With a bunch of State of California flags and chants like "California Now, Illinois Next," the Great Bear Republic was resurrected in Chicago's Gay Pride Parade this past Sunday in front of a half million spectators.


The Illinois marchers gamely tried their hand at the song, "California here we come," but only knew the lyrics to the first two lines of the song, so just kept repeating them over and over again.


A handful of powerful Chicago politicians have said they favor equal marriage rights for Lesbians and Gays, but the one politician with power to actually issue marriage licenses, the Democratic liberal Cook County Clerk David Orr, has so far refused to do so. One of the themes of the contingent was that it's not good enough for "gay-friendly" politicians to march in our parades and say they like us, they have to do something about it. When SF Mayor Gavin Newsome defied the national Democratic Party by issuing marriage licenses, he gave a huge boost to the drive towards legal equality.


Such has been the mindless hoopla about this year's presidential race, that many in the crowd were under the mistaken impression that hometown candidate Barack Obama favors marriage equality for Lesbians and Gays. So GLN made up big signs with anti-gay quotes from both Obama* and McCain. Unfortunately some in the some-what inebriated crowd looked at the pictures of Obama and interpreted the signs as endorsements, a misinterpretation only somewhat countered by chants of "Obama, Obama, let mama marry mama," and "McCain, McCain, he's just insane!"


The contingent, organized by the Gay Liberation Network (www.GayLiberation.net), was joined by the anarchist queer organization Bash Back (which had a "Jail Daley" theme, complete with a mobile jail), Chicago Area CodePINK, ANSWER, and Away With All Gods.




A stalled parade vehicle and a rain storm stopped the entire parade for about an hour as the tightly packed crowd flooded into the streets in futile attempts to find a dry place to wait out the storm. It was beginning to look like "The City that Works," which is bidding to host the 2016 Olympics, couldn't even handle a parade, much less an international sports extravaganza.


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