When a state’s
Attorney General intervenes in a lawsuit challenging the legality of
that state’s laws, the Attorney General usually sides with the defense.
Not so in the cases of the Darby v. Orr and Lazaro v. Orr, the two lawsuits filed last week in Illinois, which challenge the state’s civil unions law.

From MetroWeekly:

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) will be joining Lambda
Legal and the ACLU in arguing that Illinois’s civil unions law does not
meet the state’s constitutional guarantees of equal
protection, raising the question of what the Cook County clerk of
courts — the named defendant — will do in its response to the
lawsuits.

The move came just two days after Lambda Legal and the ACLU each filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the civil union law. 

In a pair of June 1 filings in Darby v. Orr and Lazaro v. Orr, which were reviewed by Metro Weekly,
the attorney general’s office has requested to intervene in the cases
… In the requests, Madigan writes, “Petitioner respectfully requests
the right to intervene in this case to present the Court with arguments
that explain why the challenged statutory provisions do not satisfy the
guarantee of equality under the Illinois Constitution.”

On June 25, the Attorney General’s Office will make the request to intervene in Darby, which was brought by Lambda Legal. On June 26, the office will make the intervention request in Lazaro, which was brought by the ACLU.