Topinka is coming! Topinka is coming!

Renew Illinois does not like Judy Baar Topinka, a presumed anti-Blago candidate for governor, and has this to say today:

What would a Topinka Administration look like?  How Republican would it be?  

Answer: about as Republican as her operation is now – that is to say – not very Republican, and not even very “moderate.”  Let’s have some honesty in our IL GOP for a change.  Topinka is no moderate – she’s a liberal extremist – and a rather wacky one at that. 

She’s a good huckster and she’s conned a lot of good people, granted.  But she’s never tried-out for the Big Leagues before now.  Few have really been paying attention.  Once folks in Illinois do, they won’t like what they see. 

One of Topinka’s closest allies and most loyal supporters is Rick Garcia, political director of the gay rights group Equality Illinois.  Just this past week, Garcia personally attacked the organizers of the Protect Marriage petition drive, calling them “rank bigots” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 24, 2005).

Now that Garcia quote is sure provocative.  It’s always nice discussing politics with Rick, apparently.  (Excuse me, I have a pressing engagement.)  This time it’s a petition for signatures to put an advisory Marriage Protection Referendum on the ballot in November 2006, when Judy B. would oppose Blago. 

In the referendum voters would say whether they want to amend the state constitution to define marriage in Illinois as between a man and a woman.  Garcia would rather snap at it than argue against it, unless you count this:

"These people no more care about families than the man on the moon. If they wanted to protect families, why aren't they pushing a ban on divorce? Divorce ruins more families than any gay person ever has."

But eating away at the very concept, Rick — what about that?