Yesterday, our newly re-elected Governor in Illinois, Pat Quinn, signed into law the legal recognition of same-sex couples via Civil Unions here in the Land of Lincoln. I couldn't be there in person (pesky job asking that people be at work!), but I do get the wonderful benefit of now being marginally less second-class in this country!
When my husband and I were planning our wedding last year, we had a lot of people ask why not just go to Iowa and get married. Their supreme court had legalized same-sex marriage not too long ago, and Iowa is only a couple hours drive from here, so that would seem like the logical thing to do. But we chose to go to Vancouver instead, which is no where near as easy to get to.
The biggest reason we went with a Canadian destination wedding (aside from Bride magazine telling us destination weddings were all the rage last year, obvy) was that we wanted to make sure that the laws would not change wherever we got married. We saw what happened in California and saw the confusion that exists there with some couples being married, some being in civil unions, others wrapped up in lawsuits, and we knew that could easily happen if we went somewhere else in the states.
And we weren't wrong. Right now, some Iowans are pushing hard to create an amendment to their state constitution to bar marriage equality, which is the only option the haters have left to over-turn the high court's ruling. Haters gotta hate, I suppose.
So we went to Canada. The laws aren't going to change up there. Even if the U.S. decides that only marriages between two straight, Christian, child-rearing folk will be recognized here, we know that we are still legally married somewhere. And if we go somewhere that does support LGBT folk as fully-recognized human beings, that marriage will be recognized there as well.
I'm glad to see civil unions come to Illinois. We've still got a ways to go toward real equality, but with this we've taken another step. And, from a personal perspective, I'm very happy that I will now be legally recognized here in this state as my husband's husband. I still have a few questions I need to get answered from a legal stand point (what, if anything, do we need to do?), but this FAQ (PDF) that Equality Illinois put together is really great if anyone else out there needs some more information.
2 comments:
The irony always kills me that people are so up in arms over the sanctity of marriage, yet we have a ridiculously high divorce rate.
Personally, I think the government should get out of that marriage business completely. Civil unions for everyone via license, anything else goes through a church or whatever.
I'd be fine with that as long as the church authorized marriages do not confer additional or special legal responsibilities and rights. If it's all literally equal otherwise, I could care less if religious people prefer to call it marriage or hopschpiling.
And yes, the divorce rate is quite amusing. We have a strong movement toward marriage in this country, and a very strong legal network designed to encourage marriage, but we have a culture that says "run away" as soon as something bad happens... but I think that's a different discussion altogether ;)
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