to get Torontoist into hot pants -- and if the short short post wasn't enough to cause us some server problems of our own, how about those eye gazing parties? It's enough to make them contemplate joining the EU. Our friends at Phillyist are having server problems in places where the sun don't shine, caused perhaps by the great Thai food they ate last week. Well, when you're having server problems of the stinky kind, perhaps it's for the best that you stick to phone sex. We thought about asking Gothamist if this building collapse had our server inside it (thus explaining the server problems, you see) , but then we found out the collapse was part of marriage gone wrong. New York's new lacrosse team needs a name, might we recommend "The Server Problems"? Screw lacrosse, we're playing bocce. Or maybe we'll forgo the sports all together and hit Movable Hype 9.0. But how will we get there when server, we mean, traffic problems go unchecked? Over at Miamist, they debate the benefits of server problem-free Starbucks, over local joints. They also look into crashes of a nonserver problem nature, and a court TV show shot on their beaches. It's no server problem when Austinist's local boys The Mercers get love from Esquire. MySpace is also no stranger to server problems but that's not what has Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott pissed at them. Greg, have a crack cookie. Seattlest found a great way around the server problems, as they took it live with their inaugural trivia night. Perhaps author and radio personality John Moe will be an answer at next week's competition? But if you drive there, better not piss off Keith Gormezano, or server problems like you never imagined might rain down on your poor little car. Bostonist would like to send some some server problems toward rejoicing gay marriage opponents. Sigh. Bostonist seems pretty good at bartering, so maybe they can trade some of those anti-marriage busybodies for some problem-free servers. How we regret the server problems in the language section of our brain that keep us from learning Portuguese! We'd love to read Sampaist, but will have to settle for the visual. This week we see "an advertisement from 1974 talking about the inauguration of the subway in São Paulo (also know as SP). The funny thing about this video is that it is totally nonsense. They mixed the subway with a carnival parade and a party inside the subway car." Our pals down south also posted this music
video released by the band Cansei de Ser Sexy. Scroll down for the English portion of this post. Houstonist refuses to butter up nemesis Ken Lay, who had his official send off to that server problem down below last week. (Jesus wept.) Shanghaiist causes us the enviable server problem of "too many awesome social options", as they rock our world with , and encourage us to fag hag it up. Then there's DJ Jazzy Jeff to see. Whatever we do in Shanghaii, we're bringing this guy. But not her. more ›

While the whole idea of a constitutional ban on gay marriage eludes us, like if people suddenly started clamoring to allow employers to hire or fire people on the basis of age, race or gender, it’s still an issue that people like to talk about (especially right before highly contested elections). So even as we scratch our heads we figure we have to keep the discussion open as long as citizens want to, because that’s sort of part of democracy. more ›