Dillard angling for new state motto in gubernatorial bid

My state senator and GOP Illinois gubernatorial candidate Kirk Dillard couldn't have picked a worse day to get his mug planted on Page 1 of the Chicago Tribune. In a huge two page Friday spread including a second, even bigger photo of candidate Dillard on Page 6, Dillard waxed nostalgic about the good ol' days when Illinois gays were treated like second class citizens who couldn't marry the lover of their choice. There's about a half million of those Illinoisans who Dillard, incredibly, wants to govern at the same time he wants to take away one of their most precious of all human rights. How so? Dillard is pitching his campaign in the hotly contested Republican Primary to the most virulent homophobes who will vote en mass March 18 for the strongest homophobe enabler. Dillard lost the 2010 Primary to more conservative fellow state senator Bill Brady by 193 votes out of 767,485 votes cast; a whisker of a whisker. Dillard admits he focused too much on his more moderate suburban Republican base rather than the conservative die-hards who put homophobia at he top of the issue pyramid. Dillard's not making that mistake this time. Last October he was featured speaker at the anti gay Illinois Family Institute rally at the Statehouse where he said "If I were governor of this state...we might not have to have this rally because...I would veto the gay marriage bill pending in the Illinois House". Now, drowning in the millions spent by rival and fellow homophobe enabler Bruce Rauner, which is leaving Dillard in the gubernatorial dust, Dillard has upped the anti by saying he'd sign a repeal of same sex marriage if it reaches his gubernatorial desk.

Ironically, Dillard made this heartless and hateful pledge the same day that federal judge Sharon Coleman ruled Cook County can immediately begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples to marry ahead of the legislative June 1, effective date. Coleman, responding to a ACLU suit, stated "There is no reason to delay further when...committed gay and lesbian couples have already suffered from the denial of their fundamental right to marry". The Trib's next edition featured, not candidate Dillard on Page 1, but the incredibly happy Theresa Volpe and Mercedes Santos, who were married Friday immediately after Judge Coleman's humane ruling. Volpe and Santos have many years to enjoy the benefits of marriage that Dillard has worked so hard to deny. Dillard, who becomes a private citizen after Billionaire Bruce buys the GOP nod, will have many years to contemplate the moral failing that led him to support the worser angels of his party who fill the holes in their souls denying freedom and full citizenship to folks they fear and hate.

One benefit of Dillard's loss will be that we won't see Priority One in a Dillard administration being a change in the state motto from Land of Lincoln to Home of Homophobes.