Activist: Illinois Governor's Race Offers Values Voters No Good Choice

by Chad Groening and Jenni Parker
June 29, 2006

(AgapePress) - - An Illinois pro-family activist is disappointed over the choices before pro-family voters in this year's race for governor in the "Land of Lincoln," but he hopes citizens will, at the very least, get the chance to weigh in on the issue of how marriage should be defined in their state.

Peter LaBarbera, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), was recently on hand with other pro-family leaders to witness and record the 2006 "Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade" in Chicago. He notes that both Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich and Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka participated in the homosexual event.

"Unfortunately, in Illinois we've got the Democrat governor and the Republican challenger both marching enthusiastically in the so-called 'gay pride' parade," LaBarbera laments. "And it's really sad," he adds, "because pro-life and pro-family voters don't have an alternative choice, somebody who's not pro-abortion or pro-homosexual, in the governor's race."

Peter LaBarbera

The Illinois activist says what he hears pro-family voters saying is that they will either go the polls and not cast a ballot for governor, or they might not even vote at all. And still others have said they plan on voting for Topinka as "the lesser of two evils," LaBarbera says, an idea he describes as "just sad." It is disappointing, he asserts, that both Blagojevich and Topinka appear more interested in getting the votes of radical homosexuals than the support of values voters.

Still, the IFI spokesman points out, while values voters may not have a real choice in the governor's race, they may yet get the chance to express their choice with regard to the marriage issue by going to the polls to support a marriage protection statute. For months, his organization has been campaigning and gathering signatures in an effort to put a referendum on the November ballot, a measure calling on the General Assembly to constitutionally protect marriage from redefinition.

The proposed Protect Marriage Illinois referendum states: "To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, a marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state." In order to qualify for the November ballot, the Protect Marriage Illinois campaign was required to gather at least 283,111 valid signatures of registered voters by May 8.

On that date, the pro-family campaign delivered 347,912 signatures to the State Board of Elections in Springfield. The number of names delivered was tens of thousands more than the number required by state law and, in fact -- due to draconian state petition drive laws -- tens of thousands fewer than the 421,000 total signatures the effort actually collected.

Obviously, LaBarbera observes, the proposed ballot measure found overwhelming support among the state's voters, even among communities not traditionally expected to support conservative causes. "Our marriage referendum got the strongest support from African Americans in Chicago," he notes. "They don't seem to have as much a problem [as some others] in recognizing that marriage is between one man and one woman."

But even though Protect Marriage Illinois fulfilled the requisites to get its measure on the ballot, the pro-family activist explains that not all the hurdles have been cleared. "We're hoping and praying that our marriage referendum stays on the ballot," he says, "although the left wing is trying to knock that off as well."

Unfortunately, LaBarbera notes, the American Civil Liberties Union and other liberal groups are trying to get the marriage amendment measure removed from the ballot. In light of what is going on in the governor's race, he says, values voters have few good choices open to them, so at the very least "we're hoping and praying ... that they will have our pro-marriage referendum to vote for, which would [call] on the General Assembly to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man, one woman."