With Cheers and Tears, Illinois Celebrates Marriage Equality Signing
It was an emotional and celebratory day in Illinois today as Gov. Pat Quinn signed the state’s marriage equality bill into law.
The signing ceremony at the Forum, an arena at the University of Illinois at Chicago, featured speeches by several politicians and a moving rendition of “America the Beautiful” by the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, but some of the loudest applause went to a gay couple who’ve been together more than 50 years and will finally be able to call themselves newlyweds.
“We have never wanted special rights or extra rights,” said Patrick Bova, who will finally be able to marry partner Jim Darby. “We have just wanted to be equal.” For them, marriage will mean, among other things, that Bova will be eligible to be buried next to Darby, a veteran of the Korean War, in Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery.
Lincoln, who spent much of his life in Illinois, was invoked by several speakers, and Quinn signed the bill on a desk on which the 16th president wrote his first inaugural address. Rep. Greg Harris, the bill’s chief sponsor in the state House of Representatives, cited the progress represented by the bill by saying, “We never walk back,” a paraphrase of Lincoln.
http://www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2013/11/20/cheers-and-tears-illinois-celebrates-marriage-equality-signing
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