The Catholic Conference of Illinois has expressed its regret at the passage of a bill legalising civil unions for same-sex couples. 
The legislation was approved by the Illinois House and Senate earlier this week, and provides same-sex partners in a civil union with all the legal rights of marriage.
Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, a supporter of the measure, has said he will sign it into law.
The Catholic conference said the measure will “explicitly grant these unions the same status as marriage in state law”.
In a statement, it said: “Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings.
“Marriage has been established by our Creator in harmony with the nature of man and woman and with its own essential properties and purpose. The Church did not invent marriage and neither has any State.
“No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman, who by personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, mutually commit to each other in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives.”
The conference said that besides essentially redefining marriage, the measure also “contains the potential for a serious conflict with religious liberty,” and it urged policymakers to take such concerns seriously and work out “additional conscience protections” in the coming months.
The statement explained that the legislation did not sufficiently protect the religious liberty of adoption and foster care agencies, Church-run social services, and employers who might object to granting family benefits to same-sex couples.
The Illinois House passed the bill by a vote of 61-52. The following afternoon, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 32-24.
Governor Quinn had urged the legislature to pass the bill during the lame-duck session and he even appeared on the House and Senate floor during debate to show his support. He has not said when he will sign the bill.
Ryan Plunkett, the president of the Eastern College Democrats said he was happy to see that the bill passed with and that this is only the start for other states to follow Illinois’ lead.
“Illinois is on the right side of history and this is a big first step in the right direction,” Plunkett said.
Illinois will become the 11th state to legalise either civil unions or domestic partnerships, where the bill says that two people who have entered into a civil union are entitled to the same legal treatment under Illinois law that is presently given to spouses, except same last names.
Plunkett said like the civil rights movement, Americans will look back during this time and say, “why didn’t we do that in the first place.”
Some of these benefits include receiving equal visitation privileges in hospitals, and being allowed to make medical decisions and sharing nursing home rooms.
Other benefits include protecting gay and lesbian couples that have entered into a civil union from having to testify against each other in state courts, and giving a surviving partner the right to file a wrongful death lawsuit. If a person has a pension, a same-sex partner in a civil union will be entitled to a survivor pension benefit.