Bad facts make bad law. - The Druid Hills Golf Club legislation passes the Senate.

Just as the state GOP is hardly able to contain itself at the very prospect of being able to have another referendum on the ballot in Nov. 2006 if amendment # 1 is declared unconstitional, no doubt it also was licking its tusks last November when Chuck Bowen -- executive director of Georgia's largest gay rights organization Georgia Equality -- began publicly pressing Mayor Franklin to either enforce the city's Human Rights Ordinance as it is or come up with a plan to strengthen it so it can survive a court challenge.

Why Georgia Equality wanted the Druid Hills Golf Club to be its test case will always be a mystery to me. Does it and its Executive Director not recognize that the GOP loves to engage in public gay bashing? And all the more so in a factual situation such as this involving initiation fees in the range of 40 to 50 thousand dollars that hardly elicits public sympathy for the victims of alleged illegal discrimination.

Regardless, a proposal that would void this Atlanta city ordinance requiring associations such as the Druid Hills Golf Club to extend marriage benefits to gay couples cleared its final hurdle in the General Assembly today, and now is headed to Gov. Perdue for his certain signature.

(3-17-05 AJC.)