Illinois State Reps. Greg Harris (D-13), Deborah Mell (D-40), and Kelly Cassidy (D-14) introduced a marriage equality bill in the General Assembly earlier today, calling it the Religious Freedom-Marriage Act.

Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of Equality Illinois, responded to the news with the following:

We commend these leaders for taking yet another step towards full equality for lesbian and gay families in Illinois, and we are grateful to them for their leadership. This is just the beginning: the road to marriage equality is sure to be long, but it is one that we must travel together.

In following experiences of thousands of couples in civil unions over the past year, we confirmed what we always suspected to be true: that creating a separate institution to provide substantially the same rights did not add up to full equality under the law. A pharmacist who denied prescription pick-up to the patient's civil union partner didn't think it's the same thing as marriage. A coroner who refused to issue a death certificate to civil union partner survivor did not think that civil unions are the same as marriage. Tax preparers, estate planners, employers and employees do not think that civil unions are the same as marriage. Separate is not equal. And we at Equality Illinois will not rest until gay and lesbian couples in every corner of the state - who are equal in love - are also equal in marriage.

Just yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that California’s denial of marriage in favor of domestic partnerships for same sex couples violated the U.S. Constitution.

Check back with Progress Illinois for more on this story.