McHenry County Blog

This is the one week in the legislative session to keep alert.

The taxeaters are after your money and those with ideas that need to be snuch by in order to have a chance of passing are using parliamentary shortcuts to avoid full public scrutiny of their proposals.

And, in a modernization of what community organizer Barack Obama did on the streets of Chicago, citizen activist and community internet organizer Elsie Bouc is trying to activate citizens all over Illinois by sending out this email last night:

“It doesn’t get much stranger than this in the legislative realm.

“Tonight, the House Youth and Families Committee took a senate bill regarding legal procedures for court action after the defendant has died, and replaced the bill’s entire language with the Civil Union language of HB2234.

“The number of the Senate bill (SB1716) remains the same, but the entire nature of the bill has changed since the Senate voted on it.

“Now the bill will be voted on by the House to determine if the legislators will support civil unions.

“If it passes in the House, it will go back to the Senate for another vote, and if they pass it, it goes before the Governor for his approval.

“Why are they doing it like this?

“Because they were running out of time to pass their bill in the House.

“If they stuck with the original HB2234, it would have had to be read on 3 separate days in the Senate before they could vote on it, and they could possibly run out of time since the legislative session ends May 31st.

“So, with no time left, they conveniently emptied out a senate bill that had already been read three times, and filled it up (presto change-o) with new language to legalize civil unions.

“If the House passes it, they only have to place it before the Senate for a vote (not three readings), and they have met their time deadline.

“This stinks of corruption and manipulation.

“It strikes me that the standard requirement for 3 separate readings was originally designed to ensure full time for legislators to understand the bill and to provide the public with ample time to understand the issue and contact their legislators with their views.

“This new approach completely violates the principle of democracy and is dishonest to its very core.

“Any legislator who votes for this new bill is voting to retain the corruption for which Illinois is famous.

“If you have a legislator who has said they support civil unions, please contact them and tell them they can not use a dishonest method to force this issue upon the citizens of Illinois.

“To do so, will incriminate them in the dirty politics they unitedly claimed they would reform.

“We can stand up to such dishonesty and protect our traditional values.

“Please contact both your state senator and state representative to let them know that this latest maneuver is a dishonest outrage.

“Encourage them to vote no on civil unions by any name or number.

“And, ask them to be honest in their treatment of Illinois legislative procedures. If you have a liberal legislator, now is the time to demand that they act honestly with integrity and respect for democracy and the procedures that govern it in Illinois.

“Please pass this on to others so that they too might know the dishonest means that are being attempted in Springfield.

“I have again included below information to help you identify your legislators and their contact information.

“Thank you for all you do.

“Right is still right for those who are honest at heart.

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. (Or click here.)

You want your state representative and state senator as they will be the ones voting on the bill. (Many people confuse their US senator and US Congressman with their state representative and state senator).

Sincerely,
Elise Bouc

And a post script, posted on Illinois Review this morning:

“I’ve since been informed that normally the bill (HB2234) after it passed the House would have been required to be posted in a Senate committee with an advance notice of 6 days before committee vote.

“Once voted out of committee, it would then require two more readings (beyond the 1st reading when it was initially placed in the Senate).

“All this to allow due time for the legislators and public to understand the bill and make their thoughts known before the actual vote by the full Senate.

“This corrupt maneuver with SB1716 has dishonestly skipped that whole process deemed so necessary by the crafters of our state constitution.

“If a bill really has merit, the sponsors shouldn’t fear due process or clear public debate.

“Obviously this bill doesn’t have sufficient public support, and that is why it’s being dishonestly maneuvered through shifty means.”

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The building on top is, of course, the Illinois State Capitol. There are two shots from last night’s Chicago TV coverage of the gay marriage, opps, civil union debate. Peter LaBarbera is seen commenting and a Halstead Street demonstration is pictured.

Here’s the latest one:

“It seems there are many, many calls being made on HB 2234, the civil unions (gay marriage) bill. Worse yet, there seem to be an equal number of calls from both sides, so PLEASE MAKE YOUR CALLS IF YOU HAVEN’T AS YET.

“Each and every call is very important.

“Also, please add your Senator because if it passes the House, the Senate will then vote on it immediately and the Spring session is due to close by May 31, so it would come up quite quickly, even possibly before we had time to reach our Senators .

“Originally, this House Bill was not expected to come up for a vote in the House this session unless they were sure of support from its members, so this is another reason to MAKE YOUR CALLS.

• Jack Franks – 217-782-1717- VOTE NO ON HB2234
• Senator Althoff – 217-782-8000 – VOTE NO ON THE CIVIL UNIONS BILL (There is not yet a Senate Bill number for the Senate version).”

With homosexual activists planning a vote on the civil union bill that does everything but name the union a marriage, I’ve been getting emails to call Jack Franks’ office.

Apparently, he is one of the “swing” votes.

One person who called, sent me this:

“I asked at his Woodstock office if he’d been getting calls on this bill but the woman said, ‘I really can’t say, goodbye.’

“So, my guess is, yes, they are receiving calls, but maybe afraid of another prayer rally, but definitely unwilling to talk about it casually so there likely is a fear factor on their end.”

She was also kind enough to include Franks’ office phone numbers:

Woodstock – (815) 334-0063; FAX – (815) 334-9147

Springfield – (217) 782-1717, FAX – (217) 557-2118

Of course, I live in Mike Tryon’s district, so Franks’ telephone answers don’t have to worry about my calling them.

Elise Bouc took several email alerts and boiled them down to the following:

“Profamily lobbyists in Springfield are reporting that full pressure is being placed on our legislators to pass the civil unions bill this week.

“The proponents of the bill have hired 8 lobbyists to push for civil unions.

“Many of our legislators are getting phone calls from out of state legislators pressuring them to vote for the bill.

“One legislator who is a no vote on the civil union bill reported that she was told by a lobbyist that they had surveyed her district and found that 80% of her constituents support civil unions. She was mystified as everyone she speaks to in her district is against civil unions.

“Obviously those who are pushing for civil unions are not above using deceit.

“Please note that every state high court that has ruled for same-sex marriage (IA, CA and MA) has cited the passage of pro-homosexual ‘rights’ legislation – especially civil unions – as its rational for imposing same-sex marriage.”

The message is simple writes Illinois Catholic Conference Zach Wichmann:

“Please vote no on Civil Unions. House Bill 2234 equates civil unions and marriage by conferring the same rights and benefits.”

As the email says, “…the definitions inside the bill make clear the effort is geared to same-sex marriage.

“Under the legislation, any party to a civil union would be considered a spouse under Illinois law and civil unions would enjoy all the protections and rights of marriage under law.”

“Patrick, a resident of McHenry county, told me the horrifying story of finding his partner of many years dead of a heart attack.

“Despite their years of commitment and shared lives, the morgue refused to release his partner’s body for nearly two weeks – searching for an estranged sister to grant permission so that Patrick could give his loved one a proper burial.”

That’s the reference to McHenry County in a blog called “Shakesville: The Wave.”

McHenry County shows up on a post written by Shaker Allie Carter, Senior Field Manager for the ACLU of Illinois, in an argument for House Bill 2234, the Illinois Religious Freedom and Civil Union Act, would enable both same sex and opposite gender couples to access all the state legal rights and protections of marriage, “without the word marriage,” as the article points out.

Meanwhile, news out of Rhode Island, found this morning in the Northwest Herald, indicates this heavily Roman Catholic state will not follow in the footsteps of other New England states in approving gay marriage.

Two questions come to mind:

1. To what “morgue” does the author refer?
2. Is the Catholic Church active on this issue?

Early on in the Protect Marriage Illinois advisory petition campaign the Illinois Republican Party was making supportive noises.

There was even a link on the main page of the state GOP web site.

But, as far as I know, no Republican organization helped gather signatures.

And the petition effort fell short.

Not a lot short, but not enough signatures were gathered where it was thought the petition could withstand a vigorous attack from well-financed organized homosexuals.

Now, it turns out that about the only bright spot on the conservative election horizon is the constitutional amendment banning of same sex marriage in California.

The ballot measure, labeled Proposition 8, is passing 52.3% to 47.7%. There’s over a half million vote spread.

Ironically, many of the same voters who pushed Barack Obama to victory voted to ban same sex marriage.

Exit polls taken of 1,200 voters in 50 Los Angeles precincts by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University found that “50 percent of Latinos voted for Proposition 8 and 39 opposed it, while 47 percent of African-Americans voted for it and 40 percent against it,” according to the LA Times

So, here’s my question?

Had the state GOP gotten the Protect Marriage advisory referendum on the ballot in Illinois, might someone like Elgin’s State Rep. Ruth Munson have eeked out a victory, instead of losing by an unofficial 322 votes?

Understand that I don’t know how Munson stands on the issue and she would obviously have to been against gay marriage and her opponent Keith Farnham would have had to have been in favor of it for my suggested strategy to have had a chance of working.

However, if they had been on opposite sides of the issue, Elgin could have been ready-made to have replicated how California voters behaved.

In 2000, Elgin had 34% Latinos and almost 7% African Americans. These Elgin minorities are concentrated in Munson’s district. The district also dips into Carpentersville, which has 41% Hispanics, most of whom live on the East side in the Munson district.

“Blacks voted 70 percent in favor of Proposition 8, and slightly more than half the Hispanic voters backed the measure, according to exit polls released by the National Election Pool,” the Washington Times reported.

And, Andrew Pugno of ProtectMarriage.com said, “Inner-city black neighborhoods voted stronger for Prop. 8 than the Republican suburbs. An amazing analysis.”

According to Mark DiCamillo, director of The Field Poll in California,

“The Field Poll, completed one week before the election, had Catholics voting at about their registered voter population size (24% of the electorate) with voting preferences similar to those of the overall electorate, with 44% on the Yes side.

“However the network exit poll shows that they accounted for 30% of the CA electorate and had 64% of them voting Yes. Regular churchgoers showed a similar movement toward the Yes side. The pre-election Field Poll showed 72% of these voters voting Yes, while the exit poll showed that 84% of them voted Yes…

“My take is that polling on issues like same-sex marriage that have a direct bearing on religious doctrine can be affected in a big way in the final weekend by last minute appeals by the clergy and religious organizations.”

Whether Catholic Church priests and black ministers in Munson’s district would have done what their counterparts are said to have done in California is unknowable.

But, if they had, and if Munson had a campaign staff astute enough to capitalize on the issue, maybe she would have been re-elected.

Since neither the State GOP nor House Republicans nor Senate Republicans showed any inclination to help get the signatures to put the referendum on the ballot this year, I somehow doubt Munson would have been able to grab the opportunity.

If Tom Cross or Frank Watson’s successor or Andy McKenna figure out this could issue could help some legislators or even the GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2010, the time to be starting a petition campaign is now.

Early on in the Protect Marriage Illinois advisory petition campaign the Illinois Republican Party was making supportive noises.

There was even a link on the main page of the state GOP web site.

But, as far as I know, no Republican organization helped gather signatures.

And the petition effort fell short.

Not a lot short, but not enough signatures were gathered where it was thought the petition could withstand a vigorous attack from well-financed organized homosexuals.

Now, it turns out that about the only bright spot on the conservative election horizon is the constitutional amendment banning of same sex marriage in California.

The ballot measure, labeled Proposition 8, is passing 52.3% to 47.7%. There’s over a half million vote spread.

Ironically, many of the same voters who pushed Barack Obama to victory voted to ban same sex marriage.

Exit polls taken of 1,200 voters in 50 Los Angeles precincts by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University found that “50 percent of Latinos voted for Proposition 8 and 39 opposed it, while 47 percent of African-Americans voted for it and 40 percent against it,” according to the LA Times

So, here’s my question?

Had the state GOP gotten the Protect Marriage advisory referendum on the ballot in Illinois, might someone like Elgin’s State Rep. Ruth Munson have eeked out a victory, instead of losing by an unofficial 322 votes?

Understand that I don’t know how Munson stands on the issue and she would obviously have to been against gay marriage and her opponent Keith Farnham would have had to have been in favor of it for my suggested strategy to have had a chance of working.

However, if they had been on opposite sides of the issue, Elgin could have been ready-made to have replicated how California voters behaved.

In 2000, Elgin had 34% Latinos and almost 7% African Americans. These Elgin minorities are concentrated in Munson’s district. The district also dips into Carpentersville, which has 41% Hispanics, most of whom live on the East side in the Munson district.

“Blacks voted 70 percent in favor of Proposition 8, and slightly more than half the Hispanic voters backed the measure, according to exit polls released by the National Election Pool,” the Washington Times reported.

And, Andrew Pugno of ProtectMarriage.com said, “Inner-city black neighborhoods voted stronger for Prop. 8 than the Republican suburbs. An amazing analysis.”

According to Mark DiCamillo, director of The Field Poll in California,

“The Field Poll, completed one week before the election, had Catholics voting at about their registered voter population size (24% of the electorate) with voting preferences similar to those of the overall electorate, with 44% on the Yes side.

“However the network exit poll shows that they accounted for 30% of the CA electorate and had 64% of them voting Yes. Regular churchgoers showed a similar movement toward the Yes side. The pre-election Field Poll showed 72% of these voters voting Yes, while the exit poll showed that 84% of them voted Yes…

“My take is that polling on issues like same-sex marriage that have a direct bearing on religious doctrine can be affected in a big way in the final weekend by last minute appeals by the clergy and religious organizations.”

Whether Catholic Church priests and black ministers in Munson’s district would have done what their counterparts are said to have done in California is unknowable.

But, if they had, and if Munson had a campaign staff astute enough to capitalize on the issue, maybe she would have been re-elected.

Since neither the State GOP nor House Republicans nor Senate Republicans showed any inclination to help get the signatures to put the referendum on the ballot this year, I somehow doubt Munson would have been able to grab the opportunity.

If Tom Cross or Frank Watson’s successor or Andy McKenna figure out this could issue could help some legislators or even the GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2010, the time to be starting a petition campaign is now.

The weekend that the California Supreme Court decided to declare invalid a citizen initiative limiting marriages to men and women, I saw this license plate at the restaurant where we ate.

was the declaration on the bright yellow car.

I wonder if they were celebrating.

The weekend that the California Supreme Court decided to declare invalid a citizen initiative limiting marriages to men and women, I saw this license plate at the restaurant where we ate.

was the declaration on the bright yellow car.

I wonder if they were celebrating.

News out of the every four year international conference of the United Methodist Church that I didn’t see in the mainstream media is that the 2008 General Conference delegates in Houston rejected liberals’ efforts to endorse homosexual marriage.

Mark Tooley, Executive Director of UMAction and considered an arch villain by church liberals, had this reaction:

“The vote today in affirmation of traditional marriage represents the will of the international United Methodist Church.”

The Christian Post has details about the retention of the church’s position that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

The delegates rejected a reportedly “majority report,” meaning to this observer that the committee was stacked much like ones in the Illinois General Assembly are. Legislation can get out of such a committee, but can’t get passed by all the members of the legislative body.

The vote was 501-417 to accept the minority report, which also said that “all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God,” and that United Methodists are to be “welcoming, forgiving and loving one another, as Christ has loved and accepted us.”

The majority report would have eliminated the ban on noncelibate gay pastors and allowed United Methodist ministers to conduct ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions and included “committed unions” in a section describing the sanctity of the marriage covenant.

Here is another part I gleaned from the Confessing Movement web site:

“It was evident that the vote of the African conferences was crucial. One African delegate was heard to remark, ‘Today we saved the church.’

“Another said, ‘This is why we are here.’”

A resolution was approved, however, authorizing the development of educational resources and materials on the effects of homophobia and heterosexism, the discrimination or prejudice against lesbians or gay men by heterosexual people.

In a blow for the church bureaucracy, four bishops will be eliminated with the merger of conferences. There has been talk that Illinois will end up with just one conference.

Here is what the Confessing Movement in the United Methodist Church reported:

“One significant action that was taken would refigure the formula for determining Episcopal areas. Practically speaking, this would reduce the number of bishops in the United States by four. Funds saved in the reduction would be used to help establish new Episcopal areas overseas, where the church is growing. Those who opposed the action argued the U.S. needs bishops to lead the church into growth. The answer was that the presence of a bishop has almost nothing to do with whether the church is growing.”

Checking Google news at 8 AM for “gay marriage” and “Methodist,” I see only three mainstream articles and one is about a protest the day after the matter was voted upon.

How could anything show the Leftstream media’s bias better?

= = = = =
Neither of these marriages took place in a Methodist church. They are used for illustrative purposes only.

News out of the every four year international conference of the United Methodist Church that I didn’t see in the mainstream media is that the 2008 General Conference delegates in Houston rejected liberals’ efforts to endorse homosexual marriage.

Mark Tooley, Executive Director of UMAction and considered an arch villain by church liberals, had this reaction:

“The vote today in affirmation of traditional marriage represents the will of the international United Methodist Church.”

The Christian Post has details about the retention of the church’s position that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

The delegates rejected a reportedly “majority report,” meaning to this observer that the committee was stacked much like ones in the Illinois General Assembly are. Legislation can get out of such a committee, but can’t get passed by all the members of the legislative body.

The vote was 501-417 to accept the minority report, which also said that “all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God,” and that United Methodists are to be “welcoming, forgiving and loving one another, as Christ has loved and accepted us.”

The majority report would have eliminated the ban on noncelibate gay pastors and allowed United Methodist ministers to conduct ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions and included “committed unions” in a section describing the sanctity of the marriage covenant.

Here is another part I gleaned from the Confessing Movement web site:

“It was evident that the vote of the African conferences was crucial. One African delegate was heard to remark, ‘Today we saved the church.’

“Another said, ‘This is why we are here.’”

A resolution was approved, however, authorizing the development of educational resources and materials on the effects of homophobia and heterosexism, the discrimination or prejudice against lesbians or gay men by heterosexual people.

In a blow for the church bureaucracy, four bishops will be eliminated with the merger of conferences. There has been talk that Illinois will end up with just one conference.

Here is what the Confessing Movement in the United Methodist Church reported:

“One significant action that was taken would refigure the formula for determining Episcopal areas. Practically speaking, this would reduce the number of bishops in the United States by four. Funds saved in the reduction would be used to help establish new Episcopal areas overseas, where the church is growing. Those who opposed the action argued the U.S. needs bishops to lead the church into growth. The answer was that the presence of a bishop has almost nothing to do with whether the church is growing.”

Checking Google news at 8 AM for “gay marriage” and “Methodist,” I see only three mainstream articles and one is about a protest the day after the matter was voted upon.

How could anything show the Leftstream media’s bias better?

= = = = =
Neither of these marriages took place in a Methodist church. They are used for illustrative purposes only.