Illinois: Republican governor candidate wants to ban equal marriage

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a white background.

Republican candidate Bruce Rauner has said that he’d be willing to repeal the same-sex marriage law that was recently introduced in Illinois.

Mr Rauner announced that if he was governor he would “veto” marriage equality due to the absence of a referendum on the issue.

When asked about same-sex marriage during his campaign, Mr Rauner tried to avoid going into detail on his views, claiming that he doesn’t “have a social agenda.”

“I have many gay friends and if they choose to marry I hope they have great lives together,” he continued. “Now it’s passed, it’s the law, I don’t have any agenda to change it and the only way I’d change it is if it were done in a referendum — the voters said that they’d want to change it.”

Mr Rauner has previously said that equal marriage “doesn’t matter.”

In response, Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, who signed the state’s equal marriage bill into law, said: “I didn’t need a referendum to tell me what was the right thing to do.

“The right thing was to pass the marriage equality bill and for me, the governor, to sign it into law.”