Illinois state representative Deborah Mell, who announced her engagement to her fiancée Christin Baker on Chicago public television Tuesday evening, said she plans to use her personal story on the state house floor.  Mell said she hopes to use her position in Springfield to explain the importance of marriage equality to her colleagues in the state house.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Mell plans to announce her engagement to Christin Baker on the House floor today.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and I want to get married in Illinois,” Mell, D-Chicago, said Tuesday during an interview on WTTW’s ” Chicago Tonight” news program. “I mean, we could go to Iowa, and Iowa’s great … I went to school in Iowa. But you know what? It’s not the state where I represent, and it’s not the state where I grew up in.”

Mell, 41, said she hopes her announcement will spark public discussion about gay marriage in Illinois. Mell is Patti Blagojevich’s sister.

Mell and Baker said that despite their desire to marry in Illinois, they plan to wed in Iowa, one of a handful of states where gay marriage is legal.

Here’s a video of of Rep. Mell’s announcement on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight.”

With unanimous approval, 108-0, the Illinois state house passed a bill on Friday that requires schools to adopt anti-bullying policies based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and other criteria.

The bill was passed by the state senate earlier this month and now moves forward to Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk.

Equality Illinois, one of the Midwest’s largest LGBT organizations, expects the governor will sign the bill into law.

The Advocate reports:

The legislation also requires schools to offer students training in how to resist bullying and take other reasonable steps to stop harassment.

“Students who are perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender are particularly vulnerable to bullying,” said Equality Illinois CEO Bernard Cherkasov. “And the attempted suicide rate among LGBT students, which is as much as three times higher than the general average, presents alarming evidence for just how urgently we need this law. This was a no-nonsense bill, and I am so glad that it sailed quickly through both chambers of the legislature.”

LGBT Illinoisans who hope to marry legally don’t have much to look forward to in the contest between Bill Brady, the likely GOP nominee, and current Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat.  Brady just told the Chicago Sun-Times he favors a state constitutional ban on marriage and civil unions for same-sex couples, and Quinn is on record as opposing marriage equality.  According to The Huffington Post:

Though Brady ran promising to rid the state of insider corruption and overspending, his ultra-conservative values were rarely addressed throughout the campaign.

Aside from his opposition to gay marriage and civil unions, Brady voted against a state law passed in 2005 that banned discrimination against gays and lesbians in matters of housing and employment, according to a Chicago Tribune profile.

Brady is also against abortion in cases of rape and incest–and cases when the health of the mother is at risk. He wants to allow schools to teach creationism as well.

In Illinois, a group of gay judges have organized to encourage more LGBT persons to pursue careers in justice.  Dubbed the Alliance of Illinois Judges, the fifteen members make up a tremendous concentration of LGBT judges in one area, and even include the recent nominee to the state Appellate court.  Cook County, Illinois has one of the largest concentrations of LGBT judges in the country.

The Chicago Tribune covers the group and its goals:

The judges’ group is one of a handful of its kind in the country. Michael Sonberg, a New York Criminal Court judge who helped launch a group there in the early 1990s, said there are clusters of openly gay or lesbian judges in a few major cities and one openly gay federal judge in the country.

“I would say 10 years ago you probably could not have had this organization,” said Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, a gay rights organization. “It’s a sign of progress … and it’s also a sign of how far we have to go, that this is newsworthy and that gay and lesbians have been nonexistent or invisible in the ranks of judges.”

Alliance members said they believe judges should come from a variety of backgrounds, so that all elements of society feel they are represented in the judicial system.

Member Tom Chiola went on to say that “There have been some highly regarded, extremely competent and extremely respected judges who have gone to their graves without being able to come to terms with their being gay.”

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) has ensured that HIV services in his state will remain nearly fully funded in his allocation plans for the new fiscal year state budget, according to the Windy City Times.  The announcement comes only a few weeks after CA Gov. Schwarzenegger came under criticism for severely cutting HIV/AIDS funding in California.

While the original budget provided for HIV/AIDS agencies to be funded at 50% of previous levels, Quinn has committed the allocation of an additional $40 million to the Illinois Department of Public Health as part of the governor’s discretionary dollars approved in the FY10 budget. These dollars, in addition to dollars approved in the budget, restore funding to 97.4% of previous levels.

Mark Ishaug, president/CEO of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, issued a statement thanking Governor Quinn for maintaining essential support for HIV/AIDS services during tough economic times.  “The governor’s decision ensures that HIV prevention and care services for people living with and at risk of HIV will continue largely uninterrupted.”