Petitions to put the Protect Marriage Illinois advisory referendum question on the fall ballot should be filled out, notarized and mailed to
P.O. Box 6017
Taylorville, IL 62568.
At the upper right of the web site is a place you can click to find petitions for every election jurisdiction in Illinois. Usually that means people living in separate counties have to sign different petitions—one with the name of their county on it.
In places like Rockford and Aurora, for instance, where there are separate county and city election election jurisdictions, care must be taken to get people to sign the right petition.
I found this on the web site:
Deadline has been extended to April 30 for turning in your petitions! If you want to collect until next weekend (work and church), I recently learned that UPS delivers Next Day to everywhere within Illinois but not to a P.O. Box – please call me if you have to send it UPS at 217-377-6017. Please pass petitions out to your like-minded friends to collect also — or refer them to our site, of course.
Two years ago, the campaign came up one petition signature per petition passer short.
And if two gay or lesbian people marry how, exactly, is my marriage harmed? What injury will I suffer? What am I being protected from?
How can you have run on the Libertarian party’s ticket and also advocate for government limiting the liberty of people to marry whomever they want? Government shouldn’t be in the marriage business, period – much less telling people whom they can choose to marry.
Don’t let homophobia impede liberty.
Libertarians are not in favor of special rights for anyone, I was told.
What is one man’s “special rights” is another man’s “equal rights”. Again, what is marriage being protected from, exactly? What harm will come to me and my wife if gay people can marry?
Also, here is an editorial from the libertarian organization Reason (to which I donate regularly). They aren’t beating the “special rights” drum:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/29169.html
“But if there is any social policy today that has a claim to being scaldingly inhumane, it is the ban on gay marriage. Marriage, after all, is the most fundamental institution of society and, for most people, an indispensable element of the pursuit of happiness. For the same reason that tinkering with marriage should not be undertaken lightly (marriage is important to personal and social well-being), barring a whole class of people from marrying imposes an extraordinary deprivation. Not so long ago, it was illegal in certain parts of the United States for blacks to marry whites; no one would call this a trivial disfranchisement. For many years, the champions of women’s suffrage were patted on the head and told, “Your rallies and petitions are all very charming, but you don’t really need to vote, do you?” It didn’t wash. The strong Hayekian argument has traction only against a weak moral claim.”
And there’s more – from the Libertarian Party’s national organization in 1996:
“If two adults want to legally say ‘I do,’ the government shouldn’t have the right to say, ‘No, you don’t,'” Libertarian Party Chairman Steve Dasbach said.
“Marriage should be a private contract between two consenting adults and their church. Intolerant laws shouldn’t be part of the picture,” he said.
To help end marriage discrimination, Dasbach urged Congress to reject the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. The bill, inspired by reports that Hawaii may legalize same-sex marriages, would exempt states from having to recognize same-sex marriages under another state’s laws.
“We’re not advocating special rights for any group, just equal rights under the law,” said Dasbach. “Basically, Libertarians believe the government should stay out of personal romantic, religious, and legal decisions of adults.
“If Congress genuinely wants to promote and protect marriage, they should start by lowering the burdensome taxes that have busted the family budget, and ending the harmful welfare system that has rendered marriage obsolete,” he said.
Dasbach downplayed some Americans’ fears that legalizing same-sex marriage would somehow corrupt or tarnish heterosexual marriages.
“Marriage between men and women is a social and religious institution that has thrived for thousands of years,” he said. “Marriage is not so fragile that it will be undermined by extending the franchise to the small percentage of the population that is gay.”
http://www.lp.org/lpn/9607-marriage.html
One more item, from the national Libertarian Party’s official platform:
“Transitional Action: Repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act and state laws and amendments defining marriage. Oppose any new laws or Constitutional amendments defining terms for personal, private relationships. Repeal any state or federal law assigning special benefits to people based on marital status, family structure, sexual orientation or gender identification. Repeal any state or federal laws denying same-sex partners rights enjoyed by others, such as adoption of children and spousal immigration. End the Defense Department practice of discharging armed forces personnel for sexual orientation. Upgrade all less-than-honorable discharges previously assigned solely for such reasons to honorable status, and delete related information from military personnel files. Repeal all laws discriminating by gender, such as protective labor laws and marriage, divorce, and custody laws which deny the full rights of each individual.”
http://www.lp.org/issues/platform_all.shtml#sexgend
Guess you shouldn’t believe everything your told, Cal….
And, I anxiously await your explanation of what my wife and I need to be defended from…
[crickets chirping]
I guess its difficult to describe the threat facing my marriage if gay people are permitted to marry one another.