News & Commentary

John Knight, LGBT program director for ACLU Illinois said he was "thrilled" by the bill's failure, adding that its passage would have narrowed the pool of potential placements for many children awaiting adoption in the state. The bill, he argued, was unconstitutional. "I think you have to look carefully at the bill to understand the potential harm involved by allowing religious adoption agencies to discriminate on the basis of their own religion," Knight said. "The bill is written to talk about how the children's best i

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“Debate on public issues should be robust, uninhibited and wide-open,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote. This is even true in schools, where free speech must be balanced against the goal of creating a safe environment for all kids. Officials at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville chose between those two goals, a choice we believe is a false one. Maintaining free speech is, i

From ACLU national's Blog of Rights:

Neuqua Valley High School students would be allowed to wear “Be Happy, Not Gay” T-shirts under a ruling Tuesday by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court had rejected Indian Prairie School District 204’s argument that school officials could prohibit students from wearing the shirts to prevent some students from having their feelings hurt. In its opinion, the court said a “school that permits

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 negl

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