Rose, Ventra tops 1st gay marriage

I’m not surprised by the news judgment used by Chicago’s two metro newspapers on Tuesday.

Rose tops marriage, ...

The fact that the first legitimate marriage of a gay couple will take place sometime this week – about seven months prior to the date the new law goes into effect – made Page One of both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.

BUT IT WASN’T the lede story. In fact, if one didn’t pay close enough attention, you’d have missed the marriage story altogether.

For the record, the Sun-Times on Tuesday thought that the BIG DEAL of the news lineup came from the world of sports – specifically the fact that Derrick Rose has suffered an injury so severe that he’s going to miss the entire season.

As in again. It’s starting to appear as though the man that Chicago Bulls fans were counting on to be the big star of teams that would win a slew of championships will be nothing more than a “never was” – as in we’ll forevermore speculate about what could have been IF ONLY he hadn’t gotten hurt.

As for the Tribune, they gave a banner headline to the latest story about how messed up the Ventra card system is. Which appeals to the people who use the Chicago Transit Authority trains and buses on a regular basis.

BECAUSE IT WOULD seriously stink if one couldn’t get to work because their fare card didn’t function properly.

Yet the occurrence this week related to gay marriage is one of those bizarre moments that it is something we all ought to be interested in – particularly if you’re one of those people who wants to wish that the issue would just go away!

... as does Ventra

For the record, the General Assembly passed a bill making marriage a legitimate option for gay couples in such a way that it can’t take effect immediately.

There was no way that 60 percent of legislators were going to agree on this issue so as to allow it to take effect immediately. It had to settle for the bare majority (60 of 118 votes), which means the new law will take effect June 1, 2014.

EXCEPT THAT A federal judge (U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin, to be exact) issued a ruling Monday that requires the Cook County clerk’s office to issue a marriage license to a pair of women who wish to marry immediately.

Derrick Rose may be gone for good

The women are not a youthful couple, and it seems they have been together for five years and got a civil union in 2011. But one of them has breast cancer severe enough that they’re not sure she will survive long enough for the couple to have a June wedding.

County Clerk David Orr has always said he supports the idea of marriage being available for all; so much so that he didn’t even fight the lawsuit the couple filed last week.

He seemed to be pleased that Judge Durkin issued the order that forced him to issue the marriage license that took effect Tuesday (the couple says they’ll marry this week).

NOT THAT I’M really bothered by the fact that the couple will marry now, rather than later. I’m sure the fact that the law didn’t take effect immediately was one of the few “victories” the conservative ideologues were feeling these days.

But it does make me wonder about the long-term effect on the provisions of state law that require a higher level of support for bills passed after the General Assembly completes its spring session.

Some wish these cards would go away instead

I recall one time that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, specifically thwarted the interests of firearms advocates by requiring one of their bills to get a 60 percent majority – a vote total they could not possibly achieve.

Officials say the ruling by Durkin is so narrow that it shouldn’t impact other cases – or other couples wanting to get married before June 1. But have we managed to undo some sense of our legal procedure? Yet another reason we’ll be confused in the future!

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Are cash-less cards unfair for regular users of mass transit programs?

I remember the days when one actually got a reward at a gas station for using cash INSTEAD OF a credit card to pay for their motor fuel, I also recall the day when one dumped a token into the fare box on board the bus in order to get a ride.

So perhaps it is a sign of my advancing age that I see the new way in which the Chicago Transit Authority wants people to pay their fares for a bus or elevated train ride and can’t help but be repulsed by the change.

FOR IT SEEMS that the CTA is joining the ranks of entities that wants to view cash as a problem – largely because it requires real live employees to handle properly.

Having some sort of card that one scans, or perhaps even just swipes, may soon become the preferred way of paying one’s fare – to the point that the CTA may start penalizing people who pay for their individual rides with cash.

The Chicago Tribune has reported in recent days about the new Ventra system that the CTA wants to implement this year. It would entail purchasing special cards that would have credit pre-loaded onto them. Then, you just swipe your card each time you use the CTA for your transit needs.

You’d have to update your card periodically for more credit. But I’m sure the CTA likes the idea of you just giving them large sums of money – without thinking specifically about how much you’re actually spending.

THE FINANCIAL INCENTIVE to sway people to use this new system (rather than just reject it as some hokey, new-fangled gadget)? CTA officials are considering a plan by which the basic fare for a single bus or el train ride would rise to $3 – up from the $2.25 they currently charge.

Heck, I can remember when bus rides were 90 cents, with an extra dime for the transfer. And I know there is the older generation that can remember when CTA rides were even significantly cheaper than that.

I realize that costs increase with time. Inflation, after all. So I’m not necessarily complaining about the rise in price. Although it makes me thankful that I don’t use mass transit as often these days as I used to. I think I’d be perpetually broke if I were a daily user.

But I can sympathize with those activists who are taking up the cause of lower-income mass transit riders who aren’t going to want to have to shell out so much money at once and are more likely to pay for rides individually.

THEY’RE THE ONES who will wind up having to pay more money so that the rest of us will be able to have a “contactless fare card” with which to pay for those rides we take on those occasions when we’d rather not be bothered with having to park an automobile.

Considering the cost of legal parking in Chicago, they may argue that even a higher-costing CTA ride is still a financial bargain!

But it still is cheesy to hit certain people with a higher fare for not using the new device – whose main purpose like I wrote earlier is to reduce the amount of human staff necessary to process all that cash that would otherwise need to be counted out.

I don’t expect CTA officials to be swayed by any of this.

THE CTA’S BOARD is scheduled to meet Wednesday, and likely will vote on the matter at that time. I expect it will be regarded as a vote for technological progress, and all those activists who bother to show up to complain will be dismissed as somehow wanting to live in the past.

Yet there were some things about the past that were preserving – such as the idea of a bus ride and transfer that one could pay for with just a dollar bill (and not having to worry about juggling all kinds of extra change).

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