By Robert Recklaus
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One of the trustees who opposed the registry, Fred Pospisil, said he couldn’t support it because it didn’t extend the benefits to unmarried straight couples. “I’m not at all disappointed the registry passed,” he told Oak Leaves, “but for a community that promotes equality and inclusion, here was a chance to put different-sexed, unmarried couples on the registry.” Ray Johnson, cochair of the Oak Park Area Lesbian and Gay Association, responded, “They already have the option of getting legally married. We do not.”
Another opponent, Bernard Abraham, dismissed the ordinance as “symbolic and foundationless as a civil rights cause” in a letter published in Oak Leaves. “The registry confers no privilege except permitting certain individuals the privilege of putting their name on file at village hall.”
Assistant village clerk Jan Jankowski says at first a lot of people wanted to be on the registry. “The first couple weeks following the registry’s passage,” he says, “couples came in to sign up almost daily.” Twenty couples registered in the fall of 1997. But, he says, “interest has waned to close to nothing since.” Two years later a total of 40 same-sex couples have registered with the village. So far only two couples have registered in 1999. “Actually more people call to remove themselves from the registry because they have moved than call to add their names.”
Jankowski says the village clerk’s office now occasionally receives calls from other towns and cities in Illinois and across the country considering registries of their own. “Not too long ago an official from Milwaukee called the office inquiring about elements of our registry,” he says. “I guess the idea is catching on.”
