Illinois has had its share of making history lately, but we have the opportunity to make history once again with an unprecedented number of openly gay candidates going into this Spring's primaries. Cook County (Chicago) is leading the pack with dozens of openly gay candidates for various offices on all levels. One of those offices is the 7th State Senate district currently being held by Democrat Heather Steans who is being challenged in the Primaries by openly gay former Executive Director of Equality Illinois, Jim Madigan.
The district includes Andersonville, which is the up-and-coming new 'gayborhood' for the city of Chicago, no doubt part of the reason that Steans introduced a Marriage Equality bill and transgender friendly legislation in the Illinois state Senate not long after Jim Madigan announced his campaign. Though Steans makes LGBT rights a very big priority on her webpage, Candidate Madigan has made it a career, no doubt a fact that will be very appealing to LGBT people in the northern shore neighborhoods he is campaigning in.
Surely the opportunity to make history with the first openly gay candidate for the state Senate isn't lost on Madigan's supporters. Least not on Jon Knoll who has been traveling around with the candidate, documenting his historic campaign and sharing it with the world on YouTube and social networking sites. On my way to catching up with Madigan to discuss his campaign, I spoke to Knoll for a bit about why he thinks that Jim Madigan is someone that matters.
Continue reading THE HISTORY MAKER'S HISTORIAN: JON KNOLL ON JIM MADIGAN (CLICK THE LINK TO READ THE COMPLETE PIECE ON THE BILERICO PROJECT--THIS IS ONLY A SNIPPET).
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