Over on City Desk, Mike DeBonis is reporting that the D.C. Council voted unanimously to pass a package of bills that includes recognition for out of state same-sex marriages.

Why did Marion Barry, who led a chant of “No to same-sex marriage” at an anti-gay-marriage rally last week, decline to oppose the gay marriage bill? Oh: He didn’t realize what he was voting on. According to DeBonis, Barry realized his mistake minutes later and moved for reconsideration, firing up the Council debate on marriage.

No take-backs, Marion Barry. No-take backs.

City Paper’s Loose Lips columnist, Mike DeBonis, has the run-down on a D.C. gay marriage timeline:

In the Blade, Lou Chibbaro Jr. runs down some of the challenges facing a ballot referendum banning gay marriage in the District. They are many: For one, 21,000 signatures is a lot.

Meanwhile, in WaTimes, Gary Emerling examines how gay-marriage advocates are “re-evaluating their strategy.” Pretty much everybody says it’s all about timing. Emerling manages to get one minister on the record, the Rev. Derrick Harkins of Nineteenth Street Baptist, who says he doesn’t think a bill “would be met with great enthusiasm on the part of the African-American church.”

NBC reports, and Loose Lips links, this alert about a sexual assault that occurred last weekend in Georgetown. D.C. police are on the lookout for a 25 to 28-year-old black man, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing around 150 pounds, with a “close haircut or a shaved head.” The suspect allegedly “entered a residence in the 1400 block of Wisconsin Avenue near O Street early Sunday morning,” where he “attacked and sexually assaulted a woman inside.”

If you have information on the crime, call Crime Solvers at (800) 673-2777.

In this week’s paper, Mike Debonis—City Paper’s Loose Lips columnist—suggested that D.C. voters write-in at-large Council candidate Carol Schwartz on November 4th. The Washington Blade’s pretty into her, too. Today, Schwartz’s chief of staff and deputy committee clerk, both openly gay, penned an opinion piece for the newspaper touting Schwartz’s leadership in the GLBT community.