According to the Chicago Tribune, state officials are investigating religiously-affiliated foster care agencies are in violation of Illinois' Human Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws if they refuse to grant foster care licenses to LGBT parents:

Benjamin Wolf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, an attorney who represents juvenile state wards as part of a court-monitored consent decree with DCFS, said limiting the pool of prospective foster care parents because certain religious traditions believe same-sex relationships are sinful is irresponsible when children are in need.

"We don't know for sure if a loving lesbian or gay family turned away from a discriminatory agency is necessarily going to go to another agency because of the disruption and harm caused to them," he said.

The religious institutions' policies might send a hurtful message to the large number of children in the foster care system who landed there after suffering neglect, abuse or rejection because they were gay, some experts say. Marlowe said 240 children out of more than 15,000 in the foster care system currently identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning.

Foster children should be placed with a relative whenever possible, experts say. If that relative is gay, a religious agency may insist on referring them to a new agency, severing the child's relationship with a caseworker.

"To communicate to that kid that ... you have to change caseworkers in order to get the services you need is a very bad message," Wolf said. "The other thing we're saying to the subpopulation of kids that are gay and lesbian is, 'Once you grow up you can never be a foster parent in our agency' — another troubling message."

A study by the University of Illinois' Children and Family Research Center found some children bounce between foster homes because they face difficulties when they reveal their sexual orientation.

"I don't think you can (overemphasize) the damage done by a disruption," said John Knight, another ACLU attorney.

We hope this issue can be resolved so that vulnerable foster kids can get the care and attention they need in loving homes - regardless of the sexual orientation of the foster parents.

Read the whole article. Meet parents, Corynne and Michelle, who were forced to hide their relationship in order to adopt.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Governor Quinn's decision on SB 3539, abolishing Illinois' death penalty, could come as soon as this week:

Quinn gave no indication of what he'll do with a bill sitting on his desk that would abolish the death penalty in Illinois. It's a historic question for Quinn that will help define his term as governor. And he's had no shortage of advocates on both sides trying to sway him in a state where the death penalty has a high-profile and troubled past.

He's nearly out of time to decide as a March 18 deadline to act looms.

Quinn has not tipped his hand about the weighty decision he faces, which he could announce as early as week's end. The governor supported the death penalty during his re-election campaign, but he's also kept in place the state's decade-long moratorium on executions.

We hope the Governor will do the right thing and sign SB 3539 into law, ending Illinois' broken death penalty system once and for all. Tens of thousands of Illinoisans and people from around the country have urged him to sign it, and we hope you will add your voice as well.

Call Governor Quinn at 312-814-2121 or 217-782-0244 and ask him to end the death penalty in Illinois.

The Sun-Times has a powerful editorial out this morning calling on Governor Quinn to sign SB 3539, abolishing the death penalty in Illinois:

Former Gov. George Ryan revealed a different emotional reaction to the death penalty in a 2010 deposition that recently came to light. At one point, he talked about a former classmate who had asked, “Are you going to kill my son?” At another point, he cited the case of Anthony Porter, who was within 50 hours of execution when a legal technicality saved him. Porter also later turned out to be innocent.

“I turned to my wife and I said, how the hell does that happen?” said Ryan, who in 2003 commuted all death sentences in Illinois to life in prison. “How does an innocent man sit on Death Row for 15 years?”

We know how. Mistakes are made. The criminal justice system is too inaccurate to be entrusted with the awesome power of capital punishment. In recent years, 20 men on Death Row have been freed in Illinois alone.

Read the whole thing.