Illinois became the sixteenth state in the union to legalize gay marriage after the House and Senate passed a bill Thursday evening that is expected to be signed by Governor Pat Quinn sometime this month.
After two-and-a-half hours of debate, the bill only narrowly passed the House Tuesday with 61 votes, one more than the minimum, the Chicago Tribune reports. The Senate, which previously approved a slightly different version of the bill, later approved the revised version 32-21.
“Tonight, I applaud the men and women of the Illinois General Assembly, a body in which I was proud to serve, for voting to legalize marriage equality in my home state,” President Barack Obama said in an emailed statement on the bill’s passage Tuesday evening.
INTERACTIVE: Timeline of the Gay Rights Movement in the U.S.
A previous version of this article stated that Gov. Quinn had already signed the bill. He did not; he is expected to do so this month. TIME regrets the error.