[caption id="attachment_99943" align="aligncenter" width="606"] The price of doing the right thing (Photo: Getty Images)[/caption]

Illinois Republican Party chair Patrick Brady stunned members of his party when he came out in support of gay marriage earlier this year. Brady stuck to his guns, despite the state GOP platform defining marriage as between a man and a woman, but he has now been forced to resign after sustained criticism from right-wing Republicans.

As if there are other kinds.

When a marriage-equality measure came before the state legislature this year, Brady encouraged lawmakers to endorse it. And when the bill just squeaked by the state Senate with a single voice, he announced that his party was ”on the wrong side of history.”

Almost immediately State Sen. Jim Oberweis and other conservatives called for Brady's head. They failed twice to oust him, but last month the Illinois GOP central committee approved a plan for Vice Chairwoman Carol Donovan to succeed Brady. "I’ve been going at it hard for six years," Brady told CNN. "I need to focus on my family, and obviously I had lost the support of the state Central Committee because of my position on gay marriage.”

Ironically Senator Mark Kirk, who took the seat vacated by President Obama, has come out in support of marriage equality himself.

Illinois is one of several states with marriage-equality legislation on the table. A vote is expected in Delaware later today.