From: Kristy Combs <kristyc@mchsi.com>
Date: March 3, 2009
Subject: Civil Union bill scheduled for a hearing Thursday - calls needed
This message has been authorized for sending by Bishop Church.
The Civil Union Bill (HB 2234) has been scheduled for a hearing in the Youth and Family Committee this week on Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. in Springfield. If the bill is voted out of committee, it becomes eligible for a vote before the full Illinois House of Representatives.
This bill will legalize civil unions in the state of Illinois, and will treat such civil unions with the same legal obligations, responsibilities, protections and benefits as are afforded within marriage. In other words, civil unions will be different in name only from marriage. As has already been seen in Massachusetts, this will empower the public schools to begin teaching this lifestyle to our young children regardless of parental requests otherwise. It will also create grounds for rewriting all social mores; the current push in Massachusetts is to recognize and legalize all transgender rights (An individual in Massachusetts can now change their drivers license to the gender they believe themselves to be, regardless of actual gender, which means that confused men and women are now legally entering one another's bathrooms and locker rooms. What kind of a safety issue is this for our children?). Furthermore, while the bill legalizes civil unions, it will be used in the courts to show discrimination and will ultimately lead to court mandated same-sex marriages.
To help defeat this bill, please call your state representative and state senator and ask that they support traditional marriage and vote
against the civil unions bill. If you are unsure who your legislators are, please see the link at the end of this email.
Also, please take a moment and call the following members of the Youth and Family Committee to encourage them to vote no on this bill. We need 4 votes to keep it from passing out of the committee. And - as always, please pass this on to all who believe in protecting our families and our children. If you are interested in attending the hearing, it will be held on Thursday, March 5th at 9:00 a.m. in Springfield in Room 122B of the Capitol Building (I can give you directions to the Capitol Building if needed).
Members of the Youth and Family Committee:
Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago)
(Greg Harris is also the sponsor of this bill, but he needs to hear your opposition to this bill)
Chairperson
217-782-3835
Rep. LaShawn K. Ford (D-Chicago)
Vice-Chairperson
217-782-5962
Rep. Mike Fortner (R-West Chicago)
Republican Spokesperson
217-782-1653
Rep. William D. Burns (D-Chicago)
217-782-2023
Rep. Michael P. McAuliffe (R-Chicago)
217-782-8182
Rep. Al Riley (D-Matteson)
217-558-1007
Rep. Dave Winters (R-Rockford)
217-782-0455
Directions for identifying your legislators:
You can use the following link to identify your state legislators and their contact information: http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/SelectSearchType.aspx?NavLink=1 (and enter your 9 digit zip code). If this link doesn't work, you can use the general link www.ilga.gov and then click on "legislator lookup" near the bottom of the page, then click on "by zip+4". Type in your zip code, and you'll see a list of your legislators. You want your state senator and state representative as they will be the ones voting on the bill.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Sister Combs
Updates:
I just noticed that Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin posted this earlier as EXCLUSIVE: Mormon Machine Cranking Up Against Illinois Civil Unions Bill.
And now I see that Rainey has a diary over at Daily Kos as well: LDS now wants to shut down civil unions in IL.
Good. Time is short and I hope this lights up the blogosphere before March 5th.
Between now and then, can someone - anyone - from LDS Church HQ please clarify your organization's position on civil unions?
Is it the position that Utah Gov. Huntsman recently staked out (he's for 'em)? Or is it that of Bishop Church and the Nauvoo 3rd Ward (they're against 'em)?
Somewhere in the middle?
Yes? No? Maybe so?
Memo to Salt Lake: How are the rest of us supposed to have a civil dialogue with a church that refuses to make its own position known? Enough with the guessing games already. You've got your own members running around telling everyone who will listen that their church is not anti-gay, that Mormons view civil unions as unobjectionable enough to leave well enough alone, and then you pull a stunt like this.
I'm not the only one tired of this under-the-radar Mormon politics-by-email. Plenty of faithful Mormons have had enough as well:
So here I get another alarming mail from a good Church member ... The aim of these mails is to foster anger against those that seem to threaten our ideals. It is part of a rhetoric based on lies, or at least on severe alterations of the truth. It triggers people to promptly rally to causes without knowing all the facts.
Memo to Mormons: If you're going to stand up for your ideals, you need to first know what those ideals are. If you're at all unclear about that, simply working to make sure the other side loses every time becomes nothing more than a stalling tactic. At some point, you're going to have to figure out what you stand for and start speaking out about that instead of merely reacting and characterizing those of us with a modicum of clarity about our political ideals as "angry" and "mean" ...
Gratuitous further update: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Hatch's secret drug firm links
Orrin, that one's for picking Jeff Flint to run your disastrous 2000 presidential campaign. That said, Jeff finally made good, didn't he? Anywho, I'll pass along my congrats to Jeff through Frank when I see him up at the Manning Networking Conference & Exhibition 2009. I'm just worried about putting Jaime on the spot when I do. |
