ILLINOIS: Court Rejects Hate Group's Attempt To Join Marriage Case

Today the circuit court of Cook County denied an attempt by the Illinois Family Institute to defend against Lambda Legal's bid to overturn that state's ban on same-sex marriage.  Two local churches, the Church of Christian Liberty and the Grace Gospel Fellowship, were also rejected.  Lambda Legal writes via press release:

"We are now closer to the day these families can tell their stories in court, and explain in their own words why it is so hurtful and wrong to exclude them and their children ever from belonging to married families, without further unnecessary delays," said Camilla Taylor, Marriage Project Director for Lambda Legal. "The Illinois government should be treating all families fairly. The freedom to marry the one unique and irreplaceable person you love, whether it is someone of the same sex or a different sex, is an essential liberty for all of us. Thousands of couples and their children across the state feel a sense of loss and experience discrimination every day because the state unfairly excludes them from marriage."

The Illinois governor and the Attorney General have both refused to defend the suit. In July two downstate county clerks won the right to intervene in Lambda Legal's case and another brought by the ACLU. Both county clerks are being represented by the Thomas More Society.  The Illinois Family Institute, the former home of Peter LaBarbera, is listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.