Yesterday, we wrote about the effort by State Senator David Koehler (D-Peoria) to attach an anti-gay amendment to a bill that would aid blind people (seriously, the bill would amend the "White Cane Law.") Koehler's amendment would have allowed adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples.
Today, the nasty amendment was defeated.
Since Phil Reese tipped us off about this development yesterday -- and did an amazing job of rallying the LGBT netroots -- we'll let him share the news:
When you put your mind to it, you can achieve just about anything!Great work to all involved.
Thanks to hundreds of calls being made by people all over Illinois and all over the nation, the Senate panel in charge of overseeing SB 1123 rejected the discriminatory amendment to the bill, and sent the anti-gay set packing out of Springfield. The vote was very close: seven to six with one abstention.
"This is a huge victory for the LGBTQ community and families across Illinois," Anthony Martinez, Executive Director of The Civil Rights Agenda, said in a press release late Wednesday morning. "This is also a huge win for the tens of thousands of children that are in the adoption and foster system and need loving families. We applaud the members of the Executive Committee that voted no on this bill. They have shown that discrimination in any form is unacceptable." Full disclosure: I sit on the Advisory Board for TCRA.
