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Health & Fitness

Thomas More Society invades the 48th District - Heaven help us!

My Illinois 48th District state representative Sandy Pihos is in for a tough GOP Primary battle for possibly the first time in her 12 year legislative career. Lombard Village Trustee Peter Breen has challenged Pihos who has won enough awards in her first six legislative terms to make a Primary battle preposterous and a general election win a cakewalk. Her problem is that she's too good. She has so many independents and Democrats voting for her that the GOP's extreme right wing has taken notice and decided she is a RINO - Republican in Name Only. And stepping up to the plate to challenge Pihos is Lombard Village Trustee Peter Breen. Peter Who? Turns out Mr. Breen is also Vice President and Senior Counsel of the ultra conservative Thomas More Society, a not-for-profit public interest law firm working to restore respect for life, religious liberty and marriage. Dig a little deeper and you find that it does not respect life, religious liberty or marriage. What it does do, according to the religious gospel of attorney Breen, is demand that our freedom loving, secular nation, follow in lock step, the Society's extreme religious notion of what constitutes respect for marriage even though it treats gay Illinoisans, an unprotected minority, as second class citizens. While much of the civilized world including 15 states and the District of Columbia in America, recognize same sex marriage, the Thomas More Society turns its back on our inexorable march to granting gays full citizenship in the most hallowed of human rights - the right to marry the lover of one's choice. They can't come out and say they are homophobic and hate gays so they say, "it's all about the children", forgetting the fact that a sizable minority, if not a majority of Illinois children are raised with one or no parents due to the extreme disfunctionality of heterosexual relationships, married or not. However, the rights of gays never enters into the perverted worldview of the Thomas More Society. God has simply told them gay marriage is wrong and immoral so they will spend their lives and money working night and day to prevent it in a secular society. We don't need that religious fanaticism corrupting and disgracing our politics in the 48th District or anywhere else in Illinois. Rep. Pihos will never add to her awesome award collection from the gay community or civil rights groups for that matter because she opposes gay marriage in Illinois. Why? Apparently, this is one issue she will not give a clear reason for the homophobes who dominate in the Republican Primary to vote for the religious zealot Breen. But, by already being on record as saying that gay marriage in Illinois is inevitable, she's signalized to GOP homophobes that she won't a lift a finger in their crazed and Quixotic campaign against it. A Breen upset of Pihos in the Primary will make him the clear favorite in the November election to replace her. If that happens, Heaven help us.

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