Illinois' push to legalize equal marriage has been in the national spotlight in recent weeks, but an anti-gay lawmaker is also drawing attention, including the scorn of national LGBT organization GLAAD.
Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-42) recently said stated that gays were trying to "weasel their way into acceptability" on Catholic Conference Radio Hour.
"They're trying to redefine marriage," she said. "It's a completely disordered relationship and when you have a disordered relationship, you don't ever get order out of that."
Ives' comments riled her gay and pro-gay colleagues, who took Facebook to condemn her remarks.
Ives attempted to clarify those remarks in a Wheaton Patch post.
"I have no comment on a person's sexual orientation or personal relationships," Ives wrote. "That is their private business and I have no interest in meddling in a person's private affairs. I have simply made statements in defense of the attack on marriage from certain vocal constituencies who seek to redefine it out of existence. I do not believe it is the government's place to redefine marriage."
But those comments did not satisfy national LGBT group GLAAD, who blasted Ives in a March 20 blog post and took local media to task for not calling her out.
"This is the same garbage we hear every time someone like Ives gets caught saying what he or she truly believes to what they assume is audience of exclusively like-minded people," the GLAAD post reads.
"Calling those personal relationships 'completely disordered' sounds an awful lot like a comment on those personal relationships, doesn't it? And accusing gay people of trying to 'weasel their way into acceptability' certainly feels like a comment on sexual orientation."
GLAAD argued that Illinois media should question Ives on whether or not she stands by her initial comments.
"But the media cannot allow her to pretend that people who are offended are 'misinterpreting' her original statements," the organization said. "That is a statue of Honest Abe outside the State Capitol building, after all. There is no room for interpretation. Either she stands by the things she said or she doesn't."
