Illinois Senator Heather Steans, who got her policy chops in public education and from her family’s foundation, and Rep. Greg Harris, who is the openly gay legislator of Springfield, are the Will and Grace of the current LGTB Policy Legislation and the sure fire hit of this rather dull Illinois political season.

Blago jumped the Illinois political shark, the porpoise, the manatee, the killer whale, the Great White and Charlie the Tuna’s Eco Friendly Trawler last December 9th when Fitzy’s Untouchables cuffed him in the Sauganash alley. Since then, Pat Quinn – the Melba Toast of Politics –became our Governor and yawns have been endless.  Now, Heather Steans , a breeder Mom of three – not that there is anything wrong with that – is facing a Gay Democratic and a Gay –friendly Republican challenger for the February Democratic primary and subsequent general election.

Illinois Representative Greg Harris is openly Gay and a stridently Gay Advocacy Policy pusher.  The Breeder and Proudly Gay legislators are teamed to Hi-Lo Gay Marriage/ Civil Union legislation in order to score one for Boys Town! Smart strategists both, Steans and Harris are bubbling up excitement in the Chicago Gay community in this political push.

The timing of a gay marriage bill introduced in the Illinois Senate Thursday is drawing more attention than the issue of gay marriage.

If approved, Illinois State Senator Heather Steans’ Equal Marriage Act would legalize gay marriage in the Land of Lincoln. Assemblyman Greg Harris introduced his Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act in January.

Steans has called her senate version a companion bill to Harris’.

But considering the 96th Illinois General Assembly is in its final throes and Harris’ bill has languished in the Rules Committee, political opponents – gay and straight – are questioning Steans’ political motivations.

Her openly gay opponent Jim Madigan called the bill’s introduction a “publicity stunt” to attract gay voters from Chicago’s gay neighborhood of “Boys Town,” which is included in the 7th District she represents.

Steans has also sponsored a civil unions bill that grants gay and lesbian couples all the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage without the name. On her website, Steans continues to endorse civil unions, not marriage, for gay couples.

“If the civil union bill does not pass in the General Assembly in these final weeks of the legislative session, Senator Steans will have to explain to voters and the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community why she spent her time preparing a publicity opportunity rather than working to persuade legislators to pass the bill that was already teed up for her by two years of my community’s time, money and effort,” Madigan, a former executive director of Equality Illinois, told ChicagoNow.com.

Now, if two gents, or two Sapphicly inclined ladies are happy together, God Bless!  However, let’s step away from the God Sanctify this Gay Union stuff.   Gays should have every civic right to live happily together, but that does not necessarily require that the Sacrament and the Institution of Marriage be destroyed.  The Sacrament will get short shrift, but the institution will be hallowed.  Today, anything religious (Catholic in particular) is fit subject for ridicule.  That is because ridicule works best against what is most permanent and sacred.  One can ridicule a Papal Encyclical but one must not mock a Robert Mapplethorpe original black and white. The Gospel is the font of religious law – let’s peek there.

So, let’s turn to Mark’s Gospel 10:2-16

2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, `God made them male and female.’ 7 `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” 10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

13 And they were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.

That is pretty clear – Man Marries a Woman and not Tommy has Two Mommies or Davy has two Daddies and one has a higher voice and cries more.  Nope.  The issue in the whole issue of  human history is the issue.  Children issue from the congress of a man and woman and not the . . . intimacies between same gender partners.  Now, Scripture is not really all that Gay Friendly. Holy Writ is pretty down-right unfriendly on homosexuality altogether.  Catholics and Jews are pretty much hostile on the issue when you get right down to it.  No doubt about it.  Why only last Sunday the Catholic Readings from the Old Testament were pretty clear on the institution of marriage, as well .  This from Genesis:

So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and while he was asleep,
he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib
that he had taken from the man.
When he brought her to the man, the man said:
“This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called ‘woman, ‘
for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.

Nothing about two guys.  Man and woman.  Even The Psalms written by King David, often outted as a Gay King by Gay Advocacy scholars, from Sunday continued to undercut the whole Gay Marriage agenda;

May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your home;
your children like olive plants
around your table.’

No significant other and certainly no same-sex life partner there.

Marriage is about children.  Sometimes folks are not blessed with children – adoption and there is plenty of opportunity to do so. Heck, Sapphists and Gay men have had children via previous marriage to a partner of the opposite sex, adoption, artificial insemination and all manner of nuanced legal intricacies.  The issue in marriage is the issue, not the adoption or sponsorship.  It takes two – a male and female – to do the issue business.

It is children at the root of the institution of marriage and not the nuanced legislation of marriage. The Sacrament built the institution of marriage – the laws, the decrees, the policies, the utilities, the industries and the facilities that go with marriage.  That’s some heavy lifting for lawyers and even policy wonks.  The Gay Advocacy assault on marriage is just that – as any assault is wont to do – it is meant to diminish and not augment. Marriage is between man and woman their issue – the kids.

Senator Heather Steans and Rep. Greg Harris will make very interesting reading over the next few weeks and offer vigorous challenges to the institution of marriage, as well as what most Illinoisans believe to be the Sacrament of Marriage.  There will be many, many Will and Grace moments (I never saw that show but my daughters love it!  I get second info on its poignancy.) and great media coverage, but the legislation will go down.   Marriage is still a very important issue for Illinois voters.  Monkeying with a Sacrament is acceptable in our secular Deus-neutral media, but destroying an institution is a line that even the most pliable Progressive playmate won’t cross.