Young Democrats of America Meeting - Washington, DC

The last general meeting was this past weekend in Washington, DC with a theme of "Join the Revolution!"

Attending from Georgia were:

Jason Cecil (National Committeeman)
Flora Brooke Hesse (National Committeewoman)
Kirk Miller (YDA Rules Chair)
Billy Joyner (YDG President)
Benson Manica (YDG Secretary)
Kyle Bailey (Atlanta Stonewall Democrats)
Skyler Atkins (University of West Georgia)
Page Gleason (Executive Director)
Rebecca Miller (DeKalb)
Erin O'Neil (Atlanta)
Bernita Smith (DeKalb)
Melissa Thompson (Women's Caucus chair)
Juliana Illari (Cobb)
Brian Peterson (VP-Membership)
Robin Reynolds (LGBT Caucus chair & CDG President)
Nikema Williams (Atlanta)
Rahsheim Wright (Chatham)

As you can see, our delegation was nearly 20 strong! It was an excellent turnout by our state and one of the best in the nation.

Thursday was the start of DNC meetings, and every participant in YDA got a guest pass to the DNC. The College Democrats got a private tour of the US Capitol, complete with a visit to Speaker Pelosi's office and her private balcony at the Capitol. The DNC Rules meeting on youth participation did not go as well as we had hoped. The chairman, committee counsel, and staff were all against us, and convinced the group to turn their backs on a long standing violation of the DNC charter. At one point, the committee counsel made the Nixon/Bush-like argument that since the Convention is the highest authority of the Democratic Party, any action taken by a convention is de facto in line with the charter (Remind anyone of Nixon's famous saying, "If the President does it, then it is not illegal"? How about Bush's stance that since he's Commander in Chief, he can ignore the Constitution?) It was the 1980 Convention that purposefully, but inexplicably, removed youth from representation in future delegations. What they did not do was remove youth from the chater, meaning that the DNC has been involation of the charter since 1980. Instead, a letter will be sent to the state parties urging them to "pretty please" remember to include youth in their delegations. YDG will work with the state party to ensure that youth delegates are seated as part of the 2008 Georgia contingent.

Every Presidential candidate who has declared for the Democratic nomination was invited to speak on Friday and Saturday morning. The general consensus from our group was that Edwards, Clinton, Obama, and Richardson impressed the most. There was even an opportunity for us to meet the candidates individually, an opportunity of which several of us were able to take advantage.

On Friday night, many of us attended the YDA Founder's Day event, which was a casual buffet showing the various decades that YDA has been in existence. This year is the 75th anniversary of the organization. It was an interesting party, although I went into it thinking it would be fancier than it was. And all of us from GA and other southern states were horrified by how rudely people treated Mrs. Vilseck, the keynote speaker. She is not the most exciting speaker, but to have people talking over her in separate conversations was rude. We were delighted to have DPG Chair Jane Kidd join us for the evening. We were able to see her at many events throughout the weekend, along with other DPG delegates to the DNC such as Labor Commissioner Mike Thurmond and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

The final amendments to the YDA charter were considered and partially rejected. The amendments to the charter failed, but the corresponding bylaw changes passed. This means that for now, YDA's bylaws and charter conflict. This happened due to politics, and the desire of some to poke a stick in the eye of the outgoing YDA President. It also happened because the Rules committee got tired of looking at each line that was changed in the charter and hastily moved to adjourn without allowing the dissenters a full hearing on their concerns.

Speaking of the YDA Presidency, David Hardt formally launched his ticket's campaign for office. The reception that David, Chris, and Crystal hosted was fantastic. Having the chair of the Texas Democratic Party introduce David was a nice touch too. Texas doesn't have the best reputation in the world for being nice to gay people (see Lawrence v Texas), but David has managed to marshall the full support of his state party in a genuine way. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes discussion about who should be the DNC Man on the ticket, and a huge meeting was held where just about anyone interested in sharing an opinion was invited to do so. It is this kind of collaboration that is good for YDA, and I look forward to David's administration.

The next YDA meeting will be in May at a time and place yet to be determined. The only thing I do know is that the meeting will be west of the Mississippi River. Once details are released, we will share those with you.

NATIONAL CONVENTION UPDATE

Mark your calendars for July 18-21, 2007!!! The YDA National Convention will be held in Dallas, TX at the Adams Mark Hotel. For those who have attended previous conventions in San Francisco (2005), Buffalo (2003), and Tuscon (2001), you know these conventions are a lot of fun and great way to get together with YDs from across the nation, settle on a national YD platform, and elect national officers.

Confirmed speakers include Hillary Clinton and John Edwards so far. The convention website will not be up until late February or early March, but some financial details are available for you to start saving your pennies. The Adams Mark Hotel is the largest hotel in Texas, and for rooms with two queen size beds, the cost is $125/night (or $31.25/person with 4 people in a room). For those who want your own room, a king size bed is available in the Royal Tower for $145/night. Reservations can be made by calling 877-319-2326 or visiting http://resweb.passkey.com/go/yda2007. Registration will cost $60/person, and there will be a way for financial hardship to be argued on an individual basis. American Airlines is offering a 5% discount off airfare for conference attendees (use code A8577AM at http://www.aa.com/) and if 10 or more people fly Southwest, an unspecified discount will apply. If you make reservations on your own, please be sure to email Jason at http://webmail.bellsouth.net/agent/MobNewMsg?to=jacecil6@bellsouth.net an d let him know the details for our records.

With the convention being in Dallas, we will likely have a driving option for those interested in that. The downside of Dallas is that in order to maximize Georgia's votes at the Convention, we must have 34 people in our delegation. Fundraising will obviously be key, and YDG will work with local chapters to offset the costs. The experience of the national convention is worth it, though. Dallas has world class shopping and entertainment, and it promises to be a good time for everyone. I hope you will make plans to attend.

Democratic Party of Georgia Elections

Saturday was a very long day. Those of us on the State Committee of the Democratic Party of Georgia met at the IBEW auditorium in Atlanta for 7 hours of fellowship, speeches, and good ol' fashioned voting! Below are the results of the Democratic Party of Georgia (DPG) leadership elections. Turnout was over 70%, and I was thankful to be under an air vent with my fellow 5th District members.

Democratic Party of Georgia Executive Officers:

Chair
Jane V. Kidd (Clarke)

First Vice-Chair
Michael Thurmond (Clarke)

Congressional District/County Liaison Vice-Chair
Sally Rosser (Fulton)

Constituency Group Vice-Chair
Virgilio Perez Pascoe (Forsyth)

Candidate Recruitment Vice-Chair
Winfred Dukes (Dougherty)

Secretary
Stephen R. Leeds (Fulton)

Treasurer
Rex Templeton, Jr. (Chatham)

The elections were exhausting. The last couple of weeks featured plenty of behind-the-scenes intrigue as the elected officials and old guard of the party worked overtime to make sure Mike Berlon did not get elected chair. It took 4 ballots, but Mike was defeated. His vision for the party was probably too radical in the end, the changes too great.

That's fine, really. It is in the great American tradition to vote for change, but not radical change. But make no mistake, the DPG of our fathers and grandfathers is gone. For the first time ever, we have had truly democratic elections for the party leadership. A real debate of ideas was forced, and the conversation moved the party forward. The ideas that Young Democrats need to be embraced by the party, and that grassroots is the way to fight our way back into the majority have gained real traction.

From a Young Democrat viewpoint, the election was definitely positive. At least three of the executive officers have made an explicit point of valuing the Young Democrats and the benefits we can bring to the party as we move into the future. This includes the new chair, Jane Kidd. Jane has been a friend of Young Democrats for a while, and she has been especially close to the UGA chapter, which has worked heavily on her state house and senate races. The state GOP felt threatened enough by Jane Kidd to redistrict her senate district to add enough GOP voters to prevent her election. That decision is one they will come to rue. I guarantee you that the GOP will one day wish they had just left well enough alone, because dealing with Chairwoman Kidd will be much more of a painful experience than dealing with State Senator Kidd would have been. I look forward to helping Jane put the hurt on.

We have an Hispanic businessman from Forsyth County whose campaign almost gave the exact talking points that the Young Democrats of Georgia has been promoting for our own future. Plus, with Hispanics being a crucial electoral block in the future, having DPG with a major Vice Chair who is Hispanic will only help us reach out to that community which is currently under attack by the GOP.

The best part of Mr. Pascoe's election was the defeat of an anti-gay, anti-choice candidate for the office. Mr. Pascoe was unapologetic about his past as someone who worked very closely with the LGBT group at Coors. He is thoughtful and business oriented. One of his opponents was a key turncoat vote in 2004 to force a vote on the gay marriage amendment. Not only did he advocate openly in the Democratic caucus against gay people, his actions led directly to the loss of at least 5-6 seats in the GA House that we might have kept had Rep. Smyre been allowed to sit on the amendment in the House Rules Committee. This man's followers claimed he was a preacher, and had to vote and advocate against gay people, and against abortion rights. That's fine, and if his constitutents don't care, that's fine too. But bigots don't need to apply for major office in the Democratic Party. That DPG said "NO" to this individual warms my heart and makes me proud to be a Southern Democrat!

Mike Thurmond is not only Commissioner of Labor, but our 1st Vice Chair. He will have the support of elected officials not only in GA but also in DC. Steve Leeds and Sally Rosser provide crucial leadership, and a perspective of what has and has not worked in the past. They are also forward thinking people whose talents promise to be unleashed under Chairwoman Kidd.

In two crucial contested elections, Young Democrats came out on top. In my own 5th District, home of Representative John Lewis, my good friend Will Curry was elected chair of the the 5th Congressional District by a vote of 17-10. He unseated the incumbent who happened to be his own state representative. Will is a fine addition to the DPG Executive Committee, and Congressman Lewis will find that he has a fine, dynamic young leader as the focal point for his party in his district.

In the 13th Congressional District, home of Representative David Scott, another good friend, Nikema Williams survived a nasty campaign to defeat the incumbent District Chair 8-5. The incumbent used every trick at her disposal to force Nikema out of the race, and then to intimidate the committee members voting in her district. If looks could kill, Nikema would have been gutted like a fish during her speech. But poise, and actions, spoke louder than words and nasty looks. Nikema, unlike her predecessor, will work WITH her congressman, not against him. She certainly won't run against him for office! David Scott will have a true Democratic partner in his district now, and everyone will be better for it.

So, while the day was exhausting, the elections were a good thing. I have great hopes that the new leadership will move us forward, and chip away at the GOP machine that has arisen since 2002. Georgia is rightfully a purple state, and if our leadership is as bold as I hope they will be in enacting their campaign promises, we will finally become a swing state.

Milton County

Milton County was created on December 18, 1857 from parts of northeastern Cobb, southeastern Cherokee and southwestern Forsyth counties. Alpharetta was the county seat until the end of 1931, when Milton was merged with Fulton County to save it from bankruptcy during the Great Depression. At that time,
Campbell County, which had already gone bankrupt, was also ceded to Fulton, giving it its long irregular shape along the Chattahoochee River.

Georgia already has the constitutional maximum of 159 counties, the 2nd highest total number of counties in the nation after Texas. Yet, with the Republicans in control of the state government, Milton County may be ressurected. All in the name of making damn sure that rich white folks' money won't be spent on anything that might benefit a person of color! Jim Crow racism, 21st century style....alive and well here in Georgia.

This whole movement started with Sandy Springs begging for cityhood status starting in the late 1960s, early 1970s. At that time, white flight from Atlanta was in full force, and Sandy Springs was terrified that Atlanta might come incorporate them into the city. Democrats in the city of Atlanta blocked cityhood attempts until the GOP took over the legislature following the 2004 elections. At that time, the long tradition of honoring a local delegation's wishes regarding local legislation was abandoned. What the GOP representatives wanted for Sandy Springs was to seal it off from the majority black Fulton County, despite what a majority of the Fulton delegation wanted.

Personally, while I know that Sandy Springs cityhood push was steeped in racism, I cannot deny that a 90+% vote in favor of cityhood does clearly indicate where the citizens wanted to go. They'd been pushing for a city for 30 something years, so while it did hurt Fulton for Sandy Springs to incorporate, the movement didn't bother me too much.

What has happened since Sandy Springs became a city has bothered me a great deal because the obvious racial hatred driving it is blatantly obvious. The drives to incorporate Johns Creek and Milton in North Fulton were not based in history, but on a childish fit by people who are consistently outvoted by their fellow citizens to the south. Admittedly, Fulton County government is a mess, but until this year, it's been run by Republicans since 1994! The County chair has been a member of the GOP all that time, although the commission was usually 4-3 in favor of Democrats. The chairs have also been white, so I don't know where the spoiled rich people in North Fulton got the idea that if they could just seal themselves off from the "darker" South Fulton and Atlanta, they'd be fine.

Milton and Johns Creek were about destroying Fulton County's government by making sure all local taxes went to the cities. However, Fulton still runs schools, libraries, health centers, etc. The entire former Milton County is now incorporated into different cities, but that still allows some taxes from wealthy North Fulton to potentially be spent in poorer South Fulton. For the rich bitches in Alpharetta, that's UNacceptable!

It has been reported that North Fulton has 42% of the property wealth in the entire county, although it's land mass is much smaller. People have written into the paper furious that while they provide 42% of the tax base, 42% of the taxes are not spent on them. That kind of logic is ridiculous, and it would mean that only the wealthiest citizens deserve any government services at all. I realize we're talking about Republicans here, but haven't they heard of the social contract? To those whom much is given, much is expected. Rich people who have gained tremendous benefits from the entire society have an obligation and responsibility to give back to that society. They deserve good schools, police protection, etc....but so do the poor. To achieve the American dream of upward mobility, we must have a tax structure that gives the poor a chance to get a good education and to better their circumstances. We do a piss poor job of it now, but if we follow the "I provide 42% of the tax base, so you must spend 42% of the taxes on me" philosophy, we will re-create a medieval society where the poor get poorer, the rich get richer, and the middle class disintegrates.

Luckily, there are many obstacles in the way of giving rebirth to Milton County. First, the Constitution of Georgia forbids it. Unless you want to go South Georgia and dissolve, say, Jeff Davis County in order to make room for a reborn Milton County, you must amend the constitution to allow more than 159 counties. That requires 2/3 of the both houses of the General Assembly plus a vote by the people. Thankfully, the GOP does not control 2/3 of the legislature, so if Democrats just stick together on this question, the proposal can be defeated.

Let's say the GOP does peel off enough Democrats to get their 2/3 majority to send the question to the people of Georgia. It's likely Georgia will yawn and vote "yes" to Milton. But there are unanswered questions as to how to affect a divorce. Fulton has contracts with Grady Health System, MARTA and others. Milton cannot just shirk those contracts, although you can bet they will look for the first chance to break them. After all, Grady provides services to the poor (and probably too many black folks for Alpharetta's tastes), and we all know they don't care for MARTA. Then there is the matter of the school system. How do you split that?

The GOP sponsors of the drive to recreate Milton County have no answers for these questions. It's because this drive is not rooted in anything that makes good governmental sense. It is steeped in racism, pure and simple. Exposing this basis for separation is the new proposed map of Milton. Milton County reborn would not stop at the Chattahoochee River at the thin neck of Fulton County, as would be historically accurate. Milton would absorb Sandy Springs too, and some would like for it to also include Buckhead. Gee, I wonder why that map exists. The demographics carefully cherry pick the wealthy, mostly white areas of the county and cleave them into a lilly white, conservative, GOP bastion.

This drive to re-create Milton County must fail. It's intent is to financially destroy the city of Atlanta, and to cause the fiscal collapse of the southern portion of Fulton county simply because the citizens there are mostly of the wrong color and have too low of a bank balance. Democrats in the legislature must make a united stand against this foolishness, because only they can put a stop to it.

Nigeria Working My LAST Good Nerve!

Lost in the din of pre-Christmas news were a few articles about Episcopal parishes in Northern Virginia, including George Washington's parish, voting to leave the Episcopal Church and recognize the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, as their leader. Then there was news of a law in Nigeria that the Archbishop is pushing to make homosexuality subject to the death penalty.

I have written about the struggles of the Episcopal Church of the USA regarding homosexuality. My adopted church not only ordains openly gay clergy, but also has an openly gay bishop. This summer, at our General Conference, our deputies and clergy elected the Katherine Jefferts-Schori as the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA. As such, she is considered the "primate" of the United States in the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the equal to Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria. This turn of events, some have decided, must not stand.

The wealthy, largely conservative, and most certainly Republican, parishes of Northern Virginia who voted to leave and join the Anglican Church of Nigeria are bigots who should be faced with the full legal force of the church to strip of them of the property they hold in TRUST, a trust they have broken. For them, it was bad enough when we let women become priests and bishops. It got much worse when homosexuals were allowed to wear the clerical collar, and they reach the end of their rope when an openly gay man was elected Bishop of New Hampshire. Apparently, having a woman as the chief bishop of the church in the United States was the straw that broke the camel's back. They simply REFUSE to acknowledge the authority of a woman, and instead back a man who holds their views that women shouldn't be priests, let alone bishops, and gays deserve jail and death rather the the love of Christ and the church.

These people are stalwarts of the Republican Party nationally, considering the location of the fleeing parishes. They hold nothing but contempt for a process based on the US Constitution and written largely by our Founding Fathers. This contempt is based on the fact that they have lost the argument. They are on the wrong side of the great issues of the day, and they will not tolerate it.

Personally, I'm tired of mollifying these conservatives and their right wing, hate-filled agenda. If they want to leave the Episcopal Church, fine. Lock the doors and give us the keys as you leave. All property is held in trust by Parishes on behalf of the National Church. That national church should be vigorous in enforcing its rights in court. Let these bigots meet in a field for all I care. We have tried and tried to reach compromise, approach these people in good faith and loving spirit, and they spit in our eyes each and every time. It's their way or the highway, and I'm personally sick of it. We have a woman as the head of our church, and some dioceses may feel called to elect an openly gay person as their bishop. Get over it. Time marches on.

Let's look at what this "savior" of theirs from Nigeria has been up to. Peter Akinola is a proud bigot. He claims he must discriminate against women and gays because the bible commands it (it doesn't), and because he's in competition with Islam for the souls of Nigeria. Nigeria is a state that is 50% Muslim and 50% Christian. The Muslims control the northern parts of the country, and the Christians control the southern parts. There is a real competition for control of Nigeria's religious life. Since Islam hates gays, Christians must to in order to "compete".

In this spirit, Archbishop Akinola has openly supported a new law in Nigeria that would not only outlaw gay marriages (which are now legal in South Africa), but ANY form of association between gay people, social or otherwise, as well as the publication of any materials deemed to promote a "same sex amorous relationship." Under the law, anyone attending a meeting between gay people could receive a sentence of 5 years in prison. Other activities prohibited by this law are participating in gay clubs, reading books, watching films, or accessing Internet sites that "promote" homosexuality.

Take a moment to digest that paragraph. It's stunning the malice and sheet hatred of gay people expressed in this new Nigerian law. Two men having DINNER together could be construed to be illegal under this law. Straight people who allow more than one gay person in their home would be eligible for a prison sentence of up to 5 years! Reading this blog could get you put in prison or stoned to death. Apparently, the Christian south would only use prison, but the Muslim north would be allowed to use the death penalty, which constitutes stoning to death. The Republican Episcopalians in Northern Virginia have aligned themselves with Peter Akinola and his precious Gay Holocaust law. Make no mistake, that this bill is intended to eliminate any person deemed to be homosexual. No one will be safe.

In NYC, Archbishop Akinola was visiting a church. Afterward, he was greeting parishoners, and a man shook his hand, told him how much he enjoyed his sermon, and then introduced him to "my partner, who's been with me for several years." When Akinola understood that the man clasping his hand was GAY, he recoiled in horror, jerked his hand away, and jumped back. Later, he recalled this story with PRIDE.

Personally, I'm done with Nigeria too. In my work, I've known the problems they cause in polio eradication, the corruption, the graft, etc. We should simply build a wall around Nigeria and them rot. Oh wait, they have OIL, so we can't do that. Still, my disgust with this country leads me to support such a wall nontheless. They are trying to destroy my church, and if I went into their country, they would try to take my very life.

Reading my blog, one might think that all I care about are gay issues. That is certainly not true, as anyone who knows me could tell you. I care about access to quality healthcare, women's rights, strong families, fiscal responsibility, patriotism, fighting terrorism, etc. The list goes on and on. Yet, as a gay man, I feel a sense of danger in the political world surrounding me. I do have the sense that all will be OK in the end, but it will take a while. I do not think that any state in the USA would dare pass a law as draconian as the Nigerian law. Yet, I see people from the other side of the political spectrum rising up to CHEER the very men who push forward such laws. Perhaps my being a gay man makes me more sensitive, and more likely to have a vociferous opinion when it comes to gay issues. I would love to have no reason to blog about it ever again. Unfortunately, I think I will be an old man before that happens.

Is Massachusetts for Real?

On January 2, while the rest of the nation was watching coverage of Gerald Ford's funeral, the outgoing Massachusetts General Assembly decided to move forward a "citizens petition" to ban gay marriage in the Massachusetts Constitution, despite the fact that gay marriage has been legal since May 2004 and over 8500 same sex couples have wed without destroying straight families or causing Massachusetts itself to be washed into the sea by a vengeful and angry God.

Yet, there's hope in this petition. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts told the legislature it had a duty to vote on citizen petitions. In November, the Massachusetts General Assembly simply adjourned a constitutional convention without voting on the anti-gay measure. The rule on citizen petitions is that only 25% of the legislature, sitting as a constitutional convention, has to OK an initiative for it to pass. Out of 200 legislators, only 62 voted for the anti-gay petition. That's only 31%!

The newly elected governor of Massaschusetts, Deval Patrick, had this to say about the vote:

"I am disappointed by today's vote in the Constitutional Convention. We have never used the initiative petition to limit individual freedoms and personal privacy, but today's vote was a regrettable step in that direction.

"We have work to do over the next year to turn this around. I am heartened by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the members of the Legislature — a margin of over 2 to 1 — voted to move on. I pledge to do what I can to build on that momentum, so that our Constitution will continue to stand for liberty and freedom, and not discrimination."

I cannot imagine a day where Sonny Perdue or any elected Governor in Georgia would issue such a statement. Here's a man who was overwhelming elected to his office, and he's quite forcefully advocating that the amendment be defeated, and not be put to a vote. Unlike Mitt Romney, who lead rallies against gay marriage, and railed about how evil it was and how it harmed children, Gov. Patrick personally petitioned lawmakers to vote down the proposal, and seems to indicate he will continue to do so.

The roll call is now a matter of public record, and the newly elected Massachusetts General Assembly has a gain of 6 votes in favor of keeping gay marriage. That means only 6-7 more votes are needed to defeat the measure, and many think that those 6-7 votes can be found before the issue arises again later this year.

The Boston Globe's editorial board said it best:

"When a final vote is taken by the new Legislature, the members must consider whether this is an appropriate issue to put to the voters. We believe Massachusetts voters would not take away this right, and a popular endorsement might be considered healthy. But civil rights are fundamental, and gay marriage should not be subject to plebiscite here, any more than it would have been appropriate to have Alabama voters directly decide school integration or Virginia voters decide interracial marriage."

That's the whole problem with the "let people vote" mentality. Civil rights really shouldn't be put to a vote. You know that old time segregationists are kicking themselves for not using this method to block those "uppity" blacks who had the temerity to demand to be treated as equal citizens. Imagine what the vote totals would have been all throughout the South in the 1950s and 1960s if segregation, interracial marriage, or school desegregation had been put to a vote. What sense of decency stopped those bigots of the mid-20th century from using the popular vote as a bludgeon? And more importantly, what happened to it?

You KNOW this is true!

Axis of Family Jihadis

Sometimes, you find a piece that really expresses exactly what you are thinking, and there's no way to improve upon it. So, here's a rare cut/paste job from the NYT.

The New York Times:

COLUMN: Mary Cheney's Bundle of Joy

By Frank Rich

Columnist Frank Rich calls Focus on the Family, Family Research Council
and American Family Association the "axis of family jihadis" and says
anti-gay politics is losing its ability to woo voters.

Sunday 12.17.06

IT'S not the least of John McCain's political talents that he
comes across as a paragon of straight talk even when he isn't
talking straight. So it was a surprise to see him reduced to
near-stammering on ABC's `'This Week'' two Sundays after
the election. The subject that brought him low was the elephant in the
elephants' room, or perhaps we should say in their closet:
homosexuality.

Senator McCain is no bigot, and his only goal was to change the subject
as quickly as possible. He kept repeating two safe talking points for
dear life: he opposes same-sex marriage (as does every major
presidential aspirant in both parties) and he is opposed to
discrimination. But because he had endorsed a broadly written Arizona
ballot initiative that could have been used to discriminate against
unmarried domestic partners, George Stephanopoulos wouldn't let him
off the hook.

`'Are you against civil unions for gay couples?'' he asked the
senator, who replied, `'No, I'm not.'' When Mr.
Stephanopoulos reiterated the question seconds later—`'So
you're for civil unions?''—Mr. McCain answered,
`'No.'' In other words, he was not against civil unions before
he was against them. His gaffe was reminiscent of a similar appearance
on Mr. Stephanopoulos'

s show in 2004 by Bill Frist, a
Harvard-trained doctor who refused to criticize a federal abstinence
program that catered to the religious right by spreading the canard that
sweat and tears could transmit AIDS.

Senator Frist is now a lame duck, and his brand of pandering, typified
by his errant upbeat diagnosis of the brain-dead Terri Schiavo's
condition, is following him to political Valhalla. The 2006 midterms
left Karl Rove's supposedly foolproof playbook in tatters. It was
hard for the Republicans to deal the gay card one more time after the
Mark Foley and Ted Haggard scandals revealed that today's
conservative hierarchy is much like Roy Cohn's milieu in
`'Angels in America,'' minus the wit and pathos.

This time around, ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage drew
markedly less support than in 2004; the draconian one endorsed by Mr.
McCain in Arizona was voted down altogether. Two national politicians
who had kowtowed egregiously to their party's fringe, Rick Santorum
and George Allen, were defeated, joining their ideological fellow
travelers Tom DeLay and Ralph Reed in the political junkyard. To further
confirm the inexorable march of social history, the only Christmas
season miracle to lift the beleaguered Bush administration this year has
been the announcement that Mary Cheney, the vice president's gay
daughter, is pregnant. Her growing family is the living rejoinder to
those in her father's party who would relegate gay American couples
and their children to second-class legal or human status.

Yet not even these political realities have entirely broken the
knee-jerk habit of some 2008 Republican presidential hopefuls to woo
homophobes. Mitt Romney, the Republican Massachusetts governor, was
caught in yet another embarrassing example of his party's hypocrisy
last week. In a newly unearthed letter courting the gay Log Cabin
Republicans during his unsuccessful 1994 Senate race, he promised to
`'do better'' than even Ted Kennedy in making `'equality
for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern.'' Given that Mr. Romney
has been making opposition to same-sex marriage his political calling
card this year, his ideological bisexuality looks as foolish in its
G-rated way as that of Mr. Haggard, the evangelical leader who was
caught keeping time with a male prostitute.

There's no evidence that Mr. Romney's rightward move on gay
civil rights and abortion (about which he acknowledges his flip-flop)
has helped him politically. Or that Mr. McCain has benefited from a
similar sea change that has taken him from accurately labeling Jerry
Falwell and Pat Robertson `'agents of intolerance'' in 2000 to
appearing at Mr. Falwell's Liberty University this year. A
Washington Post-ABC News poll last week found that among Republican
voters, Rudy Giuliani, an unabashed liberal on gay civil rights and
abortion, leads Mr. McCain 34 percent to 26 percent. Mr. Romney brought
up the rear, at 5 percent. That does, however, put him nominally ahead
of another presidential wannabe, the religious-right favorite Sam
Brownback, who has held up a federal judicial nomination in the Senate
because the nominee had attended a lesbian neighbor's commitment
ceremony.

For those who are cheered by seeing the Rovian politics of wedge issues
start to fade, the good news does not end with the growing evidence that
gay-baiting may do candidates who traffic in it more harm than good.
It's not only centrist American voters of both parties who reject
divisive demagoguery but also conservative evangelicals themselves. Some
of them are at last standing up to the extremists in their own camp.

No one more dramatically so, perhaps, than Rick Warren, the Orange
County, Calif., megachurch leader and best-selling author of `'The
Purpose Driven Life.'' He has adopted AIDS in Africa as a signature
crusade, and invited Barack Obama to join the usual suspects, including
Senator Brownback, to address his World AIDS Day conference on the
issue. This prompted predictable outrage from the right because of Mr.
Obama's liberal politics, especially on abortion. One radio host,
Kevin McCullough, demonized the Democrat for pursuing `'inhumane,
sick and sinister evil'' as a legislator. An open letter sponsored
by 18 `'pro-life'' groups protested the invitation, also
citing Mr. Obama's `'evil.'' But Mr. Warren didn't
blink.

Among those defending the invitation was David Kuo, the former deputy
director of the Bush White House's Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives. In a book, `'Tempting Faith,'' as well
as in interviews and on his blog, the heretical Mr. Kuo has become a
tough conservative critic of the corruption of religion by politicians
and religious-right leaders who are guilty of `'taking Jesus and
reducing him to some precinct captain, to some get-out-the-vote
guy.'' Of those `'family'' groups who criticized Mr.
Obama's appearance at the AIDS conference, Mr. Kuo wrote, `'Are
they so blind and possessed with such a narrow definition of life that
they can think of life only in utero?'' The answer, of course, is
yes. The Christian Coalition parted ways with its new president-elect, a
Florida megachurch pastor, Joel Hunter, after he announced that he would
take on bigger issues like poverty and global warming.

But it is leaders like Mr. Hunter and Mr. Warren who are in ascendance.
Even the Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at
Mr. Haggard's former perch, the National Association of
Evangelicals, has joined a number of his peers in taking up the cause of
the environment, putting him at odds with the Bush administration. Such
religious leaders may not have given up their opposition to abortion or
gay marriage, but they have more pressing priorities. They seem to have
figured out, as Mr. Kuo has said, that `'politicians use Christian
voters for their money and for their votes'' and give them little
in return except a reputation for bigotry and heartless opposition to
the lifesaving potential of stem-cell research.

The axis of family jihadis—Focus on the Family, the Family Research
Council, the American Family Association—is feeling the heat; its
positions get more extreme by the day. A Concerned Women for America
mouthpiece called Mary Cheney's pregnancy
`'unconscionable,'' condemning her for having `'injured
her child'' and `'acted in a way that denies everything that
the Bush administration has worked for.'' (That last statement,
thankfully, is true.) This overkill reeks of desperation. So does these
zealots' recent assault on the supposedly feminizing
`'medical'' properties of soy baby formula (which deserves the
`'blame for today's rise in homosexuality,'' according to
the chairman of Megashift Ministries), and penguins.

Yes, penguins. These fine birds have now joined the Teletubbies and
SpongeBob SquarePants in the pantheon of cuddly secret agents for
`'the gay agenda.'' Schools are being forced to defend
`'And Tango Makes Three,'' an acclaimed children's picture
book based on the true story of two Central Park Zoo male penguins who
adopted a chick from a fertilized egg. The hit penguin movie
`'Happy Feet'' has been outed for an `'anti-religious
bias'' and its `'endorsement of gay identity'' by Michael
Medved, the commentator who sets the tone for the religious right's
strictly enforced code of cultural political correctness.

Such censoriousness is increasingly the stuff of comedy. So are
politicians of all stripes who advertise their faith. A liberal like
Howard Dean is no more credible talking about the Bible (during the 2004
campaign he said his favorite book in the New Testament was Job) than
twice-married candidates like Mr. McCain are persuasive at pledging
allegiance to `'the sanctity of marriage.''

For all the skeptical theories about the Obama boomlet—or real boom,
we don't know yet—no one doubts that his language about faith is
his own, not a crib sheet provided by a conservative evangelical
preacher or a liberal political consultant on `'values.''
That's why a Democrat from Chicago whose voting record is to the
left of Hillary Clinton's received the same standing ovation from
the thousands at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church that he did from
his own party's throngs in New Hampshire. After a quarter-century of
watching politicians from both parties exploit religion for partisan and
often mean-spirited political gain, voters on all sides of this
country's culture wars are finally in the market for something new.

You be the President...

And I'll be the country.... Freakin' hilarious!

Like Vultures Circling

Everyone has heard about Senator Tim Johnson's illness and how it may affect control of the Senate. The GOP is playing it cool, trying not show their giddy delight at the thought that Sen. Johnson could die or resign, allowing the GOP Governor of SD to nominate a Republican for the seat and seize control of the Senate. Sen. McConnell and the outgoing Queen of the GOP, Ken Mehlman, have released appropriate statements of good wishes for Sen. Johnson.

However, you know the GOP is salvating, praying that Johnson will at least be forced to resign, and failing that, that he will join the Heavenly Father. You can almost smell the saliva dripping from their mouths and pooling on the floor.

I wish Sen. Johnson a speedy and full recovery. News reports make it sound like he is progressing nicely, and I hope that continues. The American people gave control of the Congress (BOTH houses) to the Democrats for a reason in November. To have it all undone because of a tragic illness would be cruel indeed.

Georgia: GOP Banks on Your Bigotry

And I thought the GOP hated gays! Well, they sorta do, at least in public. In private, they'll hire us to do their dirty work. But that is not the point of this blog entry. During the last week, I have read articles that expose the naked underbelly of hate and fear the GOP is trying to spread across Georgia in an attempt to solidify their hold on power.

First came former Rep. Bob Irvin's screed for Buckhead to join Milton County. The impetus for this plea allegedly came from the GOTV call from Shirley Franklin, John Lewis, and Andy Young on behalf of successful Fulton County Chair John Eaves. That call claimed that if the GOP took over Fulton County's commission, the days of fire hoses and attack dogs would return, and civil rights progress would be undone. A lot of my friends felt the ad was fine, and it gave to the GOP as good as they ever give to us. That's a good point, but the ad made me uncomfortable. While I do think the GOP as a whole wouldn't mind undoing the work of Dr. King and the civil rights movement, I'm not convinced the specific candidates for the Fulton Commission were in that category. I also feel that as Democrats, we should be better than the GOP in all respects. We need to find ways to win without sinking to their level. Perhaps that's not possible.

What I did not interpret that add to be saying was that white people are bad. The GOP claims that talking about "Republicans" is code for white folk. So much for their "diversity" plan, huh? Last time I checked in the mirror, I was a white guy AND a staunch Democrat. A good number of my friends in the Young Democrat community are also white and in many respects, more liberal than I am! So no, "Republican" doesn't equate to white. Republican equates to REPUBLICAN, whatever your color or creed.

Anyway, ex-Rep. Irvin wants Atlanta city council areas to be eligible to join the proposed resurrection of Milton County. After all, the whole purpose of resurrecting Milton County is to stop rich white people in Alpharetta from having their tax dollars potentially go toward services for people whose skin is darker than theirs. That's why the cities of Johns Creek and Milton have been formed. That's why the GOP will propose a constitutional amendment in 2007 to resurrect Milton County, thereby cutting of 46% of the value of the land of Fulton County from the rest of the county that is south of the Chattahoochee. All for the sake of their perception that their tax dollars should only go to "deserving" white people.

The whole reason Irvin wants the city council districts to vote is to get Buckhead to join Milton, in a first move that he admittedly hopes will lead to a "city of Buckhead". Well, shoot, Midtown seems to be whitening up too, Bobby, so why not annex Midtown too? Segregration worked SO WELL the first time we tried it, right? Why not give it a second go?

Don't be fooled. This whole citihood push for North Fulton and Dunwoody and the resurrection of Milton County is all about segregration. It's all about walling yourself off from people who don't look like you or make the money you do. And it's disgraceful. Yet I fear all this separation will come to pass, which will throw Fulton into a tailspin since no services will be affordable anymore. Will it fall to the cities? Won't that drive taxes way up? Of course it will, but the GOP doesn't care. They view this as hurting mostly poor people who are brown. "Those people" won't vote GOP, so what does it matter?

The next article was about Rep. Timothy Bearden of Villa Rica who is pushing a bill that would prohibit all Georgia cities and counties from issuing documents and forms in any language other than English. Bearden ckaims, "They refuse to learn the language, they refuse to assimilate. And that's a very dangerous problem."

Ohhhhhh, it's the ominous "they"! They are here to rape your children, steal your women, and force you to speak a strange tongue! They are here to burn Christians at the stake! They, They, THEY! How scary "they" are! We must stop "them" before "they" destroy us!

Bearden, he of "let's vote back in the Rebel flag" fame, also claims that English is the thread that unites us. Perhaps it is, perhaps it is not. It's telling though that the idea of the week from www.georgiaspeaks.com, the GOP idea board, was: "Public schools should be limited to kids who speak English as their first language and whose parents speak English as their first language." That was Dec. 5's "creative conservative idea of the week".

Immigration is a tough problem, and the system should be overhauled, but it can only be overhauled by the national government. Mean-spirited notions like the ones Bearden supports will get us no where. It also sends a message loud and clear to Hispanics, both legal and illegal, that they are NOT wanted here by the GOP. They are NOT welcome here by the GOP, and they will NEVER be "real" Americans in the GOP's eyes.

The question that I have is: will Georgians buy this? Will they allow themselves to be manipulated and fear-mongered into slapping around people who have never done anything to them? I used to have faith that the answer would be "no", but the gay marriage amendment's passage with 76% of the vote in 2004 changed that for me. The GOP was listening then, and that's why they are doing these things now. At what point will it stop?

Will Georgia once again live up to its motto of Truth, Justice, and Moderation?

5 Day Work Week UNFAIR!!!

The Democrats in Congress plan to do the people's work, including adequate oversight of the Executive Branch. This means that Congress will be session 5 days a week from Monday afternoon to Friday morning. Under my timekeeping, that's technically only 4 days of work, but it sure beats what the GOP Congress has done. This year, the GOP Congress met only 103 days, and the federal government is STILL being run by a "continuing resolution" (i.e. "do what you did last year, minus the earmarks") and will be run by one until at least February 15. These jokers have met fewer days than the infamous "do nothing" Congress of 1947-48.

All this "work" by the GOP earns them $165,000 a year, official junkets, and lobbyists slobbering all over them to give them free stuff. They only met from late Tuesday afternoon to midday Thursday....if they met at all. For most of us, holidays mean an extra day off work. Not so for Congress. One day for mere citizens equates to at least a week for Congress. The Democrats, rightly, are putting a stop to it. And the GOP isn't happy.

Jack Kingston (R-Savannah) seems to have been nominated to be official whiner for the GOP caucus. In a fit of hysteria, Kingston told the Washington Post, "Keeping us up here eats away at families. Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families — that's what this says."

Yes, that's exactly what this says. Democrats are elected to public office, and they have the audicity to believe that they should put in an honest work week on behalf of the people who elected them. Mind you, Kingston is a guy who sleeps in his damn office to show how "fiscally conservative" he is. Many Congresspeople share living quarters to cut down expenses. Senators usually move their families since their terms are 6 years. Of course, many Congressmen do too.

It's Jack Kingston's problem if his wife refuses to leave the confines of the greater Savannah area. You would think that after 14 years in Congress, they would have discussed living arrangements that would look after the well-being of their family. Apparently, since 12 of those years were spent with the GOP in control, ol' Jack didn't have to worry about it since he only had to show up for a day and a half in DC.

I have no idea how our fragile Republic survived all those years before the advent of air travel, telephone, and the internet. Why, a Congressman would have to stay in town for an entire session, staying in touch only through snail mail! The HORROR! Of course, back then, our government was less complex and only needed to meet maybe 6 months every two years. Congress is a full time legislature, and it needs to be full time. If you don't like that, then don't run. If Jack can't hack the new schedule, he can feel free to resign so that someone who is willing to work for people of GA-1 can actually elect someone who will gladly do the work he/she asked to do.

Kingston wrote in today's AJC that "last year I hosted 25 town hall meetings regarding Medicare Part D. The year before that, I held 17 town hall meetings on Social Security. In addition, I made over 200 speeches and meetings with veteran groups, farmers, energy, tax, health care, education and environmental groups. And I met with many individuals who had problems with the federal government — people who don't have business cards and don't know doctors and lawyers personally. These are the people who don't have the lobbyists, the time, or the budgets that would allow them to come to Washington and meet with me." Wow, he had meetings in his district 25 times in a calendar year! That's every other weekend. I don't know where he gets the energy to keep up that schedule!

Being a Representative or Senator to Congress is not supposed to be easy. If you have to spend your workweek in DC and commute home on the weekends, so be it. And if you truly care about your district, you will find ways to stay in touch and not lose the pulse of the people.

Jack Kingston and his GOP whiners don't understand that.

YDA in Jackson, Mississippi

I wanted to update you on the latest news from the Young Democrats of America. The last general meeting was this past weekend in Jackson, Mississippi with a theme of "Rebuild. Remember. Retake."

Attending from Georgia were: myself (National Committeeman), Flora Brooke Hesse (National Committeewoman), Kirk Miller (YDA Rules Chair), Billy Joyner (YDG President), Benson Manica (YDG Secretary), Kyle Bailey (Atlanta Stonewall Democrats), and Shelby Highsmith (Atlanta chapter).

Apart from various trainings on Fundraising, Press Relations, and Voter Files, panel discussions explored the emerging "religious left" and the strategy for winning back the South. Former DNC Chair Don Fowler of South Carolina spoke as did the newly elected House Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. At Saturday's luncheon, we heard from the leaders of the Mississippi Freedom Democrats party that formed in 1964 as a protest to continued segregration and black voter suppression in Mississippi. On Saturday evening, a special movie presentation on Iraq entitled "The Ground Truth" was shown with a discussion afterward with one of the movie's stars, US Marine Corporal Sean Huze.

There was a postmortem on the elections done in the Campaigns Committee, for which Billy is the deputy chair and I represent the Southeast. Overall, the campaigns did well, even though Georgia lost its races. There was plenty of data collected during the campaign, and a professor at the University of Notre Dame is analyzing the numbers in order to give YDA a full report by its February meeting. There is the likelihood that some funds will be available to local chapters in 2007 for use in local races. If your chapter has contested city elections next year where the youth vote could make a difference, please let Billy Joyner or myself know so that we can keep you in the loop as the process for doling out this money is determined.

In other news, Billy Joyner was elected the Chair of the State Presidents Association of YDA, which is a great honor for our fearless leader!

YDA adopted its budget for the 2007 year, as well as started a restructuring of its charter and bylaws. The action taken in Jackson included adopting a board structure with 6 non-YD members elected to 4 year terms. There were further technical amendments dealing with future national conventions.

The next YDA meeting will be in February 2-4 in Washington, DC in conjunction with Founder's Day and the Winter DNC meeting. The DNC meeting starts on Feb 1, and the DNC has promised to get passes to any YD who wants to attend. As always, any Georgia YD is welcome to attend, so please let us know if you want to go. We do not know which hotel will hold the event, but it will likely be within walking distance of wherever the DNC is meeting. At the DNC meeting, YDA plans to push the DNC to fulfill its long-neglected promise to include youth in state delegations for the Democratic National Convention. Since 1980, there have been no youth participation targets despite being clearly called for in the rules. YDA would love to have a large turnout to pressure the DNC to formally include youth in ALL state delegations in 2008.

NATIONAL CONVENTION

Mark your calendars for July 18-21, 2007!!! The YDA National Convention will be held in Dallas, TX at the Adams Mark Hotel. For those who have attended previous conventions in San Francisco (2005), Buffalo (2003), and Tuscon (2001), you know these conventions are a lot of fun and great way to get together with YDs from across the nation, settle on a national YD platform, and elect national officers.

Confirmed speakers include Hillary Clinton and John Edwards so far. The convention website will not be up until January, but some financial details are available for you to start saving your pennies. The Adams Mark Hotel is the largest hotel in Texas, and for rooms with two queen size beds, the cost is $125/night (or $31.25/person with 4 people in a room). For those who want your own room, a king size bed is available in the Royal Tower for $145/night. Registration will cost $60/person. American Airlines is offering a 5% discount off airfare for conference attendees, and if 10 or more people fly Southwest, an unspecified discount will apply.

With the convention being in Dallas, we will likely have a driving option for those interested in that. The downside of Dallas is that in order to maximize Georgia's votes at the Convention, we must have 34 people in our delegation. Fundraising will obviously be key, and YDG will work with local chapters to offset the costs. The experience of the national convention is worth it, though. Dallas has world class shopping and entertainment, and it promises to be a good time for everyone. I hope you will make plans to attend.

This weekend also featured bizarre jockeying in the clusterfuck that is the YDA campaign for 2007. We identified no fewer than 9 people who were claiming to be running for YDA president. One truly surreal episode involved a candidate my state favors who faced with vociferous threats from the LGBT caucus that if he didn't come out, he could forget running for office. The odd thing about these comments, other than their viciousness in tone, was that the candidate about which they complained is already out! He simply had never announced it to people at YDA, and no one had ever bothered to ask him. Of course, they all whispered their speculation, but they didn't ask the source. Had they asked him, he would have simply told them that yes, indeed, he is gay. In fact, he's been living quite openly in a relationship for 4 years now!

Some might claim he was closeted because he didn't announce his sexuality, especially when someone tried to spread a rumor that he was homophobic, of all things. Those of us who knew him best had a great laugh about that, although at the time, none us knew for sure if he was gay or not. Some of us suspected, but we really didn't care. I knew where this guy stood, so it didn't matter much to me. My initial impression about the gay whispers was that he's a metrosexual kind of guy who didn't sleep around YDA, so they were saying he was gay. But really, had I or anyone else just bothered to ask, he would have told us.

Why is it that asking about someone's sexuality is so taboo? It's like there's something wrong with being thought of as "gay". Most people I know who don't wear their sexuality on their sleeve, are quite open when asked. There are varying degrees of being out, but seriously, with the candidate in question, you'd pretty much have to be deaf, blind, and mute to not at least strongly suspect this guy is gay. He's got way too much sense of style to be straight.

For a moment, let's pretend this guy was deep in the closet despite being heavily involved in a very gay-friendly organization like YDA. Normally, I'm all about people taking whatever time they need to come to grips with their sexuality and to come out on their own terms. I'm also sensitive to the concerns of my fellow LGBT citizens who don't have supportive families or live in areas or have jobs where being out would threaten their livelihoods. At the same time, I also understand the vehemence of Democrats who say "HELL to the No!" when it comes to closet cases in powerful positions. The closet is truly poisonous, and it leads to destructive behavior. At the very least, it's self-torture on an emotional level.

Anyway, people need to understand that the LGBT community is quite diverse. Not everyone in it is loudly out, and for many of those people (including the candidate in question), it's a non-issue. There's no closet, which people would know if they'd ask. It was really very silly as far as "controversies" go, and it's looking like this candidate will end up as the #2 on a ticket that is being put together. The fact remains, #1 or #2 on the ticket, this guy is openly gay and has been for quite some time.

The gay bar in Jackson was a sad, sad place. But we managed to make it fun even though it was "bring your own liquor". Kyle gave a dance performance on stage Saturday night to rival just about any gay club in the country! No really scandalous hook-ups occurred while we were there, which is unusual.

Jackson isn't a bad place. I just wouldn't want to live there.

"Desperate": The New GOP Fragrance for 2006!

In the last several days, I have been reminded of about this time in 1992, just as we started to dare against all hope that Clinton would actually beat Bush the Father. By late October, the Bush Pere campaign was starting to froth at the mouth, which is never a good sign. You had the then-President proclaiming Clinton and Gore to be "bozos" and "environmental whackos". It was really silly, and it didn't stop the inevitable outcome.

There's something about losing power that drives politicians and political parties absolutely bonkers. I can't blame then, since having your own bullet proof sedan, body guards, and control of the US treasury and armed forces would be heady stuff. The trappings of power can and do corrupt better people than the ass clowns currently in power in Washington, DC.

What we have seen in the last week or so is the emotional meltdown of the GOP. Luckily, the NJ Supreme Court decision declaring that gay couples should have equal rights to straight couples hasn't taken off in the press. I kept waiting for the backdraft, knowing the GOP would seize on the issue. They have seized on it, but people don't seem to care as much as they did in 2004 before state constitutions all over the country were amended to prevent gays from marrying, and before courts in Washington and New York bowed to public pressure to give sanction to official discrimination against same-sex relationships. And the New Jersey decision did not confer the name "marriage" on gays, which probably helped lessen the impact. Nevertheless, George W Bush has been railing against "activist" judges who are "putting marriage in doubt". Of course, he's the man to protect us all from the sourge of same-sex love.

The response? People yawn, and talk about corruption and how Bush has made a royal mess out of Iraq. Still, some conservatives drool at the thought of another gay-bashing election season, so the President keeps the references in his speeches. In the past week, he's been to Georgia not once but TWICE. I know he's trying to unseat Jim Marshall in Macon and John Barrow of Athens, but all the attention in a state that STILL loves Bush (when the rest of the country seems to be finally waking up and smelling the coffee) shows how much trouble the GOP is in throughout the country. If Georgia's not "safe" by now, no where is for the national GOP.
Maybe Bush is perusing some land deals with Sonny, preferably in the path of some secret development plans in the vaults of the Department of Transportation that have not been made public yet. Bush will be out of a job in two years, after all. Gotta build that nest egg so he can fight off those crimes against humanity charges (I wish!).

While Bush was in Georgia the first time this week, he announced that if the Democrats win the Congressional elections in either house, then "the terrorists win." Excuse me? Did I miss something? Did the Democratic platform change when I wasn't looking? Are we now the official Party of Al Queda in the US?

The President nakedly makes the argument (backed up by Chief Henchman, Dick Cheney) that the terrorists want Democrats to win, b/c that would be the way to defeat America. So, they're ratcheting up the attacks on our troops to try to sway the elections. The only way to fight the terrorists is to re-elect the GOP congress and "stay the course"! We'll show them!
The more insulting thing is the insinuation that Democrats neither love nor support this country. Sir, we love this country more than you could ever know. Why else would we fight tooth and nail against your disastrous policies...your exploding deficit...and your general incompetence? We don't want to see this country ruined, and if we continue down the path you've lead for the past 6 years, we will be ruined. Our reputation worldwide is in shambles, our military is stretched to the breaking point, and we are building a debt that could swallow this country whole within my lifetime. Myself and my fellow Democrats love this country, and we will fight like hell to protect this country....but we will do it without pissing on our friends, creating new enemies, or engaging in wars of choice while bankrupting our finances. To have you suggest that we are on the side of terrorists is disgusting, and I hope the public punishes you all the more for it on November 7.

Then John Kerry stuck his foot in his mouth yesterday with a comment that's been exploited to say he thinks all military people are stupid. So in another effort to distract, the GOP has jumped all over John Kerry and the "military hating" Democrats. Last I checked, it wasn't the Democrats who gleefully cut veteran care or military benefits the last several years. It was this lilly livered bunch in control who never served a day in their lives. The Democrats are the ones who want to armor our troops, protect them, get them home, and then keep our promises to take care of their physical and psychological wounds once they return. It's another distraction, just like the gay marriage thing. Hopefully it too will pass.

As we come into the final weekend of the campaign, there is no telling what Bush and his team will come up with to try to turn the tide in their favor. Maybe they'll have Bin Laden release a tape declaring that Nancy Pelosi is his concubine or agent. Or maybe they'll just SAY she is, and hope for the best.

I'm sick of this bunch. I'm sick of their games, their lies, and the way they are actively running this nation into the ground. And if the American people don't collectively vote at least one house of Congress to the Democrats on November 7, we will deserve whatever disasters come our way.

Oh, New Jersey!

I have been unusually quiet for a while, and I do apologize for that. Today, though, something happened on which I must comment. New Jersey's Supreme Court handed down its decision in Lewis v. Harris, the NJ marriage case.

The key portion of this ruling is the holding:

HELD: Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed same sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.

This ruling mimics the Vermont decision of 1999 which held that Vermont could not treat same sex and heterosexual couples differently. There was no justifiable reason to gives rights and priviledges to one group and deny them to another...at least not under the state constitution. New Jersey has said the same thing.

The NJ Supreme Court has told NJ that its domestic partnership law is not enough. NJ must treat its gay and straight couples equally...giving them the same rights, privledges, and responsibilities as straight couples in marriage. However, it didn't need to be called marriage if that was what the legislature wanted, but the effect had to be the same. NJ could either amend its marriage statute to allow same sex marriage or it could create an equal institution that was marriage in everything but name. The legislature has 6 months to comply.

Generally, this is good news. However, I wish that the NJ court had just held off a couple of more weeks until the elections were over. Another two weeks would have killed nobody, and it wouldn't have given the damn Republicans something to latch onto as they drown in their own incompetence.

You can be rest assured that the GOP will now gleefully ressurect the gay boogeyman of 2004 where they gave middle America the image of flaming homosexuals banging down their front doors and forcing them to marry people of the same sex, whether they wanted to or not. Or that gay marriage would end our civilization or that little Johnny would see two men married, and even though he preferred women, would decide to marry a man. And the only way to stop this scourage of raging homos is to vote GOP!

I don't know how the Mark Foley scandal will affect this message, but you can be rest assured that Karl Rove will use this to try to keep the Congress. It will certainly affect the NJ Senate race, but how is uncertain. It seems Menendez is crooked, and Kean has his head so far up Bush's ass that he take a dump without the White House knowing first.

It's too important that GOP control of our country is broken this election. We can't wait another two years and hope things will get better. If anything, a GOP win this year will mean they will get MORE arrogant and wreckless, not less. I fear, though, that this decision will help the GOP staunch the bleeding and potentially keep Congress.

Why couldn't the NJ Supremes have just waited another two weeks to rule that gay people should enjoy ALL the same rights as straight people???

HHS Screws Over Afghan Maternity/OB Hospital

This morning, a colleague of mine sent an email detailing an HHS decision to not support a maternity/OB hospital in Afghanistan that had been supported through a 5 year cooperative agreement. The details should not surprise anyone familiar with the Bush administration. Such is support for the "culture of life".

The email states:

I wanted to let you know about a health program in Afghanistan that is in need of some urgent help. CDC’s reproductive health program has been supporting a maternity and obstetrics hospital in Kabul which provides critical health services for the past four years. These are services that many women and their babies will not receive otherwise. Our colleagues in reproductive health were informed at the last minute that HHS could not fund the 5th year of the project. Renee Brown-Bryant, and others in the reproductive health program, are actively looking for solutions.

However there is an immediate and urgent need at hand. There are 5 women that work for the project, whose salaries need to be paid. They cannot do that through any of their existing mechanisms. As we can all understand, not having a salary can have a devastating impact on these women, their families, and ultimately the program. The CDC Foundation can and will help support this need. However, our colleagues in reproductive health need to quickly raise the additional funds (approx $ 4,000) needed.

Renee will come to Mo’s (Pizza joint at Briarcliff and Clairmont in Atlanta) tonight at 5:30 and is really welcoming an opportunity to share information on their project. I know this is the kind of program that many of us feel is important to support.

If you are free, please join us at Mo’s tonight to hear more and consider a contribution. If you are not free, but are interested in supporting this cause please let me know. I would be happy to collect contributions to the CDC foundation on their behalf.

If you are interested in helping out, you can contact Julie Jenks at JJenks@cdc.gov and she'll give you details. It's a shame that such emails even have to go out, but such is the GOP world we live in.

The Poisonous Closet

The proverbial closet is a very dangerous place, as most recently shown by GOP Rep. Mark Foley of Florida. Shaw's behavior toward pages was digusting. House pages are usually 16 years old when they serve, and for any congressman to make suggestive remarks or even physical moves toward these teenagers is nothing short of pedophilia. I do not care if 16 is the age of consent in many states. An adult in his 30s or 40s who propositions teenagers sexually has issues and should not be in positions of authority over children. Even if a page willingly participates in sexual innuendo or activities with a congressman, the power differential alone makes the relationship inappropriate and, by definition, sexual harassment. There is no way you can give valid consent when the power differential is that large.

The GOP, typically, is focusing on Foley's sexuality. That Foley was a closet case was well known, especially after his aborted run for the US Senate where he refused to discuss his sexuality. Newt Gingrich said over the weekend that one reason the GOP leadership didn't make a "big deal" about Foley's behavior (they've known about it for over a year) was that they didn't want to be accused of gay bashing.

EXCUSE ME?!? The GOP is concerned about looking anti-gay? Since when?!? The whole basis for the 2004 election was the GOP promise to middle america to protect them from the homos and their desire for marriage. They've tried repeatedly to amend the Constitution itself to ban recognition of gay relationships! This is not a party concerned about charges of gay bashing. The statement by Newt also indicates an assumption that pedophilic behavior is typical of a gay person. That alone speaks volumes about the GOP attitude toward gay people. They buy into the notion that gay people are perverts who want to molest children.

The Log Cabin apologists for the GOP have been silent so far about Foley and the scandal. They should at least be taking leadership to task for not intervening with Foley immediately, and for their insulting assumption that gay people are all pedophiles. My guess is that they will find a way to excuse the inaction by GOP leadership when they first discovered Foley was behaving badly with pages.

The GOP is also trying to throw Democratic pecodillos back in the limelight. I've heard several cries of "Monica Lewinsky" as a response to GOP inaction. First, Monica Lewinsky was no teenager. She was an adult when she and Clinton had their affair. That affair was wrong, and the power differential definitely smacked of sexual harassment, but pedophilia it was not. Another gem is bringing up the 1983 page scandal with Gerry Studds of Massachusetts as well as Barney Frank's affair with a male hustler that led to a prostitution ring being led out of his home in DC. Gerry Studds was censored for his affair with a male page (he defended it on the grounds that the boy was past the age of consent, an argument I reject) along with another GOP representative who had an affair with a female page. Studds was reelected to his seat until he retired in 1996, but as far as I know, there was no cover-up by Democratic leadership of Studds' affair, and he certainly was not put in charge (or left in charge) of a missing and exploited children caucus like Foley was. The illegal actions by Barney Frank's male hustler showed extremely poor judgement, but the voters of Massachusetts have forgiven him, and he was punished at the time of the scandal. Again, no real cover-up by the Democratic leadreship.

What all these men have in common is the closet. Until the scandals erupted, Frank, Studds, and Foley were all in the closet. The same is true of Gov. McGreevy of NJ who resigned over his appointment of his lover in a state job. All these men lived lives of shame and secrecy. They worked to cover up their identies as gay men to preserve political careers, but they couldn't reign in their desires. The closet made them feel and behave like perverts. Once Studds and Frank were outed, they didn't make the same mistakes. They had age-appropriate relationships, and I firmly believe it was because they no longer had to hide their secret. They could pursue romantic relationships in the open, so there was no temptation to find other closet cases or inappropriate people. Even McGreevy has now found himself a partner and is touring the country selling his book on how bad the closet was for him.

Maybe Mark Foley will find the same release. The irony of him being the point person for the GOP on missing and exploited children is the penultimate example of GOP hypocrisy on just one of many issues. It may be late in life, but hopefully Foley will accept the fact that he is a gay man and will make peace with that. And when he does, hopefully he will never look at another teenager with lustful intentions again.

TWO Events, ONE day

One Day
Two Great Ways
To Support the Young Democrats of Georgia
Young Democrats of Georgia Big Deck Blowout!
All Ages Event
Please Join the Young Democrats of Georgia at Roxx Tavern & Grill
1824 Cheshire Bridge Rd NE for an afternoon of fun and food
Saturday, September 30, 2006 3 pm – 6 pm
Cost of Admission: $20
&
Young Democrats of Georgia Sweetwater Event
21 years and older
Please join the Young Democrats of Georgia for a fun filled event at Sweetwater Brewery, 195 Ottley Dr NE
Saturday, September 30, 2006 4 pm – 7 pm
Cost of Admission: $25

We’re doing this to fund our youth voter program for this year’s elections….been proven in other states to dramatically raise under 36 turnout, especially those that agree with us politically ;-) Anyway, everyone is more than welcome. The sweetwater event is all the beer you can drink for the $25.

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