Updated April 13, 2011, 3:44 p.m.: A measure to ensure faith-based groups could turn away committed same-sex couples who want to adopt children or provide foster homes failed in the Illinois Senate.

On Wednesday a Chicago Tribune article discussed the debate surrounding gay adoptions as lawmakers push a measure to ensure faith-based groups could turn away committed same-sex couples who want to adopt or provide foster homes to children.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois says it is troubled by the potential for far-reaching impact. The group questioned whether the bill would violate a couple’s equal protection rights under federal law as well as tenets of a sweeping federal consent decree that requires placement decisions in Illinois to be made in the best interest of the child.

Ben Wolf, an ACLU attorney who represents the 15,000 children in foster care in Illinois in federal court, said the legislation could prevent a child from being placed with a “loving aunt, grandmother or grandfather” who would be unacceptable to a private agency because of their sexual orientation.

“That’s just wrong,” Wolf said.

The legislative dispute arises as Illinois officials are investigating whether religious agencies that receive public funds to license foster care and adoptive parents are breaking anti-discrimination laws if they turn away potential parents who are openly gay.

If they are found in violation, Lutheran Child and Family Services, Catholic Charities in five regions outside Chicago, and the Evangelical Child and Family Agency will have to license openly gay foster parents or lose millions of state dollars, potentially disrupting thousands of foster children in their care.

Kendall Marlowe, spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Services, said the vast majority of private agencies the state contracts with welcome and freely accept prospective foster and adoptive parents regardless of sexual orientation. But the legislation would carve out a niche for those who do not follow that practice, he said.

The Windy City Times ran an article on the restrictions this week. Peoplesworld.org also ran a story about the bill.

Updated April 14, 2011: SB 1123 failed to make it out of committee.

Filed on Monday, April 11th, Amendment 1 to Senate Bill 1123 would permit religiously-based adoption agencies acting on behalf of the State of Illinois (and using STATE funds!) to discriminate against couples who have entered into a civil union and, as a consequence, place children at risk of being denied the best family placement for them.

The State of Illinois should not sanction and fund discrimination.

The Illinois Civil Union Act was only signed into law in January - and won't take effect until June 1st. But already the same forces that opposed basic fairness for lesbian and gay couples in Illinois are seeking to write discrimination into the law. This change not only discriminates against couples with civil unions, it threatens the well-being of some of our state’s most vulnerable children – those in need of permanent, safe homes. Surely, our leaders cannot permit the Civil Union bill to be twisted so that some can place their religious views over the interests of at-risk children.

An article in the Windy City Times this week took a historical look back at the AIDS epidemic in Chicago and across the country.

At least three decades ago doctors started noticing illnesses impacting their gay male patients. And soon it became clear that an epidemic was at hand.

The story notes that, during the summer of 1981, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR, June 5 and July 3) first reported that a new disease might be in our midst. It could have been around for years, but was just at that time starting to exhibit itself.

The individual illnesses striking these young gay men were otherwise rare—pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma, the latter manifested as purple lesions. These and other strange illnesses had started to be diagnosed some 30 months prior to the 1981 MMWR reports. In January 1982 the syndromes together began to be called GRID, gay-related immunodeficiency, and the acronym stood until July of that year, when it was renamed AIDS, or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

The rumors and media reports, including those in the gay press, only trickled out for many months. But by 1983—'84, it was clear a major epidemic was at hand, one that struck more than gay men.

In Chicago, while existing organizations such as Howard Brown Memorial Clinic (now Howard Brown Health Center) and Gay Horizons (now Center on Halsted) tried to cope with new legal, psychosocial, and health issues facing the community, more support would be needed.

Within three years, major institutions were founded, many of them still in existence in 2011. These included AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Chicago House, Open Hand (now Vital Bridges), Test Positive Aware Network, Stop AIDS, Kupona Network, AIDS Legal Council of Chicago, Chicago Women's AIDS Project, and dozens more. Eventually, more than 100 agencies dealt with some aspect of AIDS, from fundraising events, such as AIDS Walk and the AIDS Ride, to service groups, research and prevention organizations.

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