There's good news and bad news for wedding planners in Illinois. The good news: LGBT couples will be getting married in 2014. The bad news: We don't exactly know when.
Gov. Pat Quinn signed the bill into law last week, with marriage licenses scheduled to begin being issued to same-sex couples June 1. But one lawmakers is proposing an immediate start. That proposal will be considered as early as February, and if approved, it would mean that couples might be getting married before Groundhog Day.
Meanwhile, marriage equality continues to radiate outward from the states that currently have it. Virginia is starting down the path toward overturning its constitutional ban on marriage equality, but the legislation that lawmakers are proposing wouldn't reach voters until 2016 at the earliest.
Public support for marriage equality is growing fairly rapidly in Virginia. If it continues at the current rate, we will have a healthy advantage by 2016.
In addition, the opposition might simply run out of funding by that time. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) revealed last week that they ended 2012 with a $1-million deficit. They also lost four separate ballot measures in the same year. It's probably a pretty lousy time to be a NOM fundraiser.