Chicago’s first openly gay alderman on Tuesday reopened the volatile debate about whether City Hall should establish contract set-asides for businesses owned by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered residents. Six years after raising the issue only to drop it like a hot potato, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) brought it up again during a Budget Committee hearing called to extend until 2015 a construction set-aside ordinance for minorities and women. Prior to the unanimous vote for the extension, Tunney asked Corporation Counsel Mara Georges whether any other municipality has a “category” that defines “LGBT as a qualified minority.”

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