Is Chicago Next?

Chicago mayor, Richard Daley said he would have "no problem" with allowing his county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. He stopped just short of actually telling the clerk to begin, but my guess is that before the week is out we may be seeing the same wonderful scenes we've witnessed in San Francisco over the past week.

Daley really hit all the important points during the interview:

Daley urged sympathy for same-sex couples because "they love each other just as much as anyone else."

Daley also dismissed a suggestion that marriage between gay couples would undermine the institution. "Marriage has been undermined by divorce, so don't tell me about marriage,"he said. "Don't blame the gay and lesbian, transgender and transsexual community."

And David Orr, the county clerk was just as adamant that this was the right thing to do:

"I'm fed up with people being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation," Orr said."(But) whatever you do when it comes to challenging laws, you want it to be effective and not knee-jerk."

If the mayors of a few more large cities take the same view, we really could be in the midst of a sea-change in civil rights as occured in the 1960s. And once the numbers reach a critical mass, which they may have done already in California, it will be almost impossible to stuff the genie back into the closet, as it were...

And where is our preznit, who's "done more for civil rights than any other president?" He remains "deeply troubled" by all of this and his extreme right-wingnut supporters are saying that he's definitely going to come out in favor of the first Constitutional amendment to restrict the rights of a minority in our history.

Shrubby also had this to say:

"People need to be involved in this decision," Bush said. "Marriage ought to be defined by the people, not by the courts."

I'm getting tired of saying this, but really... they sets 'em up, I just knocks 'em down: how can you honestly say that irony is dead?