The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act is far more devious and deceptive than I ever imagined.
Today the Illinois Senate Executive Committee will hear the testimony (live feed here) of His Excellency the Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki concerning the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, but this piece of legislation seems not to be an Act in its own right.
Today the Senate is expected to hear and vote on House Bill 5655, the Nursing Home Care Act, which was reassigned to the Executive Committee.
On January 2, 2013, Senator Heather A. Stearns (D-Chicago) proposed an amendment to the Nursing Home Care Act, which, according to the language of the amendment, "may be cited as the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act."
So...the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act will be voted on as an amendment to the Nursing Home Care Act. The way in which Stearns and company is going about this is nothing short of nefarious and deceitful.
It clearly shows that they are not really convinced of the moral rightness of their claims or else they would be proceeding in the full light of day.
I'm really quite dumbfounded at all of this.
God is not pleased! Read Romans Chapter 1
ReplyDelete"The way in which Stearns and company is going about this is nothing short of nefarious and deceitful."
ReplyDeleteI agree, but unfortunately it's standard operating procedure in the General Assembly and happens dozens of times every session -- they take a bill that has already gone through a committee, or been voted on in one chamber, amend it into something completely different and then send it back to the other chamber for "concurrence" in the amendments before handing it off to the Governor.
Another common practice is to introduce what is called a "shell bill" that does nothing but change one or two words in an existing act, and run it through a committee for the express purpose of having a document that can be amended into something else on short notice. It's basically a shortcut to avoid going through the full process of introducing a new bill, particularly when time is limited as at the end of a lame duck session (what is taking place now) or the end of the annual spring session.
Elaine