Early in Illinois!

My car is in the repair shop. It might sit there a week before they have time to get to it. In the meantime I'm still getting used to the rental.



Illinois passed a law a few months ago saying same-sex marriages would be legal beginning June 1. I guess various bureaucrats need that much time to get ready. But a same-sex couple in Chicago sued the clerk of Cook County, saying recent court cases in other states showed that denying marriage equality is unconstitutional. A couple weeks ago a district judge ruled that Cook County could issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That has prompted the Attorney General to say that constitutional protections "must exist without regard to county lines." So marriage equality has come to Illinois three months early.



Kentucky has been ordered to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages. The state will appeal. But they'll have to do it without the Attorney General. AG Jack Conway has said he refuses to defend KY's ban on recognizing same-sex marriages. He is joining a growing list of other state AGs who have made the same type of announcement.



A new nationwide poll shows 59% of Americans support marriage equality, setting a new polling high. Our current level of acceptance is likely due to the series of rulings in favor of marriage equality.



Polls similar to this new one are why many of our strongest GOP opponents say they agree with the veto of the Arizona law. Their strongly homophobic base is very much at odds with the rest of the country.



As the 10th Circuit Court prepares to hear marriage equality cases for Utah and Oklahoma, more than 20 prominent GOP lawmakers from Western states have filed a friend-of-the-court briefs saying they are in favor of equality. The most well known is Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming.



Though the sweeping license to discriminate bill in Arizona was vetoed by the governor, a replacement bill is brewing. This one affirms that pastors and church officials can not be sued for refusing to perform same-sex ceremonies. Yeah, fine, that's granted by the constitution. But the bill goes another step extending that right of refusal to judges and justices of the peace who perform civil marriages and clerks who issue marriage licenses.



I had mentioned a potential license-to-discriminate in Mississippi. I had said it was so weakened, after the mess in Arizona, that nobody was much interested in it. Alas, recent reports say there are still ugly parts that remain. What those ugly things are and how eager the legislators are in getting it passed haven't been reported.



GOP Rep. Steven King of Iowa is annoyed that the Arizona license to discriminate law was vetoed. Gays aren't a protected class, he says, and to be a protected class, their gayness must be ”independently verified." Stephen Colbert has a great takedown of the whole thing. At the end Colbert proposes gay couples send photos of their proof of gayness so King might do his independent verification. The video is under five minutes.