Promises from Campaigns Past...

I've been a bit busy, or I would have blogged a few days ago on something that is eating at me in the Georgia Governor's race. The problem is the spate of idiotic promises that both major candidates are offering. Neither is well thought out, and they are all designed to pull in support on Nov. 7. Normally, I don't pay much attention to promises made in a campaign, as I view most of them as cheap ploys to get votes from people who don't think about the world around them.

This year's Georgia gubernatorial race, however, is like an LSD flashback to Virginia Governor's races past. First up is hysteria about criminals and crime. Atlanta has had the fewest number of murders this year since 1969, but you wouldn't know it from looking at Sonny's and Mark's ad. Actually, it's not violent crime, but child molesters who are out to get us all. This is probably fed from the news stories of the last year from Dateline NBC and other outlets about the child molesters in our midst who use the internet to seduce our children. This is a serious problem, and it shows that pedophilia is more common than anyone would be comfortable with. I have no problem cracking down kiddie porn, arresting people who possess or trade in child porn, or being damn tough on convicted child molesters. Speaking as someone who was molested by a stranger in a movie theatre as a child, I know what kind of damage it can do to a child's self-esteem and psyche. I emerged pretty unscarred, but I immediately told the police and my parents what happened after what I felt to be the immediate danger passed. But for years, I thought the molestation was my fault, because I had just entered puberty and my hormone laden fantasies and dreams were definitely of the homosexual variety. I figured God was punishing me for my homo desires (thanks Southern Baptist Convention!). Anyway, I think there is a special place in hell for anyone who would abuse a child.

Sonny and Mark came out with child molester ads within days of each other, so I'm not sure who was first. Sonny's ad also started the nauseating "Sonny Do" commercials which I expect to be subjected to through November. It starts on a clear morning with Mrs. Perdue looking absolutely stricken as she gazes out of a kitchen window. Sonny places an arm around her while a Levitra ad plays over his shoulder, and Mrs. Perdue cries out about her worry over the children of Georgia and all those child molesters out there! You can practically see Sonny slap her ass as he tells her it will be all right, because he's worried too, and he's starting a Georgia CSI unit (Child Sex Investigation, not Crime Scene, like the TV show) with the state police. Mrs. Perdue's eyes glisten and remarks what a great idea that is ... and that she'll put that on his "Sonny Do" list.

Not to be outdone, Mark Taylor came out with an add that promises the death penalty for any repeat child offenders...assuming the victim was under 14. I guess it wouldn't be worth death if you molest a 12 yr old and follow up later with the statutory rape of a 15 yr old. Mark promises that with him as governor, child molesters will FRY (or be put to sleep since Georgia uses lethal injection). Can't beat death in the "who's tougher on child molesters" sweepstakes.

Sonny's commercial is a stunt. He's already ordered this new unit in the state police to be started, which is a good thing. The problem with internet predators is long standing, so why did it take an election to get his attention? With Mark's proposal, I'm not certain that is legal. Yes, other states have the same kind of law...but I don't think it's been tested yet. No one's met the criteria for it to be tested in the courts. Death penalty jurisprudence has evolved to the point where death is imposed only when someone else dies AND there's aggravating factors. If you rape and kill a 12 year old, that would get you the death penalty TODAY if a jury was willing to impose it. I'm not convinced that the 8th amendment would allow a repeat child molester who did not kill his/her victims to be put to death without it being a violation of cruel and unusual punishment. There's definitely an argument to be made that it's no more cruel or unusual than what the molester does to his/her victim, but the law has a way of looking at things with the emotion stripped away. Besides, it's VERY expensive to put someone to death, more expensive than keeping them alive for life behind bars. You also would have to expand death row, I imagine. How will Mark pay for that and his proposals to reinstate the $1 billion Sonny cut from education or to expand PeachKids to all children under the age of 18, regardless of income? If you say "higher taxes", I will show you a GOP General Assembly that will not let that happen, no matter how sound the proposal.

Two other promises I've heard in connection with Taylor's campaign is a promise to a) eliminate the property tax on personal vehicles and b) to eliminate parole. That move is straight from the playbook of George Allen in 1993 and James Gilmore in 1997 when they won the Virginia governor's mansion. George Allen promised to eliminate parole and ended a 12 year Democratic reign in Richmond as a result. Parole was ended for anyone convicted after June 1994 in Virginia. The sentence you got is the sentence you would serve, by damn! It worked quite well, except for the fact that the prisons quickly became overcrowded. The solution to that was to cut higher education to fund building more prisons. George Allen chose prisons over schools, and Mark Taylor is setting himself up to make the same kind of choice.

In 1997, Gilmore promised to eliminate the property tax on vehicles. The problem is that this tax was not levied by the state; it was levied by the counties and cities. In Virginia, all sovreignity resides with the General Assembly, and counties/cities can only do what the General Assembly gives express permission for them to do. However, take away the tax on vehicles, and you decimate the local governments. Their budgets would virtually disappear overnight, and things like sewers, fire, police, and local roads would have no funding whatsoever. The way around this was to have the state reimburse the localities for the tax, and freeze the millage rate at where it stood in 1998. The problem is that SUVs and other expensive cars became hugely popular around this time, so the cost estimates for this program (much like the Bush estimates for the Medicare prescription drug program) were wildly under-stated. The program had to be frozen because it was bankrupting the state, and when the recession of Bush's first term caused a fiscal crisis in Virginia, Democrat Mark Warner was forced to freeze the program at 80% of the tax being covered by state funds. Mark Taylor should know that this program, while popular, will be extremely expensive, and money has to come from somewhere. How will he pay for it? This is a program for which Sonny has said "me too" so it looks like we'll be facing some kind of car tax relief in 2007. Again, the choice to cut the tax will have consequences, so the question is what will Georgians sacrifice to avoid that nasty birthday tax on our cars?

My point in all this is that choices have consequences. Bush has tried to sell the American people on the notion that you can have something for nothing, but that's irresponsible. It's the best way to bankrupt our society and government. Luckily, states can't run deficits, although rainy day funds do allow some extra spending in hard times, which is appropriate. We can't have everything we'd like, so we have to make choices. The hard decision comes when we have to decide whether to invest in our children or in housing our criminals. In pulling Georgia out of the education cellar or in getting a tax break on our cars. Virginia made these choices in the 1990s, and paid a price for it. Georgia would be wise to look at Virginia's experience before going down the same road.

It must be a mutation

This morning as I was driving to work, I came across a car with an interesting combination of stickers on its bumper. First I noticed the fish symbol colored in with a rainbow. That tells me this person is loudly proclaiming herself a lesiban Christian. (I could tell it was a woman driving when I passed.) The next sticker was more shocking: a W 2004 sticker.

As I drove past this lesbian of color, I became more flabbergasted. What could possibily lead a person of homosexual orientation to support Bush's re-election in 2004? Let alone a lesbian of COLOR! If anyone knows oppression, it would be a lesbian of color. I know about 29% of the gay vote went to Bush in 2004, but I figured most of that was snotty white guys who figured that greed was good and they'd have enough money to "buy" acceptance in a GOP world. That's usually how Log Cabin Republicans are at their core, despite the flowery rhetoric of "this is the only thing I don't agree with the GOP on" and "I'm more than my sexuality."

But a lesbian of color still having her W 2004 sticker on her car just boggles my mind. Here is a man who based his reelection on scaring the living crap out of conservative and rural voters with visions of forced homosexual marriages in every corner of the country, regardless of your sexuality! Bush purposely demonized LGBT people for his political purposes, which makes him no better than the segregationists of the South who did the same thing to blacks during the 1950s and 1960s especially. Luckily, the politicians who still vilifiy blacks (albeit more subtlely) in order to get elected are nearly all on the GOP side now.

How could an openly lesbian woman of faith support that man? How does she sleep at night knowing what she has contributed to? I simply do not get it. Bush's policies harm homosexuals and people of color. He's driven down wages, and given tax breaks to the most wealthy among us. He's undone good programs like Hope VI in order to pay for his military ventures. Yet, this lesbian of color (STILL kills me!) proudly puts her W2004 sticker on her car!

It makes me wonder if there's some kind of genetic defect that make people adopt a political party and set of beliefs that causes great harm not only to themselves but to everyone who is like them. Do they hate themselves that much? Or it is a mutuation that renders them incapable of rational thought?

Cathy's Revenge

The newspapers have been all atwitter about the absence of Cathy Cox from the Taylor for Governor campaign. Cathy has been very conveniently busy or travelling whenever an opportunity has arisen to appear with Mark and put on a good show for the cameras.
But today, the AJC reported that Cathy's campaign chairman, a Democratic turncoat who became Republican to preserve his seat in the legislature, has endorsed Sonny Perdue for re-election. Dan Ponder was supposed to be emblematic of how Cathy would govern in a different way, and she would reach across the aisle for the best ideas from both sides of the political spectrum. Apparently, there were a lot of GOPers eager to support the first female governor of Georgia, even if she was a Democrat.

The problem is that Cathy's campaign collapsed. Much of it was her fault, I think, and she didn't handle Mark Taylor's well-timed attacks too well. I've already documented on this blog my disappointment and anger over Cathy's reaction to the gay marriage amendment "crisis" earlier this year. I think she totally blew it and flushed her chances of election at that time. Mark Taylor did play dirty with her, there's no doubt. And the "Taylor Trolls" out there who were his most vociferous supporters (or the ones who just hated Cathy the most because she was a woman running for Governor) did more than their fair share of Cathy-bashing.

After Cathy's loss, I thought her concession speech was fantastic. It was the old Cathy Cox that I had once known and loved. However, I cannot blame her for being angry over Taylor's campaign tactics. She should not have been surprised though...he's notorious for playing rough when he has to. He always waits for his opponent to mess up first, but then he goes after them with a vengeance. After that wikipedia scandal when her campaign director Morton Brilliant amended Mark Taylor's bio to include information about his son's drunk driving and vehicular homicide charges in South Carolina...she should have known it was coming.

Cathy and her people have every right to feel bitter and angry about the primary. I look at it as a missed opportunity. I think Cathy could have peeled off GOP voters from Sonny easier than Mark will. Her campaign, though, did not do what it needed to do in order to nail down the Democratic primary. It was a case of opportunities wasted.

I think Cathy's revenge will be to stand idly by while Mark Taylor flounders and ultimately loses to Sonny in November. First, people aren't pissed off at Sonny like they were at Roy Barnes 6 years ago. Sure, Sonny's a mixture of greed, insider dealing, and broken promises packaged in a folksy grampa persona...but he doesn't have people really pissed at him. That's hard to fight in an incumbent governor. The sweetheart tax deal that Sonny had the legislature pass to save him $100,000 in taxes would have been a great start to the fall campaign, except for the fact that Mark Taylor's daddy pays him $100,000/yr and the free use of a Buckhead mansion for a couple of hours of work a month. Which is worse? I would argue Sonny's tax situation, because it was an abuse of his power and position as governor, but Mark's situation is no less sleazy and self-serving.

I'm not sure what Cathy's game plan is. Maybe she's setting her sights on 2010 to try again for Governor, or maybe someone can convince her to run for US Senate against Senator Bush, errr, Chambliss. I'm not sure inaction to let Mark fail will hurt her in the long run. She can't be seen as actively against Taylor, but she can just sit at home and do nothing to help him. Honestly, that's what a lot of Democrats in Georgia seem to be doing. We want to beat Sonny, but we're not sure Mark's the guy to do that. Cathy could have done it, maybe, but she screwed the pooch on her campaign, and there are LGBT voters who will never forgive her for the way she handled the marriage amendment being overturned. I'm not quite as harsh. I withheld my vote in the primary, and that was my punishment for Cathy. I hope she learned a lesson from it, and I'm willing to support her again in the future. I also will cast my vote for Mark Taylor, but the race doesn't get me as passionate or excited as, say, the Jim Martin campaign for Lt. Governor against that theocrat neanderthal Casey Cagel.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

YDG Democratic State Convention AFTER PARTY!

Join Us!

Following up on the great success of the YDG GADCC Dinner After Party in Macon, we're doing it again!! Please Join the Young Democrats of Georgia, and the Georgia Democrats still Young-At-Heart, as we celebrate and gather together after the Democratic Party State Convention at Shout in Midtown. Complimentary Valet Parking is available and recommended.

What: Young Democrats After-Party for the Democratic Party State Convention

When: Saturday, September 16th, 6pm-?Where: Shout in Midtown (Colony Square, 14th Street and Peachtree)

Link with Map: http://www.georgiayds.org/events/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Day&sm=9&sy=2006&sd=16&h=2688

Shout is located in Colong Square, where the Sheraton Midtown is also located. If you are planning on joining us for the After Party, and have a long drive home, you may want to consider booking a room at the Sheraton.

We look forward to a great evening with great Democrats!

If you have any questions, please contact Page Gleason, YDG Executive Director, at alupkg@yahoo.com or 404-317-3563.

The Adovcate seeks future LGBT political leaders

Now, I quibble with their definition of young (25 and under), but this is the gay community we're talking about, so they probably felt like they were being generous to push "young" all the way to 25 yrs old. So, if you know anyone, urge them to apply. I got this through the YDA LGBT Caucus.

The Advocate is looking for the future LGBT leaders in politics . This November will prove to be a key election for equality, and we want to hear from the young queers working behind the scenes this election cycle.

We're looking for politically active LGBT youth (25 and under):

• Campaign/Political staffers
• Political Action Committee members
• Field Directors
• Grass roots organizers
• Campus catalysts
• Influential bloggers
• Environmental activists
• Workers on the Hill
• Coalition builders
• Lobbyists
• Fundraisers
• (Other)

Please submit the attached nomination to be considered as one of The Advocate's Up-and-Coming LGBT Politicos. Those selected will be contacted for a follow-up interview and expected to provide a photograph to appear in The Advocate.

Self-nominations are strongly encouraged and any additional materials are welcome. Deadline for submissions is September 22 or ASAP.

All submissions and questions can be sent to Kevin Hauswirth, advocatekevin@gmail.com.

Thank you,

--

Kevin Hauswirth

Editor, GenQ Editorial Advisory Board

The Advocate

+1 847.636.1791

http://www.advocate.com/genq

TalkOUT series continues this fall...

I attended a TalkOUT forum on race relations within the LGBT community last month, and it was very interesting, but poorly attended. Other than the three panelists, I was the only person of Caucasian background to attend. I found that to be a shame, along with the fact that only 4 people attended overall, including myself. The discussion was enlightening despite the poor attendance. I think these talks promise to be interesting, and the series continues this fall. I hope others will also attend. The information is below:

Talk OUT 06' Topics, Dates, Location, and Times:

Future Focused
How our Youth & Young Adults of Color play a major role in the GLBT
community...
September 28, 2006 | 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Politic' an
The People of Color within the GLBT community, our voice and role in
politics...
October 26, 2006 | 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

War of the Sexes & Gender Diversity
Lesbians, vs. Gays, vs. the Transgendered, How the sexes clash...
November 23, 2006 | 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

GOD, the Bible, You, & Your Sexuality
The role of the Church and Religion in society and the impact on your
life and in your sexual...
December 14, 2006 | 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

All forums will be held at: City Hall East: Sherry Lyons-Williams
Auditorium
675 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia 30308
For more Info: TalkOUT@yahoogroups.com | (877) 358-4625

For more info: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/talkout/
MBK's Mission is: to improve the quality of life of young men of
color by; Creating Safe Spaces, Providing Quality Programs, and
Ensuring Access to Resources.

For more info check out our New website: www.MyBrothaz.org
Email us directly at: Info@MyBrothaz.org
Toll-Free Phone #: (877)358-4MBK(625)
Mail to us: 346 Auburn Ave, Suite 181, Atlanta, Georgia 30312
You can also join our list serves: MyBrothaz@yahoogroups.com

Young Democrats of Georgia on MySpace

It's a little late in coming, as many of us in YDG just assumed we had a MySpace presence of some sort. That assumption was wrong, and thus has been rectified. For those who are on MySpace and interested in being part of the YDG network, go to http://www.myspace.com/georgiayds and add YDG to your friends list.

Young Democrats of America November Meeting

Young Democrats of America Update

Greetings fellow Georgia Young Democrats!

Brooke and I wanted to update you on the annoucement of the next national meeting of the Young Democrats of America. The last general meeting was in June in Las Vegas with a theme of "What Happens in Vegas Changes America".

YDA Announces Conference in Jackson, MississippiYDA is proud to announce the location of our next conference will be in Jackson, Mississippi. The Young Democrats of Mississippi will be wonderful hosts and we are excited to spend some time in the south after the elections.
Register for the conference today!The conference registration fee of $25 per person includes lunch on Saturday and all training materials. The Registration fee does not include the hotel room fees. Reserve your room today for the special rate of $129.00, see below for hotel information.

Dates:November 17-19, 2006
Hotel Information:Marriott Jackson200 East Amite StreetJackson, MS 39201
Hotel Rate:$129.95
Hotel Reservation Information:Phone reservations ONLY 1-800-256-9194 or 601-969-5100Please tell operator you are with the "YDA Group"
Last Day to Reserve Room with Guaranteed Rate:October 27, 2006

For those who find the above hotel cost a bit pricey (which is probably everyone!), another alternative is the Edison Walthall Hotel (http://www.edisonwalthallhotel.com/) about a 1/2 mile or 5 city blocks from the Marriott. I found prices ont he hotel website for $99/night and on Expedia for $90/night. With 4 people per room, that's much more affordable.

Since Jackson is about 5.5 hours from Atlanta on I-20, we will be caravaning for those who are interested. If you would like to attend, you will have a good time, as the Mississippi Young Democrats are known for their hospitality, and they have been waiting a long time to host a national meeting. It would be great to pack the place with Southerners! Please email Jason at jacecil6@bellsouth.net if you plan to attend with a cc to Brooke at floralu19@aol.com. We can try to hook people up with roommates and rides if needed. As always, please ask us any questions you might have.

Democratically Yours,
Jason Cecil & Brooke Hesse

My Own Slap Against Corruption

Today, I took a hard stand against corruption. I'm lucky in that the rules by which I was operating allowed me to easily dismantle the attempt to steal public health funds for private gain.

As a federal employee, I am sometimes asked to sit on panels, reviewing applications for grants and cooperative agreements. There are strict rules governing this process, including confidentiality. This makes posting about my triumph today tricky because I have to be vague by law.

The cooperative agreement application I reviewed today was for a pot of money meant to combat a very real public health threat in a developing country. The "principal" of this application just happens to be a key player in the GOP. In fact, this asswipe was arrogant enough to highlight his political ties in his application. I suppose this GOP shill thought that subtlely hinting closeness with the White House would cow us into granting him/her the money. The application did not even pretend to be seriously combating the public health threat the money was meant to fight. It was obvious that the money would be used to make a business case for the applicant to "offer services" to this developing nation to build an internet infrastructure. The top outcome of this "project" was to produce "profitable business relationships".

I was enraged when I finished this application. The panels can make it difficult to grant someone money, but there are ways to bypass the recommendation of reveiw panels. As a result, I decided to put into writing, using quotations from the application itself, to make selection of this project nearly impossible to anyone looking at the situation. Luckily, everyone at the panel was as shocked as I was at how bad the application was, and just how bad it "smelled".

This GOP hack will not get the money he/she sought from the CDC. And while it's not much, I will sleep better tonight knowing that I have done my part to prevent another instance of a Bush crony enriching him or herself at the expense of the American people.

Surprise! The Rich Get Richer... We Get SCREWED

Normally, I wouldn't just cut/paste an article, but I think this story by the NY Times shows (with hard data) just how the average American has been screwed by the Bush Administration's policies. It goes beyond the subtle subversion of our Constitutional separation of powers or the far right social agenda. If you are not in the top 1% of this nation's economic relief, your wages are decreasing in a very real way, thanks to high energy prices and other factors mentioned in the article. But, unlike Sec. Paulson, I think it's VERY useful, and highly instructive to blame the political party that instituted the policies that brought about this problem...the GOP.

Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: August 28, 2006 (NY Times)

With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.

That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year’s midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years.

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”

Until the last year, stagnating wages were somewhat offset by the rising value of benefits, especially health insurance, which caused overall compensation for most Americans to continue increasing. Since last summer, however, the value of workers’ benefits has also failed to keep pace with inflation, according to government data.

At the very top of the income spectrum, many workers have continued to receive raises that outpace inflation, and the gains have been large enough to keep average income and consumer spending rising.

In a speech on Friday, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, did not specifically discuss wages, but he warned that the unequal distribution of the economy’s spoils could derail the trade liberalization of recent decades. Because recent economic changes “threaten the livelihoods of some workers and the profits of some firms,” Mr. Bernanke said, policy makers must try “to ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently widely shared.”

Political analysts are divided over how much the wage trends will help Democrats this fall in their effort to take control of the House and, in a bigger stretch, the Senate. Some see parallels to watershed political years like 1980, 1992 and 1994, when wage growth fell behind inflation, party alignments shifted and dozens of incumbents were thrown out of office.

“It’s a dangerous time for any party to have control of the federal government — the presidency, the Senate and the House,” said Charles Cook, who publishes a nonpartisan political newsletter. “It all feeds into ‘it’s a time for a change’ sentiment. It’s a highly combustible mixture.”

But others say that war in Iraq and terrorism, not the economy, will dominate the campaign and that Democrats have yet to offer an economic vision that appeals to voters.

“National economic policies are more clearly in focus in presidential campaigns,” said Richard T. Curtin, director of the University of Michigan’s consumer surveys. “When you’re electing your local House members, you don’t debate that on those issues as much.”

Moreover, polls show that Americans are less dissatisfied with the economy than they were in the early 1980’s or early 90’s. Rising house and stock values have lifted the net worth of many families over the last few years, and interest rates remain fairly low.

But polls show that Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy by wide margins and that anxiety about the future is growing. Earlier this month, the University of Michigan reported that consumer confidence had fallen sharply in recent months, with people’s expectations for the future now as downbeat as they were in 1992 and 1993, when the job market had not yet recovered from a recession.

“Some people who aren’t partisans say, ‘Yes, the economy’s pretty good, so why are people so agitated and anxious?’ ” said Frank Luntz, a Republican campaign consultant. “The answer is they don’t feel it in their weekly paychecks.”

But Mr. Luntz predicted that the economic mood would not do significant damage to Republicans this fall because voters blamed corporate America, not the government, for their problems.

Economists offer various reasons for the stagnation of wages. Although the economy continues to add jobs, global trade, immigration, layoffs and technology — as well as the insecurity caused by them — appear to have eroded workers’ bargaining power.

Trade unions are much weaker than they once were, while the buying power of the minimum wage is at a 50-year low. And health care is far more expensive than it was a decade ago, causing companies to spend more on benefits at the expense of wages.

Together, these forces have caused a growing share of the economy to go to companies instead of workers’ paychecks. In the first quarter of 2006, wages and salaries represented 45 percent of gross domestic product, down from almost 50 percent in the first quarter of 2001 and a record 53.6 percent in the first quarter of 1970, according to the Commerce Department. Each percentage point now equals about $132 billion.

Total employee compensation — wages plus benefits — has fared a little better. Its share was briefly lower than its current level of 56.1 percent in the mid-1990’s and otherwise has not been so low since 1966.

Over the last year, the value of employee benefits has risen only 3.4 percent, while inflation has exceeded 4 percent, according to the Labor Department.

In Europe and Japan, the profit share of economic output is also at or near record levels, noted Larry Hatheway, chief economist for UBS Investment Bank, who said that this highlighted the pressures of globalization on wages. Many Americans, be they apparel workers or software programmers, are facing more competition from China and India.

In another recent report on the boom in profits, economists at Goldman Sachs wrote, “The most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor’s share of national income.” Low interest rates and the moderate cost of capital goods, like computers, have also played a role, though economists note that an economic slowdown could hurt profits in coming months.

For most of the last century, wages and productivity — the key measure of the economy’s efficiency — have risen together, increasing rapidly through the 1950’s and 60’s and far more slowly in the 1970’s and 80’s.

But in recent years, the productivity gains have continued while the pay increases have not kept up. Worker productivity rose 16.6 percent from 2000 to 2005, while total compensation for the median worker rose 7.2 percent, according to Labor Department statistics analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group. Benefits accounted for most of the increase.
“If I had to sum it up,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the institute, “it comes down to bargaining power and the lack of ability of many in the work force to claim their fair share of growth.”

Nominal wages have accelerated in the last year, but the spike in oil costs has eaten up the gains. Now the job market appears to be weakening, after a protracted series of interest-rate increases by the Federal Reserve.

Unless these trends reverse, the current expansion may lack even an extended period of modest wage growth like one that occurred in the mid-1980’s.

The most recent recession ended in late 2001. Hourly wages continued to rise in 2002 and peaked in early 2003, largely on the lingering strength of the 1990’s boom.

Average family income, adjusted for inflation, has continued to advance at a good clip, a fact Mr. Bush has cited when speaking about the economy. But these gains are a result mainly of increases at the top of the income spectrum that pull up the overall numbers. Even for workers at the 90th percentile of earners — making about $80,000 a year — inflation has outpaced their pay increases over the last three years, according to the Labor Department.

“There are two economies out there,” Mr. Cook, the political analyst, said. “One has been just white hot, going great guns. Those are the people who have benefited from globalization, technology, greater productivity and higher corporate earnings.

“And then there’s the working stiffs,’’ he added, “who just don’t feel like they’re getting ahead despite the fact that they’re working very hard. And there are a lot more people in that group than the other group.”

In 2004, the top 1 percent of earners — a group that includes many chief executives — received 11.2 percent of all wage income, up from 8.7 percent a decade earlier and less than 6 percent three decades ago, according to Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, economists who analyzed the tax data.

With the midterm campaign expected to heat up after Labor Day, Democrats are saying that they will help workers by making health care more affordable and lifting the minimum wage. Democrats have criticized Republicans for passing tax cuts mainly benefiting high-income families at a time when most families are failing to keep up.

Republicans counter that the tax cuts passed during Mr. Bush’s first term helped lifted the economy out of recession. Unless the cuts are extended, a move many Democrats oppose, the economy will suffer, and so will wages, Republicans say.

But in a sign that Republicans may be growing concerned about the public’s mood, the new Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., adopted a somewhat different tone from Mr. Bush in his first major speech, delivered early this month.

“Many aren’t seeing significant increases in their take-home pay,” Mr. Paulson said. “Their increases in wages are being eaten up by high energy prices and rising health care costs, among others.”

At the same time, he said that the Bush administration was not responsible for the situation, pointing out that inequality had been increasing for many years. “It is neither fair nor useful,” Mr. Paulson said, “to blame any political party.”

Poor, Sad Ruthie

In today's AJC, there was a headline that caught my eye: Tech students endured threats in free speech crusade. Reading the article, I was reminded of a lawsuit that had been filed by a couple of College Republicans who felt their constitutional right to bash minorities, gays, and other "undesirables" was threatened by Georgia Tech's speech code. This code was meant to suppress intolerant or offensive behavior.

Ruth Malhotra and Orit Skylar filed the suit, and if I remember correctly, it was funded by an ultra conservative legal group like Southeastern Legal Foundation or Heritage. These facts make me automatically hostile to whatever claim they made, but these two do have a point.
The politically correct speech codes of the 1980s and 1990s probably have gone too far. People should be free of harrassment and intimidation in school, and making people aware of the affect of language is a benefit of having these "speech codes". What bothers me is telling people what they can and cannot say. Many people are boors and will say just many offensive things about a variety of groups. I'm pretty sure that Ruth Malhotra falls in this category. She's a right wing GOP nutjob who's opposed to any form of affirmative action, gay rights, women's rights (ironic how women have always fought women's rights throughout time...every group has its sellouts I guess), etc. You name the progressive issue, and I'm sure Ruthie is against it.

From the coverage of the lawsuit, I remember that Ruthie was especially incensed about female empowerment (via the Vagina Monologues), abortion rights, gay rights (and really, anything that said being gay was OK and not a choice you could "undo"), and affirmative action. One thing that got her in trouble at Georgia Tech was having a "diversity bake sale" where people were charged different prices depending on their gender and race. While clever, that stunt was a false analogy. The 1964 Civil Rights Act makes it illegal to discriminate in a publicly offered "good" based on race, gender, national origin, etc. It would have been more appropriate for her to have some kind of raffle for a highly desirous prize and give extra entries automatically to people based on race, gender, etc.

So Ruthie and her pal in the Georgia Tech GOP, Orit Skylar, sued. Tech has now backed off its speech codes, which is probably a good thing. The nice thing about free speech is that while Ruthie can spew her bile, we can speak the truth to counteract. Hopefully, she can be held up for shame and ridicule for her right wing views. Already during the last school year, Ruthie had to endure death threats, maiming threats, and a Twinky shoved in her mailbox (she's Indian, so someone was saying she's yellow on the outside and white on the inside). She's now "nervous" about coming back to campus.

Poor, poor Ruthie! Allow this white homosexual who believes in everything she despises to shed a tear. Poor Ruthie exercised her rights of free speech, and others did too. Now, I don't advocate violence or threats of violence, but ridicule is fair game. She didn't deserve death threats or threats of having acid thrown on her, but she did deserve to be heavily mocked and ridiculed.

She's literally fighting for her right to belittle people, attack women's rights, attack gays, and whatever other right wing agenda item she wants to advocate. One thing the right wing likes to do is say that progressives are hypocrites because we are "intolerant of intolerance". Well, DUH! Society has to have a standard, and if you can't be respectful of others different from you, we shouldn't tolerate that behavior or attitude. We should ridicule you even while you spew your hateful speech on the street corner. The First Amendment is a two way street.

Run-Off Results

The Run-off was pretty good overall. I'm only sad that my friend Allen Thornell did not win his race for State House.

LT. GOV: Jim Martin (62.4%)
SEC. OF STATE: Gail Buckner (55.2%)
CONGRESS, DIST 4: Hank Johnson (58.8%)
STATE HOUSE 58: Robbin Shipp (53.5%)
STATE HOUSE 59: Margaret Kaiser (53.5%)
DEKALB SOLICITOR GEN.: Robert James (56%)

Of course, I couldn't vote in the 4th District race or the State House 58 or 59 races. Otherwise, my choices all won. I was thrilled that Jim Martin not only beat but PULVERIZED his Smurfiness, Greg Hecht. The way Greg ran his smear campaign against Jim was shameful, and I'm glad that the Democratic party voters came out and said in a loud voice they would not tolerate that kind of behavior.

I sincerely hope that this is not the end of Allen Thornell's electoral career. He ran a great campaign, raised a ton of money, and came close to winning in a majority black district. The fact remains though that he did not win solely because of his skin color, and that's a shame. His opponent ran solely on the fact that she was black, and it worked. I predict, though, that if she doesn't change her tune, the rapidly gentrifying district will dump her in 2008. The days of making class and race appeals and winning on that argument alone seem to be dwindling.

Hopefully they will be gone for good before long.

Ding, Dong, Fuhrer McKinney's Gone!

Cynthia McKinney, the racist anti-Semitic Congresswoman from DeKalb County (GA-4th), has been soundly defeated. Let's hear it for the voters! Hip, hip! HOORAY!

Hank Johnson creamed Cynthia with 58.8% of the vote, or 41,148 votes to her 28,832 votes. She was crushed in the Gwinnett and Rockdale portions of the district, and she even lost DeKalb by nearly 9,000 votes. But, classy woman that Cynthia is, she didn't go down quietly.

First, her website listing weird complaints about the voting machines and how her name wasn't listed, people getting the wrong ballot (and not getting the right one until they complained...imagine that! Poll workers who aren't psychic...must be a conspiracy), and people saying they tried to vote for Cynthia but their ballot said they voted Hank after the "Cast Ballot" button was pushed. On that last point, it's impossible. The second you cast your ballot, you are taken back to the welcome screen. There is no"summary" after you cast your ballot. The Secretary of State's office checked into complaints and found no basis for them. I suppose Cynthia is saying that Diebold had the machines count all HER votes as being cast for Hank and all of Hank's for her. Please.

When she "conceded", Cynthia went on a rant about the President and stolen elections, and then tried to sink Pink's song "Mr. President". Her supporters went buck wild when she lost too. The police had to be called because members of her "gang" decided to literally beat on the press, chasing 11 Alive cameramen to their van and threatening them until the police came. You can see the video of the incident here.

Now, Cynthia is saying that she got beat because of the GOP crossed over into her primary. First, Cynthia thinks just about any white person who doesn't support her must be a Republican. Second, there aren't that many Republicans in DeKalb to make the kind of difference that Cynthia would need to win. She can't face the notion that her own reckless behavior has led to her defeat. Black, white, old, and young were all TIRED of being embarrassed by her behavior. It became crystal clear that she was ineffective and a pariah. Even if she "spoke truth to power", she's such a loony-tunes that it made no difference.

Finally, Cynthia's people are blaming ... the J-E-W-S! Yes, the old anti-Semite comes out when the times are tough. One of her people said to a cable crew, You wanna know what led to the loss? Israel. The Zionists. You. put on your yarmulke and celebrate." Guess all that Islamist money that came her way was for naught.

Cynthia McKinney's gone. I say, "GOOD RIDDANCE."

Turnout! Turnout! Turnout!

For a political junkie like myself, not voting is abhorrent. I once voted absentee in an election over the phone FROM AFRICA so that I wouldn't miss the chance to cast my vote. So folks who can't be bothered or find voting too confusing don't make any sense to me. Unfortunately, a lot of these people would vote my way if they bothered to vote at all.

How do we reach them? In today's Washington Post, there was an article about a rift between Dean and Congressional leaders over the state of the turnout machine for November. It's a midterm election, so turnout will be lower than it is during a presidential election year. According to the WP:

The RNC runs a strategy known in political circles as the 72-hour program. It focuses on using phone calls, polling data and personal visits to identify would-be GOP voters and their top issues early in the cycle. The information is then fed into a database, allowing party leaders to flood them with pro-Republican messages through e-mail, regular mail and local volunteers. On Election Day, they receive a phone call or a visit to remind them to vote.

My question is: If the GOP system works so well, why aren't Democrats using it? Why aren't we using it in Georgia? Well, for Georgia, the first answer is lack of money. The party is flat broke. I know we have voter lists, but I have heard of no one making a database like the one the GOPers have. Why is that?

Electoral Aftermath

First, the results.

GOVERNOR: Mark Taylor (51.65%)
LT. GOV: Jim Martin (41.26%) and Greg Hecht (36.4%)
SEC. of STATE: Gail Buckner (25.45%) and Darryl Hicks (21.88%)
SCHOOL SUPER.: Denise Majette (67.08%)
US CONGRESS, DIST 4: Cynthia McKinney (46.92%) and Hank Johnson (44.52%)
HOUSE 44: Sheila Jones (63.2%)
HOUSE 56: Kathy Ashe (73.2%)
HOUSE 58: Robbin Shipp (40.81%) and Allen Thornell (26.32%)
HOUSE 59: Doug Dean (44.86%) and Margaret Kaiser (40.47%)
HOUSE 65: Sharon BEASTLY-Teague (60.70%)
SENATE 36: Nan Orrock (62.21%)
HOUSE 84: Stacey Abrams (51.19%)
HOUSE 86: Karla Drenner (62.45%)
DEKALB COMMISSION, DIST 2: Jeff Rader (51%)

Obviously, these are all Democratic results. The only remark I will make on the GOP primary is that Ralph Reed was given a stunning defeat with only 43.91% of the vote. There was some cross-over voting, although the Democratic primary had more voters than the GOP primary. This proves that the Theocrats are losing strength, even in Georgia. My only hope is that this will kill any chance of Ralph Reed having a career in politics, and that it's the beginning of the end for Sadie Fields and her minions.

Another piece of relatively good news is that of the candidates that Stonewall Democrats endorsed, only one lost outright: TJ Copeland. More on that race later. Two others, Allen Thornell and Doug Dean, are in the run off August 8 for their respective house seats. Jim Martin also made the run-off in his race after gay-baiting by Greg Hecht's campaign.
My thoughts on the governor's race are ones of sadness. Cathy Cox gave a truly inspiring concession speech last night around midnight. It brought to mind the Cathy Cox whose candidacy once inspired and thrilled me. The one who electrified the hall when she spoke to the Young Democrats convention in April at UGA. I don't know if she fell victim to the Al Gore syndrome of becoming captive to her DC-based consultants or what. Her campaign was a mess, and stumbled badly through the summer. It started with the gay marriage issue which I have blogged about. She could not have handled her response to the amendment being temporarily overthrown more badly if she'd tried. Then she came out to basically say she felt gays should have no protections under the law whatsoever (no civil union rights, no adoption rights, no non-discrimination in housing or jobs rights, etc), all while trying to oddly wink at the gay community. She backed away from the pro-choice crowd, hedging her bets on that issue too. Her commercials were OK, but didn't seem to say much. She fought from a defensive stance all summer, and she paid the price yesterday. If she'd had been the Cathy we all knew she could be, I think she would have run away with the nomination.

Mark Taylor gives you a smarmy feeling. It was strange seeing his child-bride next to him on the stage and his DUI and vehicular homicide charged son standing behind him as he gave his victory speech. Mark is a good ol' boy from the days of when Democrats were the only party in town. He does abuse his power and seems to love power for its sake alone. My only comfort is that I know he'll do anything to win. Sonny better buckle his seat belt, because if Mark can raise the money, he will attack Sonny with a vengeance. Still, I think we'll see Sonny win in November. As bad a governor as he is, Sonny doesn't give you that "I need a shower" feeling that Mark Taylor does.

I'm very happy that a man as decent and good as Jim Martin is leading in the Lt. Gov's race. I hope he can beat the crap out of Hecht on August 8. The smurfling hit new lows in campaigning this past week when he accused Jim Martin of being: a) a child murderer, b)a rapist-lover and c) some kind of firebrand looking to force your children into watching gay porn. Ok, I exaggerate the last point, but Hecht's campaign fingerprints were all over a false call that went out this past weekend to rural Georgia and older white males in Metro Atlanta featuring an effiminate "gay sounding" voice talking about how Jim Martin wants gay marriage and all this other stuff. It was gay-baiting, pure and simple. Jim Martin is a fair minded candidate, and he sees gays as human beings worthy of respect. Greg Hecht sees us as convenient punching bags in his climb up the political ladder.

The Secretary of State's race stunned me the most. The two most qualified candidates were BY FAR Shyam Reddy (16.51%) and Scott Holcomb (11.52%). Yet, they came in 4th and 5th respectively. Even more appalling is that Glamour-shot photo Angela "Vote for Miss Angela" Moore came in THIRD with 17.53% of the vote. That a bad joke like Angela Moore could beat Shyam and Scott is something that Democrats should be deeply ashamed of. If I weren't such a political junky, this race alone would have shaken my faith in the system to its core. I can understand why people don't vote when I see results like this. The two candidates that seemed to come out of nowhere were Gail Buckner and Darryl Hicks. I am not suprised that one of the two black candidates got into the run-off. With the black vote nearly 1/2 (it might have even broke the 50% barrier yesterday...the numbers have not been released) of the primary vote, it makes sense. At least it was Darryl and not "Miss Angela". Gail Buckner is the one who stunned me. I don't know if she even really campaigned, but she came in first. As a friend told me yesterday, I had to remember that she was the only viable woman on the ballot, and she was listed first. In a 6 person primary, most people didn't know WHO to vote for, so they go with the first name or the girl. Especially since the office was "SECRETARY" of State. Anyway, in the run-off, my vote goes to Gail Buckner hands down. Darryl Hicks is a corporate tool from Atlanta Gas & Light, and I view him with a LOT of suspicion.

Denise Majette won on name recognition alone. She may be the only name that stands a chance against Kathy Cox, but Kathy will run away with his election in November. The only way Denise makes this a contest is to hit hard and consistently on Georgia's low test scores and standing in the nation. It would help too if she could articulate a plan to turn the education system around.
Another surprise of the night was Cynthia McKinney being forced into a run-off. This race doesn't affect me anymore since I am now in John Lewis's district (THANK YOU GOD!!!), but I hope that all the GOPers in North DeKalb who didn't vote yesterday rush to the polls on August 8 to send Cynthia home for good. She's an embarrassment to the Democratic party, to DeKalb County, and to Georgia.

In state house races, it looked at first like Robbin Shipp would get the nomination without a run-off. As it turned out, her strongest precincts came in first, because her vote percentage kept lowering as the evening wore on. In a majority black district, Robbin being the only black candidate meant that she would make the run-off and probably come in first, both of which happened. Luckily, Allen pulled away from his competition in the end to survive to fight again on August 8. Hopefully people will turn out for him that day and send the first openly gay man with HIV to the legislature to join Karla Drenner.

Speaking of Karla, I was glad to see her beat back a challenge from a woman whose sole argument was, "This is a black-majority district, and we need a black woman to represent it, not some honkey lesbian." Karla's district rebuffed this argument and sent her back to the state house. She will be sorely needed when the GOP goes after gay families through adoption.
I'm very happy to see Nan kick ass in her primary. She will be such a forceful progressive voice in the state senate. I look forward to having her there.

The race between Sharon BEASTLY-Teague and TJ Copeland lives me sickened the most. TJ ran a brilliant campaign. He walked all over that district, went door to door, did all the right things a candidate should do. All this against an incumbent who does nothing, barely shows up when the legislature is in session, and is an anti-gay bigot. TJ is as fine and upstanding a man as I've seen run for office. That his district would vote for a woman who doesn't do her job, doesn't pass bills, and works against the interests of her district, says a lot about them. South Fulton residents can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. They get the government and representation they deserve. I hope BEASTLY continues to shit all over them and that they are starved of resources. I hope their schools continue to fail. Voting for what witch over a hard worker like TJ shows they don't deserve him. I will never lift a finger for South Fulton in the future.

Finally, in DeKalb, the tool of developers and Vernon Jones, Jeff Rader, won his county commission seat. It was much closer than I thought. Don Broussard had a lot of silent support, but he lost in the end. I think Gail's (the retiring commissioner) call the day before the election talking about what a bad man Don was to be "lying" about Jeff Rader may have made the difference. It looks like Vernon's majority on the commission just got stronger....God Help Us.

The Presiding Bishop-Elect of the Episcopal Church Responds

I posted my letter to the Bishop of Atlanta, the delegates to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA from the Atlanta diocese, and the Presiding Bishop and Presiding Bishop-elect. Going through my email, I received an actual response from the Presiding Bishop-elect, whose email I swiped from the Diocese of Nevada's website before they could hide it better.
I am amazed that she took the time to write back to me, as I'm sure being the newly elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church means she is being innundated with emails, letters, phone calls, etc. I find her response to be hopeful, and I do feel I am in safe hands with her at the helm. Here is the text of the letter:

Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2006 12:08 AM
Subject: Re: Personal Thoughts on the Reactions to the General Convention

Dear Jason,

I agree with you about the place of gay and lesbian people in the church, and I will continue to do what I can to ensure that that place is expanded to include all ministries and orders of ministries in this church.

We also have a role in advocating for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in other parts of the Communion, and we lose our ability to do that if we are seen to repudiate our membership in the Communion. I certainly recognize the challenging place in which we stand just now, and your pain at this point, and can only assure you of my prayers.

Shalom,
Katharine

I never in a milliion years thought I'd receive a note from a church leader like this. Unlike some politicians, I don't think that the Presiding Bishop-elect will throw gay Episcopalians under the proverbial bus in order to placate Africa and the rest of the Global South.

Perdue Can Kiss My A&&

The good news is that I have a nice tan from my time in South Beach. The bad news is that I must return to Atlanta tomorrow and resume "normal" life. I'm sad for it to be over, but it's been a great vacation.

The real world has intruded itself in my email. I saw that Georgia and New York gave LGBT equality a one-two punch today. Georgia Supremes voted unanimously that the legislature meant to deny marriage AND all its benefits to gay people, so the marriage amendment was legal and reinstated, despite the fact the question on the ballot only asked about defining marriage. Once again, the South leads the way in discrimination and hatred against a particular minority group. Governor Perdue stated that he hoped that gay Georgians didn't feel "marginalized" by the decision. "I don't think it demeans gay Georgians in any other way," he said. "They're free to work and live their lives; they're just not free to marry in Georgia."

Governor Perdue can KISS MY ASS. And we're not "free to work" without fear of being fired, as it's legal in Georgia to fire someone just because you think they're gay and you "don't like fags." That man is full of shit, and his "statement" is rubbing salt in a wound. Doesn't DEMEAN gay Georgians? Please...do I look like I'm severely retarded and would believe such a lie?

The only good thing is that it takes the issue off the table for this year's election. But the damage is done as far as Cathy Cox is concerned. She has cut her own throat with gays for nothing. If she had kept her damn mouth shut about the legislature being recalled if the Georgia Supremes had not acted as they did today, she would still have gay support. As it is, none of us will vote for her.

New York's top court also said that it was quite LOGICAL to actively discriminate against gays. They took the amici briefs of the religious right and basically cut and paste the arguments. It's very disheartening to read the defence of gay bigotry as the law of NY state. The only hope is to get the legislature to change the law. Yeah, let me hold my breath while THAT happens.

I wonder if blacks felt this way in the 40s, 50s, and 60s when civil rights became really heated for them. Did they think that they'd NEVER win their rights to be treated as equal? The constant fighting for my rights to be treated as I would if I were straight is tiring. I hope it will be won in my lifetime, but I hope I'm not too old to enjoy it when it does.

Letter to Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta

Bishop Alexander and Deputies to the 75th General Convention

In name of our risen Lord, Jesus Christ, I send my heartfelt greetings and good wishes to you! I have watched with dismay the reactions by the more conservative elements of our Church along with the Archbishop of Canterburys response to our General Convention. I will admit that when I first read the Archbishops letter, I felt enraged because it seemed to me that it was a clear capitulation to the Global Souths relentless agenda to ensure that no gay or lesbian person will ever be fully included in the life of the Church. It seemed to me that gay and lesbian people were being thrown under the proverbial bus for the sake of unity.

After prayer and good nights sleep, I am still wary that the Archbishop is trying to do something that is impossible, and is willing to accept the expulsion of the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion (associated status would by the Archbishops own words make us equivalent to the Methodist Churchto me, thats expulsion) if it will keep the Global South with its numerous faithful in the Anglican fold. I am disturbed that the Archbishop calls for a covenant based only on Scripture and Tradition, completely leaving out Reason. I am disturbed at his inference that the Episcopal Church has moved forward with ordaining women and fully including gays and lesbians within the life of the Church based ONLY on social and legal considerations. I know many of you are aware, as much be the Archbishop, that there are quite a few biblical reasons to support full inclusion of gays and lesbians within the life of the Church.

I also find it laughable that the Archbishop seriously argues that the debate in the Anglican Communion is not essentially a debate about the human rights of homosexual people. It is possible indeed, it is imperative to give the strongest support to the defence of homosexual people against violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage, to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by people of homosexual orientation, and still to believe that this doesnt settle the question of whether the Christian Church has the freedom, on the basis of the Bible, and its historic teachings, to bless homosexual partnerships as a clear expression of Gods will. I submit that the basic human rights and dignity that God gives all human being is the very subject of contention here. The Global South does not pretend to value the humanity of homosexual people against violence, bigotry, or legal disadvantage, most of which are abundantly present in their countries. The Archbishop then goes on to remark that only a small minority would approve of blessing same sex unions or fully including homosexual people in the life of the Church. Had we had such a process of discernment about 50-60 years ago, I sincerely doubt that desegregation or other laws suppressing black people would have passed a vote of the Lambeth Conference or any other organ of the Church. Were the Global South and the conservatives in our midst approach these topics with an open mind, it would be different. However, I know for a fact they generally approach homosexual people from the basic perspective that we are, at our core, perverted and evil human beings looking to revel in our sin as an affront to God.

I know this because I grew up in an independent Baptist church in Lexington, KY which was to the right of the Southern Baptist Convention. Brother Wayne preached hating the sin, but loving the sinner, the same message I see conservatives and the Global South proclaiming in their blogs. They have no animus against homosexual persons; they simply want to be sure that we enjoy none of the legal protections that heterosexuals enjoy, that our children are removed from our homes no matter how good of a parent we might be, and that the government and private sector can discriminate against us and harass us at every their pleasure. This includes barring us from the House of God unless we agree to renounce our sexual orientation and agree to never have a loving, committed relationship with a person of the same gender. God have us love and partnership as an expression of His love for us, and I believe he expects the same of me as a gay man as he does of any heterosexual person.

The church of my youth had an elder (kind of like a vestry member) who was discovered to have been molesting young boys on the church baseball team for over 10 years. This man was married with children, and identified as heterosexual. Yet, all they did to him was require him to step down as an elder, but he was allowed to remain a deacon and provide communion each Sunday. The summer I finally accepted the fact that I was a gay man, Brother Wayne stood in the pulpit and said, I know this not Godly, but I could never have love in my heart for a homosexual. And if I knew of any here now, I would come down off this pulpit, escort them out of the sanctuary and tell them never to return. The message to me at that time was clear: Gods church hated me. I believe the Holy Spirit let my heart understand that God Himself did not hate, and that Christs salvation and love for me was still present. I will forever be grateful for the grace of that understanding, because I know too many homosexual people for whom that grace was not present.

Nevertheless, I knew I was no longer welcome in the church of my youth, so I left organized religion for the next seven years. I only entered a church for weddings or funerals. Upon moving to Atlanta, I had been feeling a void in my heart that only fellowship in the House of God can provide. I needed to have my relationship with Christ nurtured through a church, but I knew that I could not join a church that denied my basic humanity or taught that God loved me less than he loved heterosexuals. Or that God created me this way only to create a cruel rule that I should never experience love or companionship. I also did not want a church that was focused on the experience of being a homosexual Christian. I found such a place in All Saints Episcopal Church in Atlanta. For the first time in my life, I was in a church that challenged me to engage in Scripture, to think about it, and struggle with it. I didnt have to do this alone eithereveryone else at the church was engaged in the same process and welcomed me to join them in their journey. We are all at different places of understanding and growth, but we continue to strive to grow together. For me, such a place was truly Providenceat work. It brought me back to Christs church as I became a confirmed member of the Episcopal Church. The gifts of the Holy Spirit have only continued to grow in my life since I joined the Episcopal Church and All Saints.

Yet, I now see conservatives in our Church attempting to sever all ties because their particular view of the Bible is not the one that is winning. They are furious that a woman was elected to be the Presiding Bishop. They are furious that as a Church, we believe that gay and lesbian people can be called to the ministry and episcopate. Even as we proceed ahead with this covenant process, my concern is that the consensus will arise that we should sacrifice homosexual Christians on the alter of unity. The Global South and conservatives do not seem open to any kind of dialogue that does not have a pre-ordained, anti-homosexual conclusion.

As official representatives of the Atlanta diocese, please do not retreat from the respect and inclusion you have shown to gay and lesbian parishioners in this community. Please do not acquiesce to demands to deny my basic humanity or the God-given gifts I have been given as a gay man. Please do not let reactionary elements destroy our Church, but also do not destroy me in order to preserve unity. Thinking of how the Global South and conservatives view homosexuals, I am reminded the story of Christ with a group of children. The apostles did not think it dignified to have noisy children around our Lord, so they tried to shoo the children away and keep others from approaching Jesus. Upon realizing this, Jesus rebuked them and demanded that they allow the children to come to Him. He then made a remark (and I dont have this exactly) with the gist that there will be woe unto anyone who leads a child away from God. For seven years, Brother Wayne drove me away from fellowship with Gods people, and he did his best to drive me from God Himself. Many homosexuals have been driven from God by the hate they feel spewing from the pulpits and pews. Thankfully, the Episcopal Church is not such a place on the whole. I do not want it to become such a place either, just for the sake of unity. Please do not allow the Global South or other conservatives drive away another generation of homosexual people from the Grace of God's Salvation and Love.

My thoughts and prayers are with you in the coming days.

Politics in the Anglican Communion

The Archbishop of Canterbury today released a statement of "reflection" on the state of the Anglican Communion in the wake of the recent Episcopal Church General Convention. In it, he clearly advocates a position that says gays need to be thrown under the proverbial bus for the sake of unity to keep the damn Africans and other Global South provinces happy. I have copied the letter below with my responses in italics.

The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion: a Church in Crisis?

What is the current tension in the Anglican Communion actually about? Plenty of people are confident that they know the answer. Its about gay bishops, or possibly women bishops (It's both, and if you don't see that, you're willfully blind.). The American Church is in favour and others are against and the Church of England is not sure (as usual).

Its true that the election of a practising gay person as a bishop in the US in 2003 was the trigger for much of the present conflict. It is doubtless also true that a lot of extra heat is generated in the conflict by ingrained and ignorant prejudice in some quarters (That's YOU he's talking to Africa and the "Global South", you misogynistic homophobes.); and that for many others, in and out of the Church, the issue seems to be a clear one about human rights and dignity. But the debate in the Anglican Communion is not essentially a debate about the human rights of homosexual people (The hell it's not! If this weren't about the basic human rights and dignity of homosexuals, we wouldn't even be having this fight.). It is possible indeed, it is imperative to give the strongest support to the defence of homosexual people against violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage (so glad you oppose discrimination), to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by people of homosexual orientation (choirs everywhere would die without gay people), and still to believe that this doesnt settle the question of whether the Christian Church has the freedom, on the basis of the Bible, and its historic teachings, to bless homosexual partnerships as a clear expression of Gods will (Maybe you have a point, but the decisions of the Episcopal Church have not been based merely on human rights; they also have a biblical basis, and you know that. The Global South and Africa may not like it, but there are biblical arguments made from ORIGINAL text, as opposed to the altered text of King James, to support full inclusion of gay people in the church.). That is disputed among Christians, and, as a bare matter of fact, only a small minority would answer yes to the question (So, we should put these matters to a simple vote. Why haven't we thought of this before? We could have kept women in the kitchen and blacks in chains by putting these "biblical" matters to a vote.)

Unless you think that social and legal considerations should be allowed to resolve religious disputes which is a highly risky assumption if you also believe in real freedom of opinion in a diverse society there has to be a recognition that religious bodies have to deal with the question in their own terms (Yes, and the US has done this on its own terms, and used biblical arugments, not just social and legal ones. Again, why you are pretending this is not so?). Arguments have to be drawn up on the common basis of Bible and historic teaching (I thought we had a third leg called "reason"? Or is that just the Episcopal Church?). And, to make clear something that can get very much obscured in the rhetoric about inclusion, this is not and should never be a question about the contribution of gay and lesbian people as such to the Church of God and its ministry, about the dignity and value of gay and lesbian people (Again, Archbishop, it IS about these things. The conservative opponents do not believe that gay people have any basic dignity or value, especially when it comes to the Church of God and its ministry. They view us as sin-seeking creatures worshiping our own lusts, defying God's hatred of our "perversion". You know this is true, so why are you trying to give cover to these people?). Instead it is a question, agonisingly difficult for many, as to what kinds of behaviour a Church that seeks to be loyal to the Bible can bless, and what kinds of behaviour it must warn against and so it is a question about how we make decisions corporately with other Christians, looking together for the mind of Christ as we share the study of the Scriptures.

Anglican Decision-Making
And this is where the real issue for Anglicans arises. How do we as Anglicans deal with this issue in our own terms? And what most Anglicans worldwide have said is that it doesnt help to behave as if the matter had been resolved when in fact it hasnt. It is true that, in spite of resolutions and declarations of intent, the process of listening to the experience of homosexual people hasnt advanced very far in most of our churches (It hasn't even started in most African and Global South Provinces, and you are well aware of that fact. You also know that they could give a rat's ass about the gay Christian experience, and will never truly "listen" to people they consider perverts.), and that discussion remains at a very basic level for many. But the decision of the Episcopal Church to elect a practising gay man as a bishop was taken without even the American church itself (which has had quite a bit of discussion of the matter) having formally decided as a local Church what it thinks about blessing same-sex partnerships (Your point? So you can't decide whether an openly gay person can serve as a priest or bishop if you haven't already decided whether or not to bless same sex unions? I suppose Canada, which does allow same sex blessings, is now eligible to elect a gay bishop? Please.).

There are other fault lines of division, of course, including the legitimacy of ordaining women as priests and bishops (Yes, and now the US has done gone elected a WOMAN as its Presiding Bishop. Want us to repent of that too? Oh wait, a majority of provinces allow that sort of thing, so it's OK. At one time, though, it wasn't a majority opinion. But the church wasn't threatened at its very core like it is now when the subject is gay people.). But (as has often been forgotten) the Lambeth Conference did resolve that for the time being those churches that did ordain women as priests and bishops and those that did not had an equal place within the Anglican spectrum. Women bishops attended the last Lambeth Conference. There is a fairly general (though not universal) recognition that differences about this can still be understood within the spectrum of manageable diversity about what the Bible and the tradition make possible. On the issue of practising gay bishops, there has been no such agreement, and it is not unreasonable to seek for a very much wider and deeper consensus before any change is in view, let alone foreclosing the debate by ordaining someone, whatever his personal merits, who was in a practising gay partnership (Which is why you forced that gay bishop-elect in your own country to step down, right?). The recent resolutions of the General Convention have not produced a complete response to the challenges of the Windsor Report (That's probably because the Windsor Report basically threatened the Episcopal Church to defrock Bishop Robinson, and pass a resolution to never again ordain a gay person or ELSE...and here we now find the "else".), but on this specific question there is at the very least an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation in the extremely hard work that went into shaping the wording of the final formula.

Very many in the Anglican Communion would want the debate on the substantive ethical question to go on as part of a general process of theological discernment; but they believe that the pre-emptive action taken in 2003 in the US has made such a debate harder not easier, that it has reinforced the lines of division and led to enormous amounts of energy going into political struggle with and between churches in different parts of the world. However, institutionally speaking, the Communion is an association of local churches, not a single organisation with a controlling bureaucracy and a universal system of law (You're damn right.). So everything depends on what have generally been unspoken conventions of mutual respect (How is it disrepectful to elect a gay bishop? We didn't force any other province to accept gay bishops for themselves, but we did ask they respect our decision to do so. This the conservatives and the Africans and the Global South have refused to do.). Where these are felt to have been ignored, it is not surprising that deep division results, with the politicisation of a theological dispute taking the place of reasoned reflection.

Thus if other churches have said, in the wake of the events of 2003 that they cannot remain fully in communion with the American Church, this should not be automatically seen as some kind of blind bigotry against gay people (Really? And why not? Their anger over this issue is STEEPED and BORN of bigotry, not an honest theological dispute. None of these people would break bread with a person they knew to be gay.). Where such bigotry does show itself it needs to be made clear that it is unacceptable (That would be easier, if you weren't genuflecting to their demands at this time. You cannot have it both ways, Archbishop.).; and if this is not clear, it is not at all surprising if the whole question is reduced in the eyes of many to a struggle between justice and violent prejudice (It's not clear at all, and you have said nothing to make it more clear...perhaps for you, it's clear because you aren't a homophobe...but for the Global South and Africa? It most certainly is about violent prejudice against gay people.).

It is saying that, whatever the presenting issue, no member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship (You could have a point...whenever anyone makes a major decision, partners may not understand or approve.); this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them. Some actions and sacramental actions in particular - just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches. It isnt a question of throwing people into outer darkness, but of recognising that actions have consequences (It is about BOTH of these things, Archbishop...both throwing gay people into outer darkness and recognizing that actions have consequences.) and that actions believed in good faith to be prophetic in their radicalism are likely to have costly consequences.

Truth and Unity
It is true that witness to what is passionately believed to be the truth sometimes appears a higher value than unity, and there are moving and inspiring examples in the twentieth century. If someone genuinely thinks that a move like the ordination of a practising gay bishop is that sort of thing, it is understandable that they are prepared to risk the breakage of a unity they can only see as false or corrupt. But the risk is a real one; and it is never easy to recognise when the moment of inevitable separation has arrived - to recognise that this is the issue on which you stand or fall and that this is the great issue of faithfulness to the gospel. The nature of prophetic action is that you do not have a cast-iron guarantee that youre right (And perhaps you should remind the Global South and Africa of this very concept too, Archbishop.).

But lets suppose that there isnt that level of clarity about the significance of some divisive issue. If we do still believe that unity is generally a way of coming closer to revealed truth (only the whole Church knows the whole Truth as someone put it), we now face some choices about what kind of Church we as Anglicans are or want to be. Some speak as if it would be perfectly simple and indeed desirable to dissolve the international relationships, so that every local Church could do what it thought right. This may be tempting, but it ignores two things at least.
First, it fails to see that the same problems and the same principles apply within local Churches as between Churches. The divisions dont run just between national bodies at a distance, they are at work in each locality, and pose the same question: are we prepared to work at a common life which doesnt just reflect the interests and beliefs of one group but tries to find something that could be in everyones interest recognising that this involves different sorts of costs for everyone involved? It may be tempting to say, let each local church go its own way; but once youve lost the idea that you need to try to remain together in order to find the fullest possible truth, what do you appeal to in the local situation when serious division threatens? (Speak to the Global South and Africans here too...they want to sever much more than the Episcopal Church does.)
Second, it ignores the degree to which we are already bound in with each others life through a vast network of informal contacts and exchanges. These are not the same as the formal relations of ecclesiastical communion, but they are real and deep, and they would be a lot weaker and a lot more casual without those more formal structures. They mean that no local Church and no group within a local Church can just settle down complacently with what it or its surrounding society finds comfortable. The Church worldwide is not simply the sum total of local communities. It has a cross-cultural dimension that is vital to its health and it is naïve to think that this can survive without some structures to make it possible. An isolated local Church is less than a complete Church.

Both of these points are really grounded in the belief that our unity is something given to us prior to our choices - let alone our votes. You have not chosen me but I have chosen you, says Jesus to his disciples; and when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we are saying that we are all there as invited guests, not because of what we have done. The basic challenge that practically all the churches worldwide, of whatever denomination, so often have to struggle with is, Are we joining together in one act of Holy Communion, one Eucharist, throughout the world, or are we just celebrating our local identities and our personal preferences?

The Anglican Identity
The reason Anglicanism is worth bothering with is because it has tried to find a way of being a Church that is neither tightly centralised nor just a loose federation of essentially independent bodies a Church that is seeking to be a coherent family of communities meeting to hear the Bible read, to break bread and share wine as guests of Jesus Christ, and to celebrate a unity in worldwide mission and ministry. That is what the word Communion means for Anglicans, and it is a vision that has taken clearer shape in many of our ecumenical dialogues.

Of course it is possible to produce a self-deceiving, self-important account of our worldwide identity, to pretend that we were a completely international and universal institution like the Roman Catholic Church. We're not (and Thank GOD for that!). But we have tried to be a family of Churches willing to learn from each other across cultural divides, not assuming that European (or American or African) wisdom is what settles everything, opening up the lives of Christians here to the realities of Christian experience elsewhere. And we have seen these links not primarily in a bureaucratic way but in relation to the common patterns of ministry and worship the community gathered around Scripture and sacraments; a ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, a biblically-centred form of common prayer, a focus on the Holy Communion. These are the signs that we are not just a human organisation but a community trying to respond to the action and the invitation of God that is made real for us in ministry and Bible and sacraments (and none of this has changed by having a gay bishop in New Hampshire.). We believe we have useful and necessary questions to explore with Roman Catholicism because of its centralised understanding of jurisdiction and some of its historic attitudes to the Bible. We believe we have some equally necessary questions to propose to classical European Protestantism, to fundamentalism, and to liberal Protestant pluralism. There is an identity here, however fragile and however provisional.

But what our Communion lacks is a set of adequately developed structures which is able to cope with the diversity of views that will inevitably arise in a world of rapid global communication and huge cultural variety. The tacit conventions between us need spelling out not for the sake of some central mechanism of control but so that we have ways of being sure were still talking the same language, aware of belonging to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ. It is becoming urgent to work at what adequate structures for decision-making might look like (meaning the Global South and Africa get whatever the hell they want since they are the majority numerically, right?). We need ways of translating this underlying sacramental communion into a more effective institutional reality, so that we dont compromise or embarrass each other in ways that get in the way of our local and our universal mission, but learn how to share responsibility.

Future Directions
The idea of a covenant between local Churches (developing alongside the existing work being done on harmonising the church law of different local Churches) is one method that has been suggested, and it seems to me the best way forward. It is necessarily an opt-in matter. Those Churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other (to not let fags have a place in the church) would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness; and some might not be willing to do this. We could arrive at a situation where there were constituent Churches in covenant in the Anglican Communion and other churches in association, which were still bound by historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of the same sources, but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion, and not sharing the same constitutional structures (So that Africa and the Global South could look down their noses at the United States or whomever else isn't willing to tell gays they aren't fully welcome in the Church.). The relation would not be unlike that between the Church of England and the Methodist Church, for example. The associated Churches would have no direct part in the decision making of the constituent Churches, though they might well be observers whose views were sought or whose expertise was shared from time to time, and with whom significant areas of co-operation might be possible.

This leaves many unanswered questions, I know, given that lines of division run within local Churches as well as between them - and not only on one issue (we might note the continuing debates on the legitimacy of lay presidency at the Eucharist). It could mean the need for local Churches to work at ordered and mutually respectful separation between constituent and associated elements (is that your nice way of saying that since the Episcopal church didn't defrock Bishop Robinson, that they are cut off? Will you now recognize the AAC as the "official" American arm of Anglicanism?); but it could also mean a positive challenge for Churches to work out what they believed to be involved in belonging in a global sacramental fellowship, a chance to rediscover a positive common obedience to the mystery of Gods gift that was not a matter of coercion from above but of that waiting for each other that St Paul commends to the Corinthians.

There is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment. Neither the liberal nor the conservative can simply appeal to a historic identity that doesnt correspond with where we now are. We do have a distinctive historic tradition a reformed commitment to the absolute priority of the Bible for deciding doctrine, a catholic loyalty to the sacraments and the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, and a habit of cultural sensitivity and intellectual flexibility that does not seek to close down unexpected questions too quickly. But for this to survive with all its aspects intact, we need closer and more visible formal commitments to each other. And it is not going to look exactly like anything we have known so far. Some may find this unfamiliar future conscientiously unacceptable, and that view deserves respect (even though you're actively discarding it). But if we are to continue to be any sort of Catholic church, if we believe that we are answerable to something more than our immediate environment and its priorities and are held in unity by something more than just the consensus of the moment, we have some very hard work to do to embody this more clearly. The next Lambeth Conference ought to address this matter directly and fully as part of its agenda (which is convenient because the Africans and Global South have a numerical majority...and you'd have the matter of whether Bishop Robinson would be welcome..I'm guessing not. You're setting up a showdown between the developed world and the Global South. This will not be pretty.).

The different components in our heritage can, up to a point, flourish in isolation from each other. But any one of them pursued on its own would lead in a direction ultimately outside historic Anglicanism The reformed concern may lead towards a looser form of ministerial order and a stronger emphasis on the sole, unmediated authority of the Bible (so now we're going to become Southern Baptists that believe the English version of the Bible is the direct, undiluted word of God? Infalliable in all things? Never once altered? You're smarter than that.). The catholic concern may lead to a high doctrine of visible and structural unification of the ordained ministry around a focal point. The cultural and intellectual concern may lead to a style of Christian life aimed at giving spiritual depth to the general shape of the culture around and de-emphasising revelation and history. Pursued far enough in isolation, each of these would lead to a different place to strict evangelical Protestantism, to Roman Catholicism, to religious liberalism. To accept that each of these has a place in the churchs life and that they need each other means that the enthusiasts for each aspect have to be prepared to live with certain tensions or even sacrifices (As far as I can see, the liberals are willing to live in this tension. No one has ever suggested that conservatives need to follow our example in regard to women and gays...but the conservatives insist we follow theirs.) with a tradition of being positive about a responsible critical approach to Scripture, with the anomalies of a historic ministry not universally recognised in the Catholic world, with limits on the degree of adjustment to the culture and its habits that is thought possible or acceptable.

Conclusion
The only reason for being an Anglican is that this balance seems to you to be healthy for the Church Catholic overall, and that it helps people grow in discernment and holiness (There is no balance when one side, the Conservative one, can dictate to everyone else what they can and cannot do.). Being an Anglican in the way I have sketched involves certain concessions and unclarities but provides at least for ways of sharing responsibility and making decisions that will hold and that will be mutually intelligible. No-one can impose the canonical and structural changes that will be necessary. All that I have said above should make it clear that the idea of an Archbishop of Canterbury resolving any of this by decree is misplaced, however tempting for many. The Archbishop of Canterbury presides and convenes in the Communion, and may do what this document attempts to do, which is to outline the theological framework in which a problem should be addressed; but he must always act collegially, with the bishops of his own local Church and with the primates and the other instruments of communion (Exactly, since you aren't the damn POPE.).

That is why the process currently going forward of assessing our situation in the wake of the General Convention is a shared one. But it is nonetheless possible for the Churches of the Communion to decide that this is indeed the identity, the living tradition and by Gods grace, the gift - we want to share with the rest of the Christian world in the coming generation; more importantly still, that this is a valid and vital way of presenting the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. My hope is that the period ahead - of detailed response to the work of General Convention, exploration of new structures, and further refinement of the covenant model - will renew our positive appreciation of the possibilities of our heritage so that we can pursue our mission with deeper confidence and harmony. (Good luck with that... unless of course, you embrace a message that God hates the homosexual...in which case, we can all be happy again, right?)

This is me again. In case it's not obvious, I am FURIOUS at this letter and its implications. Why is it that I cannot be welcomed at the Table of the Lord in full communion with my other fellow sinners? I strive to be a good person, and I try to live a life that I can be proud of in the eyes of God. That includes embracing my sexuality as God created it, seeking to express it in ways that are healthy and with the same standards applied to straight people. Yet, this is a concept that so many cannot accept. They will not be happy until I am driven from the Church and the light and love of God and His People. It's hard not to hate them for that.

Dear Cathy...

Very interesting day today. I have some clarity as to what I'm supposed to do with these Measles Partnership numbers. Basically, I can pick the number I like best, which means to me sticking as close to published numbers as possible. However, this report is not supposed to see the light of day outside of WHO. Good thing too, because the information they are seeking does nothing than expose shoddy record keeping and somewhat shady financial practices, at least when you consider the controls that are placed on how we spend money at CDC. Maybe the Defense Department comes close to what I see at WHO. We are getting results, which is what ultimately matters, but you need an army of people to keep track of this money properly. To have only one person doing the work of 10 is ridiculous. It also allows WHO to play its shell game with the money its given. Things get covered, but you never know whose money is covering it half the time.

I found out that the overturning of the gay marriage amendment has created a firestorm in Georgia. Just as I predicted, Sonny decided hed call a special session if the decision wasnt quickly overturned by the GA Supremes. Just so happens that 4 of the 7 justices are up for election this yearthink that will weigh on their decision? Well see if theyre politicians or jurists. The fact remains that amendment was illegally drawn, and everyone knew it. But they wanted that precious part B in there to really send the message that gays need to leave Georgia and never return because they will always be second class citizens. What galls me is that the Democrats are all rah-rah about this move to call a special session! Dubose Porter, the leader in the House, thinks its grand. So does Cathy Cox and Mark Taylor. Cathys campaign went out of its way to say that she fully supported the amendment, and only thought in 2004 that it was drawn poorly legislatively. That's not quite how I remember it, but Cathy's leading the Down with Fags! cheers from the Democratic side. Mark Taylor stopped short of saying we need a special session, but said to wait for the GA Supreme Court to decide, adding he hoped they upheld the amendment.

This is exactly the kind of shit that people bring up to show that Democrats really dont care about gays at all. The thing is, I know the party is very supportive. Were at all levels of the party power structure, and no one cares were gay. Most of the time, they think its pretty cool. But when 76f Georgia voted yes on the marriage amendment in 2004, that told politicians that gays were nuclear material in Georgia politics. We are lepers to be shunned in public, no matter what our conscience or our hearts tell us is right. Certainly, you shouldnt lead on an issue such as gay rights in any formthe best thing to do is what Democrats did until blacks were forcibly given the vote in the 1960spander to the basest instincts of the public. And this means to sound the alarm bells, call a special session, and make sure no time passes where those damn queers dont know their placeat the bottom of Sadie Fields stiletto heel to be scrapped off on the curb like dog shit.

Well, I'm not letting this one go quietly. I was angry enough that I fired off a letter to the Editor in the AJC, and I also wrote Cathy Coxs campaign a note which I copied to every YD leader I know and some others too. My friend Mike called her campaign from England and demanded his contribution (which I had urged him to make months ago) back. I frankly dont blame him. I dont know if shell even see this letter, but you can be assured that I will deliver the message in person should I get the opportunity:

Dear Cathy -

I find myself filled with profound disappoint and disgust at your decision yesterday to release a statement of support for Gov. Perdue's cynical call for a SPECIAL legislative session to make sure that both parts of the gay marriage amendment struck down for violating the single subject rule will be on November's ballot. I have met you several times, and I have even supported your bid for Governor. I have also heard you speak on LGBT issues, and I know you are more fair minded than your actions have shown. Yet, when it comes down to it, actions speak louder than words.

The AJC today (http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/0518metgaymarriage.html) stated, "On Wednesday, Cox issued a statement supporting the governor's plan for a special session. So did her Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor. Cox's opponents from both parties pointed out that in 2004, Cox said the amendment was "unnecessary." Peter Jackson, her campaign spokesman, said in response, "Yesterday showed the circumstances have changed" since 2004."

I would like to know exactly what circumstances have changed? In 2004, you had it right when you said the amendment was unnecessary and a cynical political ploy. It can be argued that passing that amendment directly led to the loss of Democratic control of the House. The people who care most about putting LGBT Georgians in "our place" are never going to vote for you or any Democrat. The only way that would change is if some Democrat pulled a Zell Miller and became essentially a right wing Republican in his/her views. You gain nothing by supporting Perdue in this scheme to call a special session. Even if you are the nominee, this amendment will guarantee that the troops of Sadie Field and her ilk will turn out in droves to reward Sonny for acting swiftly to put the "queers" in our place.

I am a gay Georgian, one of many you already know. You know personally how hateful and painful that amendment fight was in 2004. That you are now supporting actions that would not only hurt Democrats, your own bid for Governor, along with delivering a double fisted bitch slap to every LGBT Georgian is disgusting. As a Christian, you know better than to think this is the right thing to do. I know this is a tricky issue to deal with, but wouldn't it have been better to allow the judicial process to play out in the GA Supreme Court and then decide to move forward later? What's the rush? The amendment would easily pass in January 2007 when the new legislature is in session, and everyone knows it. There is no emergency to warrant spending taxpayer dollars on a special session just to be sure that LGBT Georgians like myself can be reassured that yes, indeed, our state HATES us, considers us less than equal citizens, and wants to be sure I never enjoy anything approaching equality with straight Georgia.

I get that this state is light years from being gay friendly when you go outside of 285. By your actions yesterday, you have given sanction to creating an atmosphere of hate and hysteria around gay rights. LGBT teens are already 30more likely to commit to suicide than their straight peers. My community is already rife with self-destructive behaviors whose origins lie in just the kind of hate campaign Sadie Fields led against us in 2004 and are promising to do again in 2006. I expected much more out of you than that. This is not leadership; it is pandering. To see you sink so low as to kick some of your most ardent supporters in the teeth for political gain breaks my heart. Yet I know that Mark Taylor and Sonny Perdue are no better.

I will no longer actively support your campaign. I may or may not vote for you in the Primary and General election. I feel betrayed by you, and I know I am not the only LGBT supporter of yours that feels this way this morning. I think we deserve and explanation and apology for being so hasty to play into the political tricks of the GOP. In the meantime, my time and treasure will no longer support someone who obviously no longer supports me.

Yours truly,
Jason A. Cecil

Am I being too harsh? No, I dont think so. Im not going to work against Cathy, and its likely I'll vote for. When you think of Mark vs Cathy in the Democratic primary, I think Cathy has the best chance of unseating Sonny Perdue. I also love the idea of a smart woman governor. But that doesnt mean I smile meekly, bend over, grab my ankles and say, Do what you want. Ill be the good little soldier. Youll see no consequences from me. For LGBT people to make real gains, we must demand respect, especially from our friends. We dont have to abandon them (because they truly are light years better than Republicans) but we do need to let them know when theyve done wrong. And Cathy fucked up big time on this. She may not think so now, but I hope Im just the tip of the iceberg of LGBT supporters who will let their displeasure be known. Thats the only way we can be sure that she wont pull this kind of shit again, and will be more sensitive to the people who have supported her most.