Dixie LoCicero, president of the Palatine chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, said until the bill is made law there is no recourse for someone who is fired from work based on sexual orientation, because existing state law only protects individuals from housing, credit and job discrimination based on ethnicity or religion.

"Now they would have something to file a (law)suit on," LoCicero said Tuesday, the day the House passed the legislation 65-51, one day after the Senate passed it 30-27.

The legislation states employers, real estate agents, landlords or lenders would not be required to give any special treatment to individuals based on their sexual orientation.

Opponents of the measure have said the legislation would be a slippery slope leading to approval of gay marriage in Illinois.

"It seems like this always gets tied up with other things like the gay marriage issue," LoCicero said. "This has nothing to do with gay marriage, but, in the meantime, lots of people I know have been fired because they're gay."

LoCicero said the legislation would simply prevent harassment at work and discrimination in other areas.

"You can't refuse to sell a house to someone because they're gay," she said. "I don't see how there can be anything negative; it's going to give people protection who didn't have protections."

Within Illinois, Cook County and 15 cities have similar provisions: Bloomington, Carbondale, Champaign, Chicago, Decatur, DeKalb, Evanston, LaGrange, Moline, Naperville, Normal, Oak Park, Peoria, Springfield and Urbana, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Rod Blagojevich said the governor would sign the legislation, the Sun-Times reported.

LoCicero's group, www.pflag-palatine.org, began in 2003. It usually meets at 7 p.m. the third Monday of the month at the Countryside Unitarian Universalist Church in Palatine. The group is part of the Greater Chicagoland PFLAG Council, www.pflagchicago.com, that includes chapters in Aurora, Chicago, Glenview, Hinsdale, Oak Park, Wheaton and Woodstock.

LoCicero said she was disappointed state Sen. Wendell Jones, R-27th, a Palatine resident, voted against the legislation.

Jones, a former special education teacher, expressed opposition to any kind of discrimination, but he said this particular bill was different.

"I've spent years fighting the discrimination of the handicapped," he said. "I don't want anyone discriminated against, but I don't want to codify behavior in state law."

Jones said there were protections already in place in Cook County and elsewhere in the state, and introducing the legislation was needlessly politically divisive.

"We need to stop the politics of trying to get people in a certain box one way or the other," he said. "If this (legislation) were just this issue, fine, but it's not. It opens up unintended consequences (and) other issues like it did in Massachusetts."

Jones said there were only nine cases of alleged discrimination based on sexual orientation in Cook County.

"Out of 5.5 million people in Cook County," he said. "I don't think it's healthy for our society to keep debating this when it is rare."

A number of other state senators from this area also voted against the legislation.