McCain says gay troops are an 'intolerable risk'

BREAKING! Ha ha, just kidding we already knew this, but it's still pathetic, and sad nonetheless! John McCain, now serving his 239th term in the U.S. Senate, is completely nuts! Via The Advocate:

Gay troops pose "an intolerable risk" to national security, U.S. senator and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain wrote last month to a gay rights group seeking to change his position on "don't ask, don't tell."

In an April 16 letter to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, McCain said, "I believe polarization of personnel and breakdown of unit effectiveness is too high a price to pay for well-intentioned but misguided efforts to elevate the interests of a minority of homosexual service members above those of their units.

"Most importantly, the national security of the United States, not to mention the lives of our men and women in uniform, are put at grave risk by policies detrimental to the good order and discipline which so distinguish America's armed services."

According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network the Pentagon fires two homosexuals each day, and in a time where our military is already overstretched, that adds up quick.

McCain's remark comes just a couple of months after Secretary of State, and closet lesbian Condoleezza Rice expressed concern about lack of "foreign-language speakers" available for Iraq, but (conveniently) refused to discuss the dozens of linguists who have been fired under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. It was also revealed that the U.S. army is granting "moral waivers" to the tune of about 125,000 a year that allow convicted criminals to join the armed forces.

So allowing convicted criminals to join the army is perfectly acceptable, but homosexual troops are a "risk" insane McCain (among others) just isn't willing to take.

Jim Webb supporting minority colleges

Surprisingly, I haven't seen this covered yet in the blogosphere (and my apologies if I overlooked anyone). Both Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), and John Warner (R-VA) have co-authored a bill to authorize $250 million in federal technology grants to minority colleges. Some of you may remember that the same piece of legislation was twice introduced by former Senator George Allen (who also attempted to use it to his advantage on the campaign trail), both times passing in the Senate, but failing to move through the House.

Via the Richmond Times Dispatch:

When state Sen. Benjamin J. Lambert III of Richmond, a senior black Democrat from Richmond, endorsed Allen over Webb in September, Lambert said Allen had delivered on his promises to support Virginia's historically black colleges and universities.

With his endorsement of a Republican, Lambert angered fellow Democrats. Del. A. Donald McEachin of Henrico County, who is African-American and a Democrat, is expected to challenge Lambert in a Democratic primary in June.

"I always thought Webb was a good person, and I commend him for doing it," Lambert said yesterday about the technology-grants bill.

According to that same article, five Virginia colleges and universities would benefit from the bill, including Norfolk State University, St. Paul's College, Virginia Union University, Hampton University and Virginia State University.

UPDATE: The Richmond Democrat has this covered too!

Republican lawmakers again targeting gay teens; Dems combat the hate amendment

Via Washington Blade I see that Virginia lawmakers will again consider a bill to require that students receive parental permission before joining extracurricular activities in public schools a measure that will target gay-straight alliances in high schools.

Gay rights supporters fear HB1727 could threaten the existence of some 60 gay-straight alliances in Virginia’s public schools.

However, some lawmakers have tried to get around giving off this appearance by saying that the law will apply to all extracurricular activities. No one is buying it, though. The bill's sponsor? Matthew Lohr, delegate AND bigot from Rockingham County, and Harrisonburg. Lohr has proposed the same atrocious piece of legislation for two straight years, both times it passed in the House before meeting a more appropriate fate in the state Senate.

Delegate David Englin of Arlington predicts the same fate for the 2007 version of the bill, also adding that Senate Republicans tend to be more moderate than Republicans in the House.

Del Englin went on to say:

“I think it would be tragically wrong to force a gay child to come out to his parents in order to benefit from the emotional and psychological support of a [gay-straight alliance], or to force a straight child to get permission from her parents to actively promote tolerance and understanding of her gay and lesbian friends.”

Del. Englin also said he will introduce a LONG OVERDUE bill requiring Virginia hospitals to allow any patient to name any individual as their next of kin for visitation purposes. That is just one law he plans to introduce to combat the vile pile of GARBAGE known as the "Marshall-Newman amendment," last year's ridiculous measure "banning gay marriage" in Virginia. Although as we all know, gay marriage was already "against the law" (also see: Republicans attempting to "divide and conquer" an electorate). Englin went on to say of his measure:

“This is an issue that ought to get broad support, even among social conservatives. It will provide some practical measure of protection for gay and lesbian families.”

Englin also plans to introduce other bills to combat the Marshall-Newman amendment, one to FULLY REPEAL the measure, and another which would leave the "one man, one woman" language, but repeal the rest of the amendment. Englin says he doesn't expect either to pass:

Englin said it is not realistic to expect either measure to pass this year, particularly with gay rights opponent Robert Marshall chairing the committee in charge of the bills. He and other state lawmakers who opposed the amendment want to take a stand.

“It’s important to make the statement that my constituents, who voted three to one against the amendment, don’t accept November’s result as the last word on the issue,” he said.  “Personally, I don’t believe that November’s defeat absolves me of my duty to stand up for all of my constituents, including the people who will be harmed by the amendment."

Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), the only openly gay member of the GA, plans to introduce a few "pro gay" measures of his own, including one to combat the Marshall-Newman amendment. Ebbin plans to add a clause similar to the language Marshall used when he originally introduced the amendment in 2005:

The text that was left out of the ratified amendment read, “A right, privilege or obligation may be bestowed on an unmarried person by statute even if it is among the whole number of rights, privileges and obligations of marriage.”

Ebbin’s other legislation will include a bill to prohibit employment discrimination in state hiring based on sexual orientation, as well as race, creed, gender, marital status or disability. Former Gov. Mark Warner issued an executive order prohibiting employment discrimination before leaving office in 2005. Current Gov. Tim Kaine upheld the order, which added sexual orientation to the state’s ban on employment discrimination against public employees.

“My bill would put it in the code so it would not be subject to change from governor to governor, based on what they choose to put in their executive orders,” Ebbin said.

Cross posted at Raising Kaine and Daily Kos!

Massachusetts legislature caves to Mitt Romney's legion of bigots, then votes against itself

I'm seriously beginning to think some lawmakers in Massachusetts are mildly retarded (and some voters too). In another edition of "first I voted for it, before I voted against it," we have this from Massachusetts:

The MA legislature took it's first major step in caving to Mitt Romney (also see: hypocrite) and other religious zealots by advancing a proposed gay marriage amendment ban to a second legislative session. They then turned around and WISELY voted to nullify the first vote.

The FIRST vote came WITHOUT DEBATE (how smart of them), the legislature then recessed, only to return an hour later to vote against the original vote. They recessed again, and reconvened until 4:30pm.

If indeed they do allow bigotry to be put up for a popular vote, John over at AmericaBlog sums up my feelings best, with this quote:

Which leads one to ponder, what would the Massachusetts legislature do if racist legislation came before it? Pass it, I guess.

Virgil Goode's Letter

This letter was sent by Congressman Virgil Goode Jr. (R-VA) in response to an e-mail from a constituent regarding the use of a Koran by a newly elected Muslim member of Congress in his swearing in ceremony.

I find this part of the letter to be particularly disturbing:

"The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.

We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country."

Seriously, this guy needs to resign!!!!

UPDATE: Virgil Goode responds.

"I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigra- tion policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."

Sorry Virgil, but your beliefs contain nothing of value to anyone, and they're certainly not American at all.

Seperate but equal laws still alive and well; New Jersey votes to allow same sex civil unions

Bigotry is alive and well, even if we are making some progress. The state of New Jersey today voted to allow same sex civil unions.

The vote in the General Assembly was 56-19. The Senate vote was 23-12. Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would sign a civil unions bill into law.

Steven Goldstein, director of Equality New Jersey, sums up how a lot of people, including myself, feel about civil unions:

"Nobody knows what civil unions are in the real world, that's the problem. We want marriage equality, not a law that discriminates."

Of course though, Republicans are blasting the measure saying that same sex couples are not as good, and not equivalent to "real" marriage.

A major concern I have about banning gay marriage, and civil unions, is the fact that gay couples are sometimes barred from hospital visitation when their significant other is admitted for care. The New Jersey civil unions measure WILL ALLOW HOSPITAL VISITATION, as well as adoption. So, while the this measure (and any other measure short of GIVING FULL MARRIAGE RIGHTS TO HOMOSEXUAL COUPLES) is similar to the horrible "separate but equal" laws, it is ONE STEP in the right direction.

Update on plan to give DC real representation

You may remember I wrote on this the other day - a plan sponsored by DC's pseudo Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton and Virginia Rep. Tom Davis to give DC a Representative in the U.S. House, as well as adding another seat in the House from the state of Utah. The seat in Utah would have likely gone to Republicans, and the seat in DC to Democrats. However, according to a New York Times article out today, the Republicans want to continue to deny the citizens of DC representation:

Republican leaders in Congress said the plan was dead and would not be voted on this session.

Davis said he plans to reintroduce the package in the next Congress, which will be lead by the Democrats, hopefully meaning DC will FINALLY GET THE FAIR REPRESENTATION IN OUR GOVERNMENT THAT IS LONG OVERDUE IN THE DISTRICT:

A spokesman for the chief backer of the plan, Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, said Mr. Davis would push for reconsideration. Failing that, the spokesman said, Mr. Davis would reintroduce the package in the next Congress, which the Democrats will lead.

How the state of Arizona gave the religious right the finger; a brief recap, and a look ahead

A friend of mine today suggested I do a recap of the 2006 ballot measures, more specifically the Arizona gay marriage measure which failed, the first one of it's kind to meet such a fate. At first I thought "no, that's sort of dated," but then decided it may be a good idea, especially considering the possible implications the amendments may have on possible 2008 presidential candidates. So here goes...

ARE MODERATE REPUBLICANS AND LIBERTARIANS NO LONGER WELCOME IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY???

As many of you know, there were so called "marriage amendments" on the ballot in eight states, including Virginia, Colorado, South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, South Dakota, Arizona and Wisconsin. The amendment passed in each state except for Arizona. However, despite the fact that the measure passed in seven other states, gay and lesbian activist groups were still encouraged because the measures, on average, passed by less than in recent years. Fierce battles were fought over the amendment particularly in Virginia, Wisconsin, and Arizona. In Virginia, an anonymous homosexual couple donated $1 million to The Commonwealth Coalition to oppose the measure, and in Arizona, the Human Rights Campaign donated $100,000 to fight the measure. Organizations fighting the amendments held out hope they would be able to pull out a win in both Wisconsin, and Virginia, but were unsuccessful. In Arizona however, they DID pull out a victory when the measure failed on November 7. Even in traditionally red state South Dakota, the amendment BARELY squeaked by.

Like Virginia, opponents of the measure in Arizona tried out a new tactic to fight the amendment. Instead of focusing on how unconstitutional the amendments were, they decided to focus on how heterosexual couples were affected, especially since gay marriage and civil unions are both already outlawed in both states. Steve May, co-chairman of the Arizona Human Rights Fund, had the following to say in May, 2005 when it was first proposed that the amendment be placed on the ballot,

This initiative would take away health insurance to unmarried couples across the state. Voters are intelligent and fair. They will know what this is really about.

Unlike most other states, the amendment trailed in the polls from the very beginning in Arizona. A January, 2005 poll done by the Arizona Republic showed 54 percent were not in favor of the measure, while 40 percent approved, and 7 percent were undecided. In the end, the voters in Arizona made the right decision, shutting the door on the measure by a two percent margin.

In Virginia, some bloggers, and commentators even speculated that the amendment possibly HELPED Democratic Senator-elect Jim Webb defeat incumbent Senator George Allen, since polls show that many people that voted "YES" on the amendment, also voted for Jim Webb (I don't buy it - voters DRIVEN to the polls for the soul purpose of voting "YES" on the amendment were probably never going to vote for Jim Webb to begin with). Might this perhaps mark the beginning of the end to the marriage fear mongering from the right in attempt to rally the religious zealots for votes? According to an Associated Press article, Matt Foreman (executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) thinks it's a possibility,

"What we're seeing is that fear-mongering around same-sex marriage is fizzling out," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He noted that the bans that succeeded won by much narrower margins, on average, than in the past.

Aside from gay marriage measures, other "Liberal" measures were very successful on election day 2006. In Missouri, voters passed a measure backing stem cell research, in South Dakota, voters struck down a law limiting a woman's right to choose to only cases where the mother's life was threatened, and in all SIX STATES holding a vote on state minimum wage (Arizona, Colorado. Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Nevada), voters approved wage hikes.

The Liberal Progressive believes the GOP is clearly alienating some "moderate Republicans," and "independents," which it could typically have counted on in recent years. The executive vice president of the Log Cabin Republicans agrees,

"Republicans lost this election because independent voters abandoned the GOP. Social conservatives drove the GOP’s agenda the last several years. Their divisive agenda alienated the mainstream Republicans and independents who determined this election's outcome. Social conservatives should take responsibility for this loss."

This brings me to my next question, which is, how will "socially liberal" Republicans do in their 2008 presidential bids? An argument could easily be made both ways. On the one hand, one could say that potential candidates like Rudy Giuliani (former Democrat, and mayor of New York), could potentially do well because Republicans feeling alienated from the party would come out in large numbers to support. On the other hand, one could also argue that "light R's" may not come out to vote in primaries, therefore more Conservative candidates like Mitt Romney will more likely advance to run as the Republican parties nominee for President in 2008.

Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out in 2008. The 2006 mid term elections were certainly at least a slight step to the left for America, although I think it will take until 2008 for us to see just how FAR to the left we have actually gone. I hope Americans continue to wake up to the fact that Republicans use issues like gay marriage, and abortion to "divide and conquer" the electorate, and hopefully Americans will continue to reject these tactics of using bigotry and intolerance to win elections.

But homosexuality is ruining your marriage, right!?

What's ruining the "family values" of the holier-than-thou, bible thumping, religious zealots today? Certainly the fact that (based on 2005 statistics) 43% of all marriages fail within the first 15 years isn't a cause. Never mind the fact that, after 75% of those people remarry, over 65% of second, third, and fourth, etc. marriages end in divorce. Certainly though, these numbers simply MUST be the fault of two men, or women, wanting nothing more than the right to enter a lifelong commitment to each other and share the same rights that heterosexual couples enjoy.

One statistic that REALLY jumped out to me was a Census Bureau report done in 2001 which showed a mere one out of every five adults has never been divorced. Meaning, only about 20 percent of American adults have never been through a divorce. Wow. Some values huh? Britney Spears knows family values too!

Now, I know this entry is a bit out of the blue, but a few articles I came across today "inspired" (if you wish to call it that) me to write on this tonight. First, was a CBS News report out today that showed per 1,000 teenage girls age 15-19, about 40.4 of them give birth each year! Clearly, we, as a society need to spend a little more time preventing "kids having kids", than we do worrying about the sexuality of other grown adults.

Another article that struck me even more, was an AP report which appeared on CBS' website yesterday, regarding Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's desire to give bigotry a vote! In other words, Romney wants to allow the voters of Mass. to decide whether or not to allow legal gay marriage to continue in the state. Seems innocent enough, right?

"One of the tenets of the Constitution is that you do not put the rights of a minority up for a popularity contest," said Mark Solomon, campaign director of Mass Equality, a pro-gay marriage group. "It is one of the very principles this country was founded upon."

In other words, all of these so called "marriage amendments," that Republicans have put up to a public vote in recent years (most recently this year when Virginia, Colorado, South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, South Dakota, Arizona and Wisconsin voted on the issue) in an effort (straight from the play book of Karl Rove) to create a "wedge issue," energize their base, and swing some independent votes their way, are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!

Here's another interesting stat: Massachusetts is the only state to fully legalize gay marriage, it also has the lowest divorce rate of any state!! Vermont and Connecticut have legalized civil unions (my personal opinion on civil unions is that they are likable to "separate but equal laws," or segregation, however, they are a STEP in the right direction).

Wal Mart, of all things, also came under fire from radical religious groups today. Seems Wal Mart paid to become a member of the "National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce," as well as "Out and Equal," an organization promoting gay-rights advances in the workplace. Apparently, this warrants a boycott from the American Family Association, and forces Operation Save America to plan prayer/preaching rallies outside of Wal Mart stores across the country. Rev. Flip Benham of Operation Save America had this to say about Wal Mart,

"They're all being extorted by the radical homosexual agenda."

Oh? I think Flip needs a vocabulary lesson:

ex.tor.tion (noun) - the crime of obtaining money or some other thing of value by the abuse of one's office or authority.

I would hardly call Wal Marts voluntary donation to, and joining of two diversity groups, "extortion."

Alas though, Wal Mart caved, and released a letter which contained the following:

Wal-Mart will not make corporate contributions to support or oppose highly controversial issues unless they directly relate to our ability to serve our customers.

The zealots were pleased. Apparently, Wal Mart is only allowed to participate in the free market when they're doing things like discriminating, violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, driving up the U.S. trade deficit to China, etc. They are not however, permitted to participate in our free market when donating to organizations which promote diversity.

I'm not trying to launch an attack on religion, or some online flame war, but I think Americans need to seriously get a grip! The level of hypocrisy in our society is out of control. Religion should not be used as a means to suppress other people, as it has been for centuries. Meaning, please stop using bible quotes as reason to discriminate! Instead, think about THIS VERSE which people opposed to equality all too often conveniently forget to mention:

"Judge not lest you be judged." - Matthew 7:1