As Bruce Rauner prepares to take the helm of the state on Monday, Equality Illinois extends its hand in cooperation but promises to remain an ever-vigilant voice and force representing the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens.
Sadly, one of his first major appointments, the nomination of James Meeks, a virulently outspoken anti-LGBT former member of the Illinois Senate, to guide the state’s education system as chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education, does not measure up to Rauner’s election commitment of holding “no social agenda” and is an insult.
Meeks actively worked against the freedom to marry and has called homosexuality ‘an evil sickness.’ He was cited as one of the leading religious voices in the anti-gay movement by the Southern Poverty Law Center.