Politics Daily http://www.politicsdaily.com Politics Daily http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.politicsdaily.com/media/feedlogo.gif Politics Daily http://www.politicsdaily.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/Poll: Slim Majority Supports Gay Marriagehttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/18/poll-slim-majority-supports-gay-marriage/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/18/poll-slim-majority-supports-gay-marriage/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/18/poll-slim-majority-supports-gay-marriage/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

For the first time, more Americans support legalization of same-sex marriage than oppose it, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey, showing 53 percent backing for gay marriage, comes amid signs of increased acceptance of homosexuals in the U.S. Just five years go in polling by the same news group, only 36 percent favored gay marriage, the Post said.

Taken last weekend, the new survey asked a random sample of 1,005 adults, "Do you think it should be legal or illegal for gay and lesbian couples to get married?" Support for that proposition grew among college-educated whites, political independents, and respondents who didn't regard themselves as religious, the Post said. Men, in general, were on the positive side of the question at the same rate as women.

Republicans, conservatives and white evangelical Christians were among the 44 percent opposed. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Brian Brown, a gay marriage foe and president of the National Organization for Marriage, said the term "illegal" may have skewed the numbers, since most Americans wouldn't favor imprisonment for violating a law against same-sex marriage. But Brown noted that voters in 31 states have approved ballot issues banning gay marriage.

Although a bill legalizing gay marriage failed this month in the Maryland legislature, gay-rights advocates have had their share of victories. Congress last year repealed the Pentagon's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibited openly gay men and women from serving in the military. And the Obama administration announced last month that it would no longer defend in court a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act -- which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said the Post-ABC findings were "consistent with a lot of other polling data we've seen, and the general momentum we seen over the past year and a half. As people have come to understand this is about loving, committed families dealing, like everyone, with tough times, they understand how unfair it is to treat them differently."

 

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]]>dailyguidancedefense of marriage actDOMAPolitics Daily Staff2011-03-18T12:08:00+00:00Public Support for Gay Marriage on Verge of Surpassing Oppositionhttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/05/public-support-for-gay-marriage-on-verge-of-surpassing-oppositio/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/05/public-support-for-gay-marriage-on-verge-of-surpassing-oppositio/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/05/public-support-for-gay-marriage-on-verge-of-surpassing-oppositio/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Gay marriage is continuing to gain acceptance among the public -- the latest survey from the Pew Research Center shows Americans almost evenly split between those who oppose and those who support same-sex marriage.

According to the poll, conducted during the last week of February, 45 percent of Americans say gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry, up from 37 percent in 2009 (and just 27 percent in 1996) while 46 percent oppose same-sex marriage, down from 54 percent two years ago, and down from a 65 percent disapproval rate in 1996.

Partisan differences remain stark, with 57 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independents backing gay marriage. Only one in four Republicans support the right of gays to marry, but that is up from 15 percent in 1996.

Newly released data from the General Social Surveys (GSS) shows an even more striking shift, with a solid majority of 46 percent supporting gay marriage and just 40 percent in opposition.

As Charles Franklin notes at the Huffington Post, recent polls on same-sex marriage show approval for for civil unions, which was once considered by many to be the "safe alternative" to gay marriage, has remained flat while support for same-sex marriage itself has surged. And the rise is occurring not only among younger Americans.

"The trends here show that opposition to gay marriage is becoming a less and less acceptable position through the public more generally," Franklin writes. "It is not merely the young who are shifting views. While individual states are certain to vary widely in the balance of public opinion, the national shift is so striking and so regular that it is hard to imagine this issue will remain in doubt for much longer."

The latest shift is especially notable in that it comes as social conservatives have drawn a line in the sand against gay marriage, and just after President Obama announced his administration would no longer argue in court on behalf of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.

But Republicans are ascendant in Washington and in statehouses across the country. And pollsters note that the public often reacts to shifts in political power by backing issues of the party that is perceived to be losing influence, preferring that lawmakers not go too far one way, especially on uncomfortable and polarizing issues like gay marriage and abortion.

In fact, support for legal abortion dropped from 55 percent to 47 percent in the first year of Obama's term, perhaps reflecting concerns that he would move too far too fast in liberalizing abortion rights. Support for abortion rights had since rebounded, the recent Pew survey shows, to 54 percent -- again a possible backlash against the GOP's sweeping takeover of the U.S. House in January and the Republican decision to make curtailing abortion rights and funding its top priority.

Social conservatives can take some solace in the fact that the degree of support for the anti-abortion position has remained relatively stable.

But the trend lines on gay marriage do not bode well for the conservative cause, and as Politics Daily reported, the relatively low-key Republican response to Obama's DOMA decision suggested that waning public backing is going to translate into diminishing political clout.

Indeed, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Focus on the Family's Jim Daly last week that "it's clear that something like same-sex marriage -- indeed, almost exactly what we would envision by that -- is going to become normalized, legalized, and recognized in the culture."

"It's time," Mohler added, "for Christians to start thinking about how we're going to deal with that."

 

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]]>Christiansgay marriageGeneral Social SurveysGeneralSocialSurveysPew surveyPewSurveyDavid Gibson2011-03-05T22:00:00+00:00ROTC Returns to Harvard After Four Decades in Wildernesshttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/05/rotc-returns-to-harvard-after-four-decades-in-wilderness/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/05/rotc-returns-to-harvard-after-four-decades-in-wilderness/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/05/rotc-returns-to-harvard-after-four-decades-in-wilderness/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

ROTC is back at Harvard after a four-decade absence dating back to the Vietnam war.

The White House welcomed the announcement bringing the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps back to the Cambridge campus, saying it sent a "message that Americans stand united." The decision "is an important step in moving past the old divisions that often kept many Americans from seeing what we share with one another, including love of country and a profound respect for our brave men and women in uniform," Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

The breakthrough was enactment of a law repealing the Pentagon's don't ask, don't tell rule, which barred openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military. Harvard's policy prohibiting discrimination against gays had prevented ROTC's re-introduction to the campus.

Harvard President Drew Faust said the "renewed relationship affirms the vital role that the members of the Armed Forces play in serving the nation and securing our freedoms, while also affirming inclusion and opportunity as powerful American ideals," the Harvard Gazette reported. "It broadens the pathways for students to participate in an honorable and admirable calling and in so doing advances our commitment to both learning and service," Faust said.

At the height of the conflcit in Vietnam, ROTC was forced off many college campuses, often due in part to the fervor of student-led anti-war protest movements. For years, Harvard students wishing to enroll in ROTC had to travel to the MIT campus where they were permitted to participate.

Times have changed. Navy Secetary Ray Mabus said Thursday that ROTC's reemergence at Harvard "is good for the university, good for the military and good for the country." With "exposure comes understanding," Mabus said, "and through understanding comes strength."

The formal return will come this summer, the Gazette said, when repeal of the don't ask, don't tell law takes effect.

Folo Tom Diemer on Twitter http://twitter.com/tomdiemer

 

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]]>dailyguidancedont ask dont tellHarvardUniversityTom Diemer2011-03-05T12:30:00+00:00Supreme Court's 8-1 Westboro Ruling -- and Alito's Passionate Dissenthttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/03/supreme-courts-8-1-westboro-ruling-and-alitos-passionate-di/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/03/supreme-courts-8-1-westboro-ruling-and-alitos-passionate-di/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/03/supreme-courts-8-1-westboro-ruling-and-alitos-passionate-di/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito likely spoke for millions of Americans Wednesday when he decried the strategy, tactics and motives of Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church zealots, who picket military funerals to express their virulent anti-gay views.

But on the Court, Justice Alito spoke alone.

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The other eight justices -- four of them conservatives, four of them progressives -- all sided with the Phelps family and against the family of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, whose funeral the church picketed in early 2006. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, declared that the First Amendment encompasses the political, public and peaceable protests of the group. Accordingly, the chief justice voided a multi-million-dollar tort verdict the Snyders had won when they sued the Phelpses for picketing their son's funeral with signs like "Thank God for Dead Soldiers."

Justice Alito was the sole dissenter -- he called the Phelps' conduct "brutalizing" -- and thereby became the official voice of people everywhere who were unwilling or unable in this instance to fit the lofty goals of the First Amendment with the gutter tactics of the church. Unfettered by the responsibility of creating legal precedent (no one ever has to defer to a dissenting opinion, remember), and emboldened by the strength of his feelings on the topic, Justice Alito wrote a passionate attack upon the majority's ruling and a stoic defense of what many people following this story might consider plain, old common sense.

Here is how Alito began his dissent:

"Petitioner Albert Snyder is not a public figure. He is simply a parent whose son, Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, was killed in Iraq. Mr. Snyder wanted what is surely the right of any parent who experiences such an incalculable loss: to bury his son in peace. But respondents, members of the Westboro Baptist Church, deprived him of that elementary right. They first issued a press release and thus turned Matthew's funeral into a tumultuous media event. They then appeared at the church, approached as closely as they could without trespassing, and launched a malevolent verbal attack on Matthew and his family at a time of acute emotional vulnerability. As a result, Albert Snyder suffered severe and lasting emotional injury. The Court now holds that the First Amendment protected respondents' right to brutalize Mr. Snyder. I cannot agree."

You get the gist. Alito concluded his dissent with these strong words: "Respondents' outrageous conduct caused petitioner great injury, and the Court now compounds that injury by depriving petitioner of a judgment that acknowledges the wrong he suffered." And so a justice who approved of such broad free speech rights for corporations in the Citizens United campaign finance case last January disapproved of the rights of Phelps and company to use the Snyder family, in some of its darkest moments, as a marketing tool.

No one who saw or heard Alito at oral argument in the case in October, when he barely concealed his contempt for the Phelps family, ought to be surprised by what he subsequently wrote. If anything, the dissent was milder than many might have predicted when they came out of court after hearing argument in the case. For him, the Court drew a line in the wrong place between outrageous conduct and protected speech. For him, the Phelps family had gamed the law all the way through to the end -- and then emerged victorious at the highest court in the land.

There is a certainty dignity to being the lone dissenter in a high profile case. Sometimes these dissents just fade into memory, a statistic on the sheets Supreme Court officials pass out every summer telling the public which justice voted with whom and how often. Sometimes these dissents become law school fodder. Sometimes they are cited by hopeful attorneys in the hope of making a small point in a large case. And sometimes, given enough time, they become the law of the land.

For years in the 1970s, when he first came to the Supreme Court, Nixon-appointee Justice William Rehnquist was the lone conservative voice on the tail-end of the Warren Court. He wrote many sole dissents. But over time, during the 1980s, the Court moved to the right, far to the right, and by the time that Rehnquist was promoted to chief justice, many of his dissenting views had become majority precedent. And if and when the Court drifts back to the left, the same thing will happen all over again.

The lone judicial dissent thus can be to legal rulings what jazz is to music -- an opportunity for the artist to go off on a sanctioned riff. The sole dissent can be angrier. Freer. It can even be poetic. Indeed, it was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in dissent in the World War I-era Espionage Act case Abrams v. United States, who uttered among the most important and famous words in the history of the Court. They were words about speech and dissent. Holmes wrote:

"Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power, and want a certain result with all your heart, you naturally express your wishes in law, and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care wholeheartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment."

Now, Justice Alito is no Justice Holmes. And Fred Phelps and his "church" are no worthy cause. But Alito's arguments and language resonated deeply with many people who looked at the majority's opinion, scratched their heads, and wondered why. His dissent, about the Phelps family's dissent from decent human behavior, is probably what Justice Holmes had in mind in the first place.

 

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]]>dissenting opinionFirst AmendmentFred Phelpsfree speechfuneral protestsJustice Samuel Alitomatthew snyderUnited States Supreme courtWestboro Baptist ChurchAndrew Cohen2011-03-03T22:25:00+00:00House Republicans Plan to Stick Up for Defense of Marriage Lawhttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/01/house-republicans-plan-to-stick-up-for-defense-of-marriage-law/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/01/house-republicans-plan-to-stick-up-for-defense-of-marriage-law/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/03/01/house-republicans-plan-to-stick-up-for-defense-of-marriage-law/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , ,

The Defense of Marriage Act -- the federal law defining marriage as being between a man and a woman -- has plenty of defenders, but they are up on Capitol Hill, not in the White House.

Less than a week after the Obama administration said it would no longer argue in court for a key section of the 1996 law, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Republicans would likely enter the legal fray. "I do believe that this case is distinguishable on its merits, and to have . . . the president take the position that he's not defending the law of the land is something very troubling, I think, to most members of the House," Cantor said Monday, according to the Washington Post.

Attorney General Eric Holder said last Wednesday that the Justice Department had decided a key section of the DOMA law was biased and could not survive judicial review under the Constitution. Holder referred to Section 3 of the statute, which restricts the definition of marriage to opposite sex partners and prevents spouses in same-sex marriages from receiving certain federal benefits that go to partners in traditional marriages.

Two complaints against the law are pending in the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in New York. DOMA, which was signed by President Clinton, also makes clear that states that don't allow gay marriage do not have to officially recognize same-sex unions that take place in the District of Columbia and the five states that permit it.

Holder, in announcing the government decision, said he had informed Congress of the move "so members who wish to defend the statute may pursue that option."

On Monday, Cantor (R-Va.) did not say how Republicans might proceed. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) earlier said GOP lawyers were researching all options with the expectation that a decision will be made by the end of this week. The House could appoint a counsel to represent its interests in pending cases, since Congress enacted the law in the first place.

A spokesman for Boehner said last week that Obama would "have to explain why he thinks now is the appropriate time to stir up a controversial issue that sharply divides the nation." But reaction to the administration's decision on DOMA has been relatively muted thus far, and Obama hasn't had to do much explaining.

 

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]]>dailyguidancedefense of marriage acteric cantorgay rightssame-sex marriageTom Diemer2011-03-01T09:39:00+00:00Gay Marriage Decision May Not Hurt Obama or Help the Religious Righthttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/25/gay-marriage-decision-may-not-hurt-obama-or-help-the-religious-r/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/25/gay-marriage-decision-may-not-hurt-obama-or-help-the-religious-r/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/25/gay-marriage-decision-may-not-hurt-obama-or-help-the-religious-r/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When the Obama administration announced that it would adopt a matador defense on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the reaction from conservative Christian activists alternated between rage and celebration that the president had basically allowed the political right a slam dunk for the 2012 campaign.

The Justice Department declared that it would no longer argue in court on behalf of a key restriction against gay marriage contained in the law, which effectively gives gay marriage a pass from the executive branch -- and gives the religious right a debating point.

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But social conservatives may want to hold off on the high fives. Unlike abortion, gay marriage is not the automatic winner for the right that it was as recently as the 1990s when Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.

Even among evangelicals and other conservatives, opposition is eroding, especially among a younger generation that doesn't see anything all that wrong with gay and lesbian couples.

Mike Huckabee, a possible 2012 presidential candidate who is far and away the front runner among Republican voters when it comes to social issues and moral values, this week conceded that reality. The former Baptist pastor noted that younger evangelicals have shown an "alarming" trend toward acceptance of homosexual relationships that could complicate political prospects for a candidate like himself who sees gay marriage as a moral threat on par with abortion.

The numbers certainly give Huckabee and his fellow opponents of gay marriage reason to worry.

Surveys in the last year show that for the first time more Americans are accepting than disapproving of "homosexual relations" (52-43 percent in a Gallup poll). Both Gallup and Pew Forum surveys last fall showed the gap is narrowing between those who disapprove of gay marriage itself and those who accept, suggesting acceptance will soon win out.

White evangelicals who form the core of the Republican right (and the tea party movement) remain the most opposed to gay marriage. However, even that opposition is easing, and it is significantly weaker among younger Christians, as Huckabee lamented. Not even a majority (just 48 percent) of white evangelicals said they opposed gays serving openly in the military, in a poll taken just before Congress voted to repeal the "Don't ask, Don't tell" (DADT) law last December. Even most Republicans under age 45 said same-sex couples should have the same benefits as opposite-sex couples, according to an Associated Press-National Constitution Center poll last summer.

As authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell write in their sweeping new study of faith in the United States, "American Grace," given these trends "homosexuality will become less attractive as a wedge issue in politics and will likely cease to be a potent issue at all." If anything, homosexuality is becoming a dividing line within the Republican Party rather than between Republicans and Democrats, as shown by the boycott of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference by some groups of social conservatives (and not others) over the presence of the conservative gay organization, GOProud.

These attitudinal shifts, along with the overriding concern about jobs and the economy, may help explain the decidedly low-key response this week from Republican leaders to Obama's DOMA decision.

Sarah Palin was quiet, and old bulls like Newt Gingrich largely confined their protests to the constitutionality of Obama's move rather than the impact on America's moral life. Tim Pawlenty said only that he was "disappointed," and a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner had an equally mild response: "While Americans want Washington to focus on creating jobs and cutting spending, the president will have to explain why he thinks now is the appropriate time to stir up a controversial issue that sharply divides the nation."

As Mark McKinnon, a Republican strategist who worked for President George W. Bush during his 2004 campaign, told The New York Times, "The wedge has lost its edge."

Indeed, marriage traditionalists like New York Times' columnist Ross Douthat has suggested gay marriage is no longer worth fighting, and in the wake of the 2009 California court ruling overturning Proposition 8, a number of leading evangelicals also said the battle wasn't justified.

There are several reasons why the Christian right is yielding this front in the culture war.

One is the disparity between what Christian conservatives preach about the sanctity of marriage and how some Christian conservatives and their leaders behave, as they seem to divorce and cheat at much the same rate as other Americans.

"In short, we have been perfect hypocrites on this issue," Christianity Today Editor Mark Galli wrote in 2009. "Until we admit that, and take steps to amend our ways, our cries of alarm about gay marriage will echo off into oblivion."

Another factor may be related, paradoxically, to the success of the pro-life movement.

America's continuing unease with abortion -- in contrast with a growing comfort level about homosexuality -- means that conservative jeremiads against allowing gay couples to adopt babies who might otherwise have been orphaned or aborted just doesn't make sense, emotionally or morally, to many traditional Christians.

"I find myself convinced of the truth of the Church's teaching, but also without a good argument for why orphans are better off languishing without loving parents than they are being in a nurturing home with a same-sex couple," blogger Rod Dreher has written.

A chief reason for the evolution among religious conservatives is one that is driving acceptance of gays among the wider public as well: familiarity.

Huckabee said this week that the change is "not surprising because every movie, every television show, every novel that many young people are exposed to is an affirmation of the rightness of gay marriage and the idiocy, if not the antiquity, of views of people like me who think some social institutions matter for a reason."

But homosexuals are emerging not just in popular culture but in the conservative world, too.

In the 2004 presidential race, gay marriage ballot measures in a dozen states (for and against) helped rally conservative voters. The head of George W. Bush's campaign at that time -- and subsequently GOP chairman -- was Ken Mehlman, who last August came out publicly as gay. A few months before that, Bush's wife, Laura, wrote in her memoir that she supports the right of gays to marry, and Cindy McCain, wife of 2008 presidential runner-up and gay marriage opponent Sen. John McCain, last year posed for an ad campaign in support of gay rights.

In April 2010, Christian music star Jennifer Knapp returned to performing after a seven-year absence, and announced that she had been in an eight-year relationship with another woman -- and was still a Christian. Gospel star Tonex came out as gay in 2009 as did Christian singer/songwriter Ray Boltz in 2008.

After this week's DOMA decision, some Republicans and their allies are making noises about passing a resolution in the House to fill the legal void left by the Obama administration's defection.

But when popular Christian singers and well-known Republicans are out of the closet or supporting their gay friends, it begins to look as though Obama has handed the GOP the one issue it doesn't need.

 

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]]>Christian conservativesChristianConservativesDefense of Marriage ActDefenseOfMarriageActDOMAgay marriageGayMarriagehomosexualityJustice DepartmentJustice Department and Defense of Marriage Actreligious rightsame-sex marriageDavid Gibson2011-02-25T20:42:00+00:00Newt Gingrich Says Obama's DOMA Decision Sparked 'Constitutional Crisis'http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/25/newt-gingrich-says-obamas-doma-decision-sparked-constitutional/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/25/newt-gingrich-says-obamas-doma-decision-sparked-constitutional/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/25/newt-gingrich-says-obamas-doma-decision-sparked-constitutional/#commentsFiled under: , ,

President Obama's decision this week to ease enforcement of the federal Defense of Marriage Act was a violation of his oath of office and has sparked a constitutional crisis, Newt Gingrich said Friday.

In an interview with Newsmax.TV, the former House speaker accused Obama of acting like a "one-person Supreme Court" and called on Republicans to confront the president over his "arbitrary" suspension of the law.

The Obama administration questions Section 3 of DOMA, which defines marriage for federal purposes as only between one man and one woman. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama has determined that Section 3 "as applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law, violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment."

Gingrich asked his interviewer to "Imagine that Governor Palin had become president. Imagine that she had announced that Roe versus Wade in her view was unconstitutional and therefore the United States government would no longer protect anyone's right to have an abortion because she personally had decided it should be changed," Gingrich said. "The news media would have gone crazy. The New York Times would have demanded her impeachment."

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Gingrich did not call for Obama's impeachment.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced DOMA will no longer be defended in court by Justice Department attorneys. The law, signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, banned recognition of same-sex marriage.

The White House decision to forego a legal defense of the law sets a "very dangerous precedent," Gingrich said.

"I believe the House Republicans next week should pass a resolution instructing the president to enforce the law and to obey his own constitutional oath, and they should say if he fails to do so that they will zero out the office of attorney general and take other steps as necessary until the president agrees to do his job," he said.

Watch the Newsmax.TV interview:

 

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]]>dailyguidancedefense of marriage actnewt gingrichObama AdministrationChristopher Weber2011-02-25T18:00:00+00:00Hawaii Seventh State to Legalize Same-Sex Civil Unionshttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/24/hawaii-becomes-seventh-state-to-legalize-same-sex-civil-unions/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/24/hawaii-becomes-seventh-state-to-legalize-same-sex-civil-unions/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/24/hawaii-becomes-seventh-state-to-legalize-same-sex-civil-unions/#commentsFiled under:

To cheers from gay rights advocates, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed into law a bill authorizing same-sex civil unions in Hawaii, making it the seventh state to do so.

"E Komo Mai: It means all are welcome," Abercrombie said before the signing ceremony, in remarks reported by Honolulu's Star Advertiser. "This signing today of this measure says to all of the world that they are welcome. That everyone is a brother or sister here in paradise."

The new law, which takes effect next year, gives civil unions the same legal status as marriage, with equal rights and benefits. SB 232 passed the legislature a week ago.

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A similar measure was vetoed last year by Abercrombie's Republican predecessor, Linda Lingle.

Writing in the Hawaii Reporter, Democratic state Sen. Mike Gabbard called it a "sad day." He claimed that the majority of Hawaiians are against same-sex civil unions.

"By supporting SB 232 into law, Hawaii politicians have shown that they just don't care about the views and values of the majority of Hawaii's residents," Gabbard said.

It's been a good week for gay rights supporters. Wednesday's momentous signing in Hawaii came the same day the White House announced that the national Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will no longer be defended in court by Justice Department attorneys.

And in Maryland on Thursday, a bill that would legalize same-sex marriages squeaked through the state Senate. The legislation will now be considered by the House of Delegates, which is often more liberal on measures regarding social issues, The Washington Post reported.

 

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]]>dailyguidancedefense of marriage actHawaiiNeil Abercrombiesame sex civil unionsChristopher Weber2011-02-24T19:06:00+00:00Facebook, Gay Rights and the New Politics of Social Mediahttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/18/facebook-gay-rights-and-the-new-politics-of-social-media/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/18/facebook-gay-rights-and-the-new-politics-of-social-media/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/18/facebook-gay-rights-and-the-new-politics-of-social-media/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

In case you needed further proof that Facebook truly is revolutionary, look no further. On Thursday, the social networking giant added two new options to its list of relationship status possibilities: "in a civil union" and "in a domestic partnership."

Wowza.

It's a small change, technically speaking, but one with enormous political significance. For those not in the know, Facebook allows you to indicate the status of your romantic attachments on your personal profile. Until now, those options included "single, in a relationship, married, engaged, it's complicated, in an open relationship, widowed, separated, and divorced."

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But now that's all history. For while "in a relationship" does encompass any number of relationship types (including civil unions and domestic partnerships), couples -- particularly homosexual ones -- can now state the specific nature of their "relationship" for the record.

The new feature is being received with open arms by gay and lesbian advocacy groups, who view it as a sign of support for gay rights.

"When millions of Facebook users see these relationship status options, they gain a greater understanding of the legal inequalities faced by loving and committed same-sex couples in so many states today," said Jarrett Barrios, president the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, in statement e-mailed to The San Francisco Chronicle.

In short, Facebook just made a political statement.

Of course, the idea that Facebook and other social networking sites can have political salience shouldn't be news to anyone who's been following what's been going on in the Middle East over the past month. As my colleague Donna Trussell wrote in a recent post, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have been an integral part of political upheaval and change in the Middle East in countries ranging from Iran to Tunisia to Egypt and beyond.

Beyond the ease of use, there are other reasons that social media lend themselves to political participation. In a recent article for The International Herald Tribune, Chrystia Freeland describes recent research in economics which shows how social networking sites such as Facebook help to overcome barriers to political mobilization. In brief, by revealing that a sufficient number of people share their beliefs (for say, regime change), individuals are empowered to revolt in large numbers because they that know others will join them.

It's also the case that people in social networking sites tend to cluster in groups that are ideologically similar to them. Although the empirical research on this is still in preliminary stages, political Scientists Brian J. Gaines and Jeffrey J. Mondak have shown that online networking groups do share some features of more traditional "real world" networking groups, especially when it comes to politics.

But what interests me is how social networking sites such as Facebook aren't just serving as focal points for political organization, but emerging as political actors in their own right. Increasingly, we are seeing social media inserting themselves into political debates and trying to shape outcomes.

Take the case of Facebook and the civil partnership issue, for example. According to the Huffington Post's Bianca Bosker, who broke the Facebook story, the relationship status changes were made in consultation with Facebook's Network of Support, a group that includes LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, and the Human Rights Campaign.

So this was not the case of Facebook accidentally wading into the thicket of the gay marriage debate. Rather, the company was deliberately taking a stand on this thorny issue and coming down squarely on the side of gay rights.

Or take Google's actions in Egypt last month. At one point when the Mubarak government shut down Internet access, Google devised a special workaround with Twitter called Speak2Tweet. The service enabled users to dial a telephone number and leave a voice mail, which was automatically translated into an audio file message that was sent on Twitter with the hash tag #egypt.

A source familiar with the matter apparently said that Google was not taking sides in the crisis in Egypt, but simply supporting access to information. But under the circumstances, it's hard not to interpret those as one and the same.

In a speech earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton extolled the virtues of an open Internet as a central plank in the Obama administration's foreign policy vision. She mentioned the Civil Society 2.0 initiative -- which connects NGOs and advocates with technology and training -- as well as new Twitter feeds from the U.S. government in Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, Russian and Hindi.

In light of what's going on in the world, these initiatives sound both timely and appropriate. But Mrs. Clinton should also know that the world of social media is no longer just the medium. It's also now the message.

Follow Delia on Twitter.

 

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]]>Civil Society 2.0Facebook And Civil UnionsFacebook And Egyptian ProtestsFacebook And Gay RightsFacebook And Political ParticipationFacebook And PoliticsFacebook Status UpdatesInternet And Foreign PolicyOnline Networking and politicsSocial Media And PoliticsSpeak2tweetDelia Lloyd2011-02-18T13:00:00+00:00Exorcist Priest and Abortion Scold Falls From Grace, Rocks the Catholic Righthttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/16/exorcist-priest-and-abortion-scold-falls-from-grace-rocks-the-c/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/16/exorcist-priest-and-abortion-scold-falls-from-grace-rocks-the-c/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/16/exorcist-priest-and-abortion-scold-falls-from-grace-rocks-the-c/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , ,

A Catholic priest who traveled the country performing exorcisms and launching fierce attacks against anyone he viewed as insufficiently tough on abortion -- he once suggested Fox News host Sean Hannity was a "heretic" for saying birth control could be a better option than abortion -- has been removed from ministry for sexually exploiting at least one woman he was treating for demonic possession.

The surprising revelations about Father Thomas Euteneuer, who was for a decade the charismatic leader of Human Life International (HLI), a Catholic anti-abortion lobby, have not only stunned his many fans among church conservatives but have also left them sharply divided.

Some of Euteneuer's avid disciples continue to praise him as a prophet who confessed to a single and very human failing, while others feel betrayed and say the priest and his organization are so hypocritical they have hurt the sacred cause of protecting the unborn. Critics also say that the full story of Euteneuer's misdeeds has still not been told, and that policies on exorcism must be tightened to prevent further abuses.

"In my opinion, from now on, for the good of the faithful, all exorcisms should be done in the presence of at least one other person besides the priest," Matt Abbott, a Catholic columnist for the conservative website RenewAmerica.com, wrote in an e-mail. "That person, or persons, should be vetted by the Church and law enforcement and should not be a personal friend of the priest performing the exorcism."

Church officials say that there is currently no requirement that someone be present during an exorcism apart from the priest and the person who is possessed, though some dioceses and individual exorcists do encourage a "team approach" to exorcism.

Exorcism is enjoying something of a renaissance both in popular culture and in the Catholic Church. "The Rite," a movie about training priests to perform exorcisms and starring Anthony Hopkins, was released in January to strong reviews and box office returns. The movie is based on the real-life experiences of a California priest, Father Gary Thomas, who went to the Vatican to learn about exorcisms.

And just last November, 66 priests and 56 bishops turned out for a two-day seminar sponsored by the American hierarchy to teach clerics about exorcisms and hopefully ease the shortage of priests authorized to formally cast out demons; reports of demonic possession are overwhelming the handful of exorcists in the United States, church officials say.

Euteneuer was one of those few priests with a mandate to conduct exorcisms, and that job, along with his campaign against abortion for HLI (based in Front Royal, Va.), kept him traveling around the country and in demand in conservative Catholic circles. That popularity also made his fall from grace all the more disheartening for those who had seen Euteneuer as an inspiration.

"I'm drained and depressed, not to mention angry. Cynical as well," Abbott wrote in a Jan. 29 column.

Questions about Euteneuer, a handsome, square-jawed 48-year-old, first arose last August when he abruptly resigned as president of HLI. He had been living in Virginia while heading up the organization, but as a priest of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Fla., he was subject to the authority of Bishop Gerald Barbarito, who ordered him back to Florida.

Euteneuer portrayed the move as a return to the life of a parish priest that he had always wanted, and as a much-needed respite from his labors.

"It has been 15 years since I last had any significant time for renewal, and after traveling more than 1.1 million miles, authoring two books, visiting 58 countries and making thousands of public appearances, I am ready for a break!" Euteneuer wrote in the HLI bulletin. "I intend to continue to do pro-life work wherever I may be called to serve, and my bishop agrees that this is a vital charism of my priestly life. A true pro-lifer is not oriented to a job so much as to the daily task of fighting the culture of death and building the culture of life!"

Fellow conservatives like Deacon Keith Fournier praised him as a "heroic priest" and the board of directors of Human Life International released a statement on Aug. 27 effusively praising Euteneuer for 10 years "of meritorious service to HLI" and for "his leadership, hard work and dedication."

In reality, however, Euteneuer had been forced to resign after being accused of inappropriate relations with a "young adult woman" on whom he was performing an exorcism.

Euteneuer's departure from HLI, while lamented, did raise some eyebrows because it was such a sudden about-face from his longtime public profile.

Indeed, for years Euteneuer had been known as a no-holds barred campaigner against abortion who never missed any opportunity to blast a foe and earn a headline. When Sen. Edward Kennedy died in 2009, for example, he wrote that the liberal Democrat "will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans."

Euteneuer's verbal punch-up with Hannity during an on-air exchange in 2007 was also a classic, as Euteneuer suggested Hannity was a heretic and said he would deny him Communion because the Fox News host thought it might be better that non-Catholics use birth control rather than risk having an abortion.


In 2010, Euteneuer ripped a well-known Jesuit priest, Father James Martin, because Martin had criticized Pope Benedict XVI for seeming to rank gay marriage as a threat to life on par with abortion. "If the Holy Father's proclamation of the unchanging truth makes Father Martin uncomfortable, then it's time for Father Martin to hang up his collar," Euteneuer said.

Also in 2010, Euteneuer's high-octane campaign against an abortion clinic in Fort Pierce, Fla., became the subject of an HBO documentary, "12th and Delaware."

(Even small fry were not beyond Euteneuer's notice; he so disliked my report on the resignation of the bishop of Scranton -- a friend of Euteneuer's -- that he issued a statement calling me "anti-Catholic" and a "dishonest hack" with a "sick media mind." I've been called far worse, of course, and I was in good company in that Euteneuer included "many" American bishops in his condemnation.)

Finally, in January, The Palm Beach Post wrote a story raising questions about Euteneuer's fate, and noting that HLI had dropped Euteneuer's new book on exorcism from its website despite strong sales. But even then the pro-life organization denied anything was amiss.

"Rumors that the book was 'pulled' or 'recalled' are not true," HLI spokesman Stephen Phelan told The Post. He said the book, "Exorcism and the Church Militant," sold out in three months and HLI decided not to publish any more since Euteneuer was no longer president. (Used copies still sell for hundreds of dollars in the Internet.)

That story seemed to crystallize suspicions that Euteneuer was involved in a scandal, and on Jan. 31 the priest acknowledged in a lengthy statement that while performing an exorcism, "one particularly complex situation clouded my judgment and led me to imprudent decisions with harmful consequences, the worst of which was violating the boundaries of chastity with an adult female who was under my spiritual care."

It wasn't clear exactly what Euteneuer did with the woman, as he said the "violations of chastity happened due to human weakness but did not involve the sexual act." ("Bill Clinton would be proud of that," Hannity quipped on his show a couple days later.) Euteneuer insisted it was a lapse with one person only, and he apologized repeatedly and took full responsibility for his failure.

But he also could not resist taking a swipe at his detractors, writing that "I am shocked to the depths of my being at the malicious efforts by supposedly faithful Catholics to destroy a priest who has served the Church faithfully for 22 years." He denounced efforts to drag out the truth as a "sinful campaign" and asked that this single episode not undermine all his work on behalf of the unborn.

At the same time Euteneuer was coming clean, Bishop Barbarito circulated an internal memo to the priests of the Palm Beach diocese informing them that Euteneuer was "undergoing intensive evaluation and counseling to address admitted inappropriate crossing of adult heterosexual boundaries on the occasion of carrying out his priestly ministry." Barbarito said no decision had been made on when Euteneuer would return to ministry.

Then, two days later, Human Life International released a statement confirming that in fact they had received allegations against Euteneuer in August last year that led to his departure. But HLI defended its decision not to disclose any wrongdoing at the time by citing church teaching on "the duty to avoid scandal."

The HLI statement also noted that, contrary to Euteneuer's confession, HLI had "subsequently learned of additional allegations in connection with his exorcism ministry." The organization did not provide details on the other cases and there has been no further word from the Palm Beach diocese about where the investigation of Euteneuer stands.

On Feb. 4, the interim head of HLI, Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula of New York, added to the uncertainty about Euteneuer's case by announcing that the organization had been "under legal constraint not to speak publicly about the matter" and that the victim in the case had been "gravely harmed" by Euteneuer.

In the absence of further information, the Catholic blogosphere lit up with battles between Euteneuer's fans and foes. Hannity had a bit of schadenfreude over Euteneuer's predicament, but elsewhere Catholic conservatives have been arguing fiercely.

Blogger Mark Shea cut off comments on his post about Euteneuer, saying he had made "a manly and forthright act of contrition. Good enough for me. . . . There but for the grace of God go I."

And commenters at other blogs suggested that Satan was getting back at Euteneuer for his exorcism work. "Being exposed to demons is not an easy thing," one person wrote. "Sometimes the demons will purposely twist the bodies of their victims that will have their sexual parts touch the one who is trying to remove the demons. This, I am sure must have happened several times to Father Tom." Others pinned the blame directly on the women who accused Euteneuer.

Likewise, hundreds of supporters left comments on the site hosting Euteneuer's confession, almost all of them praising him for being "courageous" and "humble" and citing Jesus' admonition, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone."

But others, like Matt Abbott at RenewAmerica.com, who called Euteneuer's story "a whitewash," have argued that pro-lifers must be rigorous in calling out failures among their own if the movement is to maintain its credibility.

The woman behind the Catholic blog "Journey to Therese," who would only be identified by her first name, Adele, also took that approach and has published on her site some of the toughest criticism of Euteneuer.

Adele said she felt personally betrayed because Euteneuer had traveled to her home on more than a dozen occasions between 2008 and 2010 to try to treat what she believed was the demonic possession of a family member.

Adele told me she was deeply upset with Euteneuer over his failing and said she believed there were many other instances. But she also said that because of her critical coverage of Euteneuer she had received numerous "threatening" e-mails that were so disturbing she had referred them to the authorities for investigation.

 

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]]>abuseexorcismexorcistsFather Thomas EuteneuerHuman Life InternationalDavid Gibson2011-02-16T11:14:00+00:00Lady Gaga Pushes 'Born This Way'; Sarah Palin Backs Gay Grouphttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/11/lady-gaga-pushes-born-this-way-sarah-palin-supports-gay-grou/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/11/lady-gaga-pushes-born-this-way-sarah-palin-supports-gay-grou/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/02/11/lady-gaga-pushes-born-this-way-sarah-palin-supports-gay-grou/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga on the same page?

When it comes to expanding rights for gays and lesbians, the two powerful media mavens -- one on the left, one on the right -- appear to share some similar views.

On Friday, Lady Gaga is blanketing the media to promote her new album, "Born This Way," which won't even be released until May 23. The title, which is also the first single released Friday, says it all, and the song is already being called a 21st century gay anthem by the likes of Sir Elton John.

Earlier this week, Sarah Palin restated that she supported GOProud, a self-identifying gay group, and that they should be included in this week's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

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Palin, who is not appearing at CPAC, said on Fox News, "I don't have a problem with different, diverse groups that are involved in political discourse, and having a convention to talk about what the answers are to their problems that face America."

Her position is a rarity among most conservatives, but Lady Gaga would be proud. Maybe she'll discuss it with Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes" this Sunday. Or perhaps Palin will get a shout-out at the Grammy's when Lady Gaga performs later that night.

While February was deemed a no Sarah Palin zone (it hasn't exactly worked), Lady Gaga is about to seize the rest of the month.

No one - not even Palin - knows how to work media, social and otherwise, like Lady Gaga. She has more Twitter followers (more than 8 million) and Facebook fans (28 million) than any politician, including President Barack Obama (18 million) or Palin (2.7 million). She's a powerhouse who's already sold millions of records and broken social media and YouTube records. She can make any Twitter hashtag trend in less than an hour and uses Facebook to communicate with fans.

Last year, she took on Washington, challenging numerous politicians, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, during the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" battle. Millions of her fans, called Little Monsters, bombarded Capitol Hill with calls asking their senators to repeal DADT.

The repeal movement succeeded, despite conservatives' resistance, and Gaga can certainly share the credit.

Like her right-wing Alaskan sister, she generates controversy.

Lady Gaga appears on the March cover of "Vogue" in a pink 1920s flapper wig. Lady Gaga leaked the magazine cover on Facebook, which reportedly infuriated Vogue editors.

Then there's the dance-pop "Born This Way" song itself.

The lyrics focus on civil rights for an array of people -- "black, white, beige" and gay and straight, Gaga says. But she throws in a couple of words that have puzzled and angered people -- "chola descent" and the passé word, "orient," to describe Asians.

"Chola," in urban slang, describes a negative stereotype of hardcore Latina gangbangers, and some in the Latino media have slammed Lady Gaga for using it.

"So is Lady Gaga a racist or simply ignorant of the meaning of 'chola'?" asked the website My Latino Voice.

On Thursday, more controversy bubbled when Lady Gaga announced that she had partnered with Target to offer an exclusive deluxe edition of her new album, "Born This Way."

Last year, Target gave a $150,000 corporate donation to Republican candidate Tom Emmer -- an opponent of same-sex marriage -- in the Minnesota governor's race. While Target's chief executive apologized, amid protests and boycotts, the corporation declined to make a donation to pro-gay-rights groups. Maybe promoting Lady Gaga is the company's way of calling it even?

Once the single was released Friday, music critics immediately started comparing it to Madonna's 1989 hit, "Express Yourself." Many outlets, including US magazine and Popeater, ran articles noting the songs' similarities. Twitter was buzzing about the two songs. Lady Gaga has not responded to the comparison.

Palin, too, is facing a brewing controversy as liberal gay rights advocacy groups refuse to acknowledge her support of conservative gays.

Any hullabaloo is only good for Lady Gaga and Palin.

For now, Lady Gaga is blasting ahead full throttle with her enterprises -- she recently became Polaroid's creative director, co-designing a product line that includes an instant mobile printer, an instant digital camera and the "GL20 Camera Glasses" -- still wearing the crown of reigning diva of the gay community.

Palin, ever smartly, could become a trailblazer by including gays and lesbians in the GOP dialogue just in time for 2012.

 

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]]>Barack Obamaborn this way lady gagaborn this way singleborn+this+waybornthiswaycpaccpac+2011GOProudlady gagaSarah PalinTarget Corp.tom emmervogue magazineSuzi Parker2011-02-11T15:00:00+00:00Who's John Thune -- and Why Is He on the GOP Short List for President?http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/29/who-is-john-thune-and-why-is-he-on-the-gop-2012-short-list-for-p/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/29/who-is-john-thune-and-why-is-he-on-the-gop-2012-short-list-for-p/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/29/who-is-john-thune-and-why-is-he-on-the-gop-2012-short-list-for-p/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

John Thune is on every short list of Republican presidential prospects, which for most people raises two questions: Who? And why?

The South Dakota senator is renowned in political circles for ousting Democrat Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, in 2004. But he's not associated with any particular issue and he's certainly not a household name.

The past few days have shown why that could change, and not just because Thune is tall, dark and handsome. To be sure, he and New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand more than lived up to their advance billing as bipartisan nerd prom king and queen when they strolled into the House chamber together for the State of the Union address.

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Yet the day had begun even more auspiciously for Thune, 50, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tossed out his name as a rising Republican star. "I think he should" run for president, McConnell said at a Politico Playbook Breakfast. "He's a very sharp, capable individual -- good speaker, good leadership qualities, which I see on display every week in the Senate. I'm a big John Thune fan."

Later, in a pre-State of the Union interview inside the Capitol, CNBC's Larry Kudlow asked Thune, "Is there a pet John Thune issue you want to raise to get on the presidential agenda?" "I think that sort of restoring belief in American exceptionalism," Thune replied. "Moving back to some of those core principles and values that had helped shape this country and make it strong. You know, Ronald Reagan once said there are no easy answers but there are simple answers, and I think that's really true. And I think Midwestern common sense would be in great need and great demand around here." He chuckled, then added: "And learning to live within your means. There are just a lot of sort of basic principles that we've gotten away from that we need to get back to."

Give Thune credit for offering a fairly cogent why-not-me rationale on the fly, plus extra points for dropping Reagan's name and mentioning his Midwestern roots. Still, his answer did nothing to set him apart from virtually every other Republican considering a race. They are all talking about Reagan, American exceptionalism, core values and principles, common sense, heartland roots and living within one's means.

Thune's real strengths may lie elsewhere -- in his political savvy, his communication skills and his lack of baggage. "He's very good at talking to people. He's very good at putting things simply and succinctly. And it doesn't hurt that he's pretty good looking -- that's what my wife says," says Jon Schaff, a political scientist at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D.

Nor does it hurt that Thune has several advantages in neighboring Iowa, home of the caucuses that kick off the nominating process early next year. Four northwestern Iowa counties are in the Sioux Falls, S.D., media market, so some Iowans are used to seeing Thune on TV. He is a major supporter of ethanol subsidies -- a make-or-break issue among Iowa farmers whose corn is used to make a form of the alternative fuel. And he has a potential base among the social conservatives who turn out heavily for the caucuses.

Tom Mann, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution, calls Thune one of countless senators who see themselves as presidential timber. The odds are that "he will join the ranks of the many who are called but not chosen. Good looks, attractive style, the Daschle-killer. Not sure what else there is," Mann wrote in an e-mail.

In the absence of obvious policy chops or legislative achievements, that is a big question about Thune: Is there a "there" there? I posed it to longtime party fundraiser and Thune ally Gregory Slayton, who is talking him up in New Hampshire, which holds the first 2012 primary. "Are you asking me about Barack Obama or John Thune? That's my response," he said, in an allusion to the conservative view of Obama as being lightly qualified, if at all, when he ran for the presidency.

Thune currently holds his party's no. 4 leadership position in the Senate, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, and he sits on four committees: Agriculture, Commerce, Budget and Finance. "I wouldn't call him an innovative thinker. His job is to explain the policy, not come up with it," Schaff told me. Recalling Thune in jeans at a wide-ranging town hall meeting in a livestock sale barn, Schaff is still impressed by "the breadth of information he had at his fingertips" and the "command of material" that he showed in answering questions. He remembers thinking, "This guy is the best politician I've ever seen."

Thune grew up in Murdo, pop. 544, and at 16 had a fateful conversation with then-Rep. Jim Abdnor about his performance in a high school basketball game. He ended up in Washington as an Abdnor aide. One thing led to another -- executive director of the state GOP, state railroad director, head of the state municipal league, election to the House in 1996. Thune very nearly beat Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002, losing by less than 600 votes, but preserved goodwill in his state by declining to drag out the contest with a recount.

After two years as a lobbyist and consultant, Thune roared back and rousted Daschle, 51 percent to 49 percent. Last year he won reelection with nearly double that share -- 100 percent, to be exact. Nobody ran against him. "He was absolutely unbeatable," Schaff said.

Conventional and conservative would describe Thune's record over a dozen years in the House and Senate. He has been a reliable vote for gun rights and abortion restrictions. The League of Conservation Voters, which rates candidates on the environment, put him on its "Dirty Dozen" list in 2002 and 2004. Last year he opposed the New START treaty with Russia and also opposed repealing the military's don't ask, don't tell ban on openly gay troops. As Wall Street was about to collapse in 2008, he voted for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program -- a potential but not necessarily fatal problem for him.

Thune's generic conservative views, congressional career and intact marriage have kept him out of controversial territory. He wasn't once a tobacco lobbyist (Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour). He isn't a former governor who raised taxes (Mike Huckabee of Arkansas) or signed a health law similar to "Obamacare" (Mitt Romney of Massachusetts) or quit halfway through (Sarah Palin of Alaska) or seems boring (Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota). He hasn't had three wives and a widely publicized extramarital affair (former House speaker Newt Gingrich).

Slayton, a former diplomat and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, was Thune's northern California finance chairman in the 2002 Senate race against Johnson. He's now teaching at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business and last year he co-chaired winning Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte's national finance committee. He says one of Thune's major assets is that he's liked across the aisle. "That's a big deal, especially in these days where partisan rancor is just palpable," he said. The main challenge at this point is to overcome Thune's obscurity. "The vast majority" of people in New Hampshire don't know him, Slayton said.

Thune says he's avoiding Iowa and New Hampshire until he decides whether to run. That doesn't preclude engagements elsewhere as he deliberates. He is booked at one of the first cattle calls of the cycle -- the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Washington the weekend of Feb. 10-12. Two weeks later he'll be the featured speaker at party dinners in two general-election swing states, Minnesota and Missouri.

Meanwhile, that low national profile is already rising. As presidential speculation about him mounted last week, media across the spectrum showered Thune with attention: Fox News (the president is "kind of late to the game" on spending cuts); ABC News (there's a "big opportunity on the national field"); the Hugh Hewitt Show (he'll "let folks know our intentions" by the end of February); Talking Points Memo (it's not the time to "invest" in infrastructure); and The Washington Post ("spending cuts must come first" before raising the debt limit).

By one measure of who's hot, Thune falls in the mid-range. The GOP12 blog, which follows the 2012 GOP nomination race, listed 280 news posts about Thune as of Saturday. That was a lot more than former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (102) or Barbour (130), about the same as Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (249), and well below Gingrich (466), Pawlenty (591), Huckabee (636) and Romney (712). Of course, none of them came anywhere close to Palin (1,983).

Could Thune prove competitive with Palin on the glamour-and-buzz front? He looks the part. We'll see if he decides to read for it.

Follow Jill Lawrence on Facebook and Twitter

 

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]]>2012gun rightsJohn Thunejohn+thune+2012john+thune+for+presidentjohn+thune+recordjohnthune2012johnthuneforpresidentjohnthunerecordKirsten GillibrandMitch McConnellRepublican nominationthuneJill Lawrence2011-01-29T19:00:00+00:00Is Murdered Gay Activist David Kato the Gabrielle Giffords of Uganda?http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/28/is-murdered-gay-activist-david-kato-the-gabrielle-giffords-of-ug/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/28/is-murdered-gay-activist-david-kato-the-gabrielle-giffords-of-ug/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/28/is-murdered-gay-activist-david-kato-the-gabrielle-giffords-of-ug/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The bludgeoning death of gay activist David Kato this week in Uganda stunned the gay community around the world and prompted Kato's angry allies to point the finger of blame at Christian-fueled homophobia in the East African nation, and at conservative Christians in the United States who have long ties to anti-gay forces in Uganda.

"David's death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S Evangelicals in 2009," Val Kalende, the woman who heads "Freedom and Roam Uganda," a gay rights group, said in a statement. "The Ugandan Government and the so-called U.S Evangelicals must take responsibility for David's blood."

Gay activists have been furious with Christian conservatives from America -- such as evangelist Rick Warren and politicians including Republican Sens. James Inhofe, Tom Coburn and Mike Enzi -- for their support of Christians campaigning against homosexual protections in Uganda, which has a notorious record of discrimination against gays.

The critics say that U.S.-based support was especially notable in a March 2009 forum in the capital, Kampala, that featured a trio of well-known Christian pastors from the so-called ex-gay movement. They say that forum helped inspire Christian parliamentarians in Uganda to propose draconian measures against gays and lesbians, including a bill pending in the Ugandan parliament that would allow for the death penalty for some homosexual activity.

Still, that legislation is only one manifestation of widespread anti-gay sentiment in Uganda.

Campaigns to publicly out homosexuals (or accuse political opponents of being gay, whether they are or not) are common in Uganda, and last September a Ugandan newspaper, Rolling Stone (no relation to the American magazine), ran a cover story ranting against gays and including David Kato's picture under a banner urging, "Hang Them." Anonymous death threats against Kato were increasing, as they were against many out gays and lesbians, especially after he won a judgment against Rolling Stone.

So it was hardly a surprise that, in an echo of the shootings in Tucson this month that targeted Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, gay rights groups and their supporters blamed homophobia and conservative Christians in particular for Kato's murder -- much as some liberals painted right-wing rhetoric as culpable for the Arizona massacre by a gunman police believe to be Jared Lee Loughner that claimed six lives and injured 13 people, including Giffords.

"Uganda's homophobic witch hunt claims the life of a prominent rights defender," was the title of a press release on Kato from the New York-based organization, Human Rights First. In Uganda, the gay activist group Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), issued a statement calling "on religious leaders, political leaders and media houses to stop demonizing sexual minorities in Uganda since doing so creates a climate of violence against gay persons." And the popular gay blogger Joe Jervis, known as "JoeMyGod," charged that some U.S. Christians were "complicit" in Kato's murder.

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In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Kato's killing "is a reminder of the heroic generosity of the people who advocate for and defend human rights on behalf of the rest of us -- and the sacrifices they make." And President Obama released a statement praising Kato's courage and pledging that "At home and around the world, LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered] persons continue to be subjected to unconscionable bullying, discrimination, and hate."

Yet like the Tucson shooting, the motives of the assailants remained murky despite the rush to connect them to homophobia.

Authorities were quick to declare that Kato was murdered in the course of a home invasion by a trio of men -- one of whom was in custody at last report -- a sadly prosaic explanation that could in fact turn out to be true given the volatility of the neighborhood where Kato lived.

Of course there could well be much more to the story given the politicized nature of criminal justice in Uganda. In his statement on Thursday, the head of the police investigation, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, seemed most concerned to head off speculation that Kato's murder was tied to his opposition to an anti-homosexuality bill in parliament, and to protect Uganda from international criticism.

"As police investigations are continuing, the public is asked to disregard any insinuations that have been attributed to this unfortunate incident," Kayihura said. "Uganda is a peaceful country and any crime of any nature is taken seriously and to its conclusive end." The statement was also published in a state-run newspaper that headlined its article, "Kayihura probes murder of homo Bill activist."

Apart from the uncertain motivations of the suspects, the reactions to Kato's death have other parallels to the responses to the Tucson shooting.

For example, many American conservatives started toning down their comments and use of violent imagery -- even as they argued that language and symbols did not inspire the Tucson gunman -- and there are signs some in Uganda and elsewhere are seeking a softer line after Kato's bludgeoning death.

An editorial in Friday's Daily Monitor of Kampala, Uganda's largest and most influential independent newspaper, called for an "honest national dialogue" about homosexuality and said gay Ugandans "enjoy the same rights and protections of the law as heterosexuals. We cannot send them into exile neither, lock them away, or hang them."

Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin, a gay rights blog that has closely followed events in Uganda, called the piece "among the most remarkable editorials I've read in years" and noted that gay activists in Uganda also called it "a real big deal."

The leadership of Exodus International, a U.S.-based Christian group that promotes methods to "convert" homosexuals to heterosexuality and has ties to anti-gay Christians in Uganda, issued a statement of condolences over Kato's murder and expressed opposition to policies "that would harshly punish, imprison and possibly execute those who have same-sex attractions and/or identify as gay."

And just as a few conservatives did after Tucson, some of Kato's opponents reacted to his death by taking the offensive.

Giles Muhame, editor of the Rolling Stone newspaper that outed Kato and dozens of others, told Reuters that he did not want to see Kato murdered but added: "We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality, not for the public to attack them. We said they should be hanged, not stoned or attacked."

Pastor Martin Ssempa, who was close to Rick Warren until Warren publicly split with him following the 2009 outcry against the Ugandan anti-gay bill, told the BBC that Kato's death was not the result of homophobia but instead underscored the problem of "gay-on-gay bashing."

And Member of Parliament David Bahati, who has ties to conservative Christian politicians in Washington, told Uganda media that Kato's murder was unfortunate but was likely due to thieves seeking money Kato had been sent by gay activists overseas. Bahati said police should use the occasion of Kato's killing to "dismantle the illegal networks, particularly financial, which are being used to facilitate gay activities in Uganda, especially in schools. In Uganda most people feel like vomiting when they come across gay practitioners or activists."

American evangelical activists involved in the March 2009 symposium against homosexuality also reacted sharply.

"Naturally, I don't want anyone killed, but I don't feel I had anything to do with that," Don Schmierer told The New York Times. But he complained that now he was getting hate mail.

"I spoke to help people," he said, "and I'm getting bludgeoned from one end to the other."

Scott Lively, who worked with Schmierer, suggested that Kato may have been killed "by a gay lover" and said he would continue to speak against homosexuality even as he condemned violence.

"It is not wrong to speak against homosexuality any more than it is wrong to speak against other behavioral disorders such as alcoholism and bulemia, or other sexual sins such as adultery and polygamy," Lively wrote on the Defend the Family website. "Anyone who were to take such criticism as permission to hurt another person is simply crazy and you can't silence all legitimate criticism of a social problem because some crazy person might misconstue it."

In the end, Kato's brutal death, like the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and the suicide of the gay college student Tyler Clementi in September, shocked the nation because it showed in vivid detail what ugly language looks like when it is embodied in actions -- whether those words inspired the deeds or not.

In the United States, at least, the shock and grief of the Arizona massacre led to the catharsis of a communal memorial service and a degree of self-examination. Uganda may have further to travel.

At Kato's funeral on Friday, after statements from Obama and others were read, scuffles broke out as an Anglican priest showed up and started using a microphone to denounce homosexuality. "The world has gone crazy," the pastor said. "People are turning away from the scriptures. They should turn back, they should abandon what they are doing. You cannot start admiring a fellow man."

Calm was eventually restored, but local villagers refused to bury the body and so a group of Kato's friends carried his coffin to the grave and buried it themselves.

 

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]]>David KatoGabrielle GiffordshomophobiaRick WarrenUgandaDavid Gibson2011-01-28T21:47:00+00:00Elton John in Us Weekly: Too Hot for an Arkansas Groceryhttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/26/elton-john-in-us-weekly-too-hot-for-an-arkansas-grocery/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/26/elton-john-in-us-weekly-too-hot-for-an-arkansas-grocery/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/26/elton-john-in-us-weekly-too-hot-for-an-arkansas-grocery/#commentsFiled under: ,

Arkansas has a way of making it onto the national stage -- and sometimes the publicity isn't very complimentary.

The latest from Bill Clinton's home state: Harps grocery store in the small town of Mountain Home in northern Arkansas deemed a magazine story on gay singer Elton John to be obscene.

The store placed gray "family shields" over copies of the Us Weekly magazine, which features the singer, his partner, and their new adopted baby. Printed on the shields were the words: "To protect our young shoppers."

But the shields didn't stay up for long -- not after members of the Arkansas' GLBT community started calling the Harps corporate offices in Springdale.

The company, which runs 65 Harps stories in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, released a statement on its website Wednesday afternoon. It said in part:

"Our true intention is not to offend anyone and this incident happened at just one of of our 65 locations, which when brought to our attention, we reversed," Kim B. Eskew, Harps president and COO.

The statement explained that it is the company leaves it up to the local manager's discretion to use the shields when customers complain about offensive material. The Mountain Home store said it covered the Elton John magazine after receiving such complaints.

The censorship ignited GLBT activists.

"It's Us magazine, not Hustler," said Randi Romo of the Center for Artistic Revolution, a non-profit dedicated to fairness and equality for all Arkansans. "Families come in all kinds of configurations and yes, sometimes that means they consist of same-sex couples raising their children. Many same-sex families live right here in Arkansas. The last census showed that there are same-sex couple households living in every single county in Arkansas."

My beloved home state of Arkansas is unparalleled at perpetuating its own stereotypes of Bible-thumping, backwardness, bigotry, racism, and intolerance.

Last week, the town of Marshall made national news when its mayor flew a Confederate flag over city hall for four days, including on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The mayor said it was in honor of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's birthday. Arkansas is one of a handful of Southern states that celebrates Lee's birthday on the same day as King's.

This week, the city council, which did not approve of the mayor's actions, voted that only the state and U.S. flag can be flown on city property.

Last year, in response to gay suicides around the country, Midland School Board Vice President Clint McCance came under national scrutiny for a series of vicious and inflammatory anti-gay rants on Facebook. He resigned after an online campaign to oust him and a GLBT group from Little Rock protested the small school.

Even governors can take a step or two from progress. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee once bragged on "Morning Joe" about eating fried squirrel. "When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper, because that was the only thing they would let us use in the dorm, and we would fry squirrels in a popcorn popper in the dorm room." (For the record, few Arkansans have ever done this, according to my own informal survey.)

In 2009, atheists battled the secretary of state's office for the right to display a winter solstice exhibit on the capitol grounds near a large nativity scene. They eventually gained the right, but some atheists now worry that the right may be taken away since a conservative GOP secretary of state won the election last year.

There is only one way to describe Arkansas: land of extremes.

The state is progressive in many areas, and feudal in many others. The state has a history of electing progressive federal representatives. Sens. J. William Fulbright, David Pryor and Dale Bumpers and long-time Congressman Wilbur Mills come to mind. Then there's Bill Clinton, who attempted to allow gays in the military and reform the health care system in his first year in office. Arkansas can also claim one of the most liberal surgeon generals to ever hit Washington - Dr. Joycelyn Elders.

Arkansas is home to some of the world's biggest companies - Walmart and Tyson Foods -- and is becoming a regional hotspot for wind-energy manufacturing. The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Center and his school for public service lures thousands of tourists and illustrious speakers from around the world.

But if the chance arises to spectacularly display our foibles on a national news stage, we jump at the chance, especially if it involves GLBT lifestyles or sex.

That's certainly ironic, as I discovered when I wrote my book, "Sex in the South: Unbuckling the Bible Belt." In the 1970s, Arkansas became the home of the first Miss Gay America pageant. The drag queen pageant only blossomed in popularity over the decades.

Little Rock is also home to two of the largest gay and lesbian nightclubs - Discovery and Backstreet. And yes, straight people do go.

"Strong and vibrant queer communities such as Eureka Springs and the surrounding lesbian-only communities have had a presence in the mountains surrounding Mountain Home [where the Harps grocery is located] for decades," says Brock Thompson, author of "The Un-Natural State: Arkansas and the Queer South."

Eureka Springs has the only Domestic Partnership Registry in Arkansas, which often comes under fire by legislators who want to halt the registry.

Just this month, researchers reported that gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The push-pull of progression versus moral repression bubbles incessantly in Arkansas, which makes the love-hate relationship for many Arkansans all the stronger.

 

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]]>Bill Clintonconfederate flagelton johneureka springsgay adoptionjoycelyn eldersMartin Luther King Jr.Mike Huckabeerobert e leetyson foodswalmartwilbur millsSuzi Parker2011-01-26T22:00:00+00:00State of the Union Winners and Losers: How Did Liberals, Corporate America Do?http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/26/state-of-the-union-winners-and-losers-how-did-liberals-corpora/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/26/state-of-the-union-winners-and-losers-how-did-liberals-corpora/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/26/state-of-the-union-winners-and-losers-how-did-liberals-corpora/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Who won and who lost in President Obama's hour-long State of the Union address? It was less of a laundry list than some presidents indulge in, but still there were plenty of signals to interpret and points to put on the board (or not).

WINNERS

Nerds and entrepreneurs. Obama talked repeatedly about how he wants to sink money not just into education, but also into biomedical research, information technology and clean energy technology. "We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair," he said.

Moderates. Obama's many signals to them included calls for simplifying the tax system, lowering the corporate tax rate, ending earmarks and streamlining the government bureaucracy. He also reiterated his support for education reforms controversial with teacher unions, and said that "we want to reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones." He pushed for free-trade agreements all over the world, and urged colleges to welcome ROTC back on campus now that "Don't ask, don't tell" has been repealed.

Related Stories

College students and their parents. Obama asked Congress to make permanent a tuition tax credit for individuals with income up to $80,000 and households up to $160,000. The maximum benefit is $10,000 over four years. The Treasury Department says 9.4 million families with college students will benefit this year.

Business, labor and the construction industry. Obama last fall proposed a $50 billion plan to rebuild infrastructure across the country. He made clear he is still interested in spending money on infrastructure and cited gains in other countries to try to get resistant Republicans on board. "South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do. Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports," he said.

He set goals -- high-speed rail access within 25 years for 80 percent of Americans ("faster than flying -- without the pat-down"), high-speed wireless coverage for 98 percent of all Americans within five years. Among those welcoming the commitment: the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the AFL-CIO.

Farmers. There was no word in the speech about cutting nearly $5 billion in agricultural subsidies, even though they are classic examples of corporate welfare. That's not to say they won't be on the chopping block in Obama's budget blueprint, due in mid-February.

LOSERS

Liberals. They didn't hear many fighting words or much about their causes. Obama did not say he would work to ease climate change, or close Guantanamo Bay prison, or put new restrictions on guns. He didn't suddenly become a champion of gay marriage. He didn't complain or even joke about Republican obstructionism and, unlike last year, there was no critique of rulings from the majority-conservative Supreme Court.

Oil companies. "I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own," Obama said. The remark was greeted pretty much with silence in the House chamber. Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, later issued a statement saying the U.S. oil and natural gas industry "pays taxes at effective rates far higher than most other industries" and receives tax deductions "similar to those enjoyed by other industries to encourage energy production and new jobs."

The unemployed. The jobless rate has been above 9 percent for more than 20 months, and some 14.5 million people were unemployed last month. Obama briefly mentioned them and their hardships, but this was not a speech suffused with feel-your-pain moments. Nor did he propose a new Works Progress Administration or any other direct federal involvement in making sure people have work.

Serious deficit hawks. Though Obama proposed a five-year freeze on domestic non-security discretionary spending, he mentioned only in the most general terms his own debt commission's work on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense spending. That earned him a gentle scolding from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "It would have made more sense for the president to have used his commission's report to begin the national discussion on deficit reduction in earnest," she said.

Trial lawyers. Obama said he is willing to look at new ideas to bring down health care costs, "including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits." That drew a rebuke from Gibson Vance, president of the American Association for Justice. He said up to 98,000 people die every year from preventable medical errors and "countless more" are injured. "President Obama should direct his focus towards tackling this startling figure, not promoting efforts that could eliminate the legal rights of patients," he said.

The wealthy. Though he just signed a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as part of a compromise with Republicans, Obama said a country serious about deficit reduction "simply cannot afford" making them permanent. "Before we take money away from our schools, or scholarships away from our students, we should ask millionaires to give up their tax break," he said. "It's not a matter of punishing their success. It's about promoting America's success."

Follow Jill Lawrence on Facebook and Twitter

 

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]]>Barack Obamaobama+trial+lawyers+state+unionobamatriallawyersstateunionState of the Unionwinners+losers+state+of+unionwinnerslosersstateofunionJill Lawrence2011-01-26T05:48:00+00:00Ban on Gays in Military Cost $193 Million in Five Yearshttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/20/ban-on-gays-in-military-cost-193-million-in-five-years/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/20/ban-on-gays-in-military-cost-193-million-in-five-years/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/20/ban-on-gays-in-military-cost-193-million-in-five-years/#commentsFiled under: ,

The Pentagon's ban on gays serving openly in the military dismissed 3,664 service members between 2004 and 2009 at a cost to taxpayers of $193.3 million, according to a new government audit.

That's roughly $53,000 per expelled service member during the five year span, according to the Government Accountability Office report released Thursday.

The GAO found the bulk of those funds -- $185.6 million -- was spent to recruit and train replacements for those gays and lesbians forced out under the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The rest of the money was administrative expenses.

Some 39 percent of the dismissed service members "held critical occupations, such as infantryman and security forces," the GAO said. That percentage included 23 experts who held skills in an important foreign language, "such as Arabic or Spanish."

"Don't ask, don't tell," instituted in 1993, was repealed by Congress last month, but it won't be officially rolled back until military officials formalize new rules allowing gays to serve openly. The Pentagon hasn't said when that process might be completed.

Read the GAO's report here.

 

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]]>dailyguidancedont ask dont tellgays in the militaryGovernment Accountability OfficemilitaryChristopher Weber2011-01-20T18:44:00+00:00Is the Black Church Dead? Debate Flares Among African-American Christianshttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/15/is-the-black-church-dead-debate-flares-among-african-american-c/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/15/is-the-black-church-dead-debate-flares-among-african-american-c/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/15/is-the-black-church-dead-debate-flares-among-african-american-c/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

LITHONIA, Ga. -- Under a sparkling blue sky, thousands of worshipers in cars and SUVs streamed into the mall-like parking lots at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a sprawling campus just off I-20 in this suburb of Atlanta.

It was Sunday morning, and for the African-American families flocking to services that meant it was time for church, just as it had for generations of black Christians who had found in the pews not only a sanctuary from a hostile world, but also a platform for communal action to make their lives better.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday the nation commemorates on Monday, was a product of the black church, and the black church has arguably done as much as any Christian community to inspire the soul and culture of modern American society. It has supplied the prophetic language that has driven the nation's ongoing reconciliation with the original sin of slavery, and it helped form the character of Barack Obama, the nation's first African-American president and an orator with the delivery of a black preacher.

Yet New Birth Missionary Baptist -- with 25,000 members who generously bankroll high-living pastors and high-tech services -- is also emblematic of what many in the African-American community see as a profound crisis in black Christianity, or even the "death" of the black church.

One objection is that this prominent Georgia megachurch preaches a money-centered "prosperity gospel" that traditional African-American clergy consider a betrayal of their faith's legacy of sacrifice and social justice. This focus on personal financial gain represents a kind of cultural conservatism that is spreading among black churches, critics say, and signals a concern for the success of each individual congregation rather than the national community.

In addition, New Birth's charismatic leader, Bishop Eddie Long, is under intense scrutiny for allegations that he used his position as a spiritual counselor to coerce at least four men into sexual relationships while they were teens, giving them cars and cash in return. Long and his representatives have denied the charges, saying only that Long -- who said he takes pride in being called "Daddy" by the congregants -- was just serving as a mentor to the teenagers and did not engage in sex with them.

Long, who is 57 and married (and an opponent of gay rights) freely admits that he is "not perfect." But he is also not about to step aside from his pulpit, and, more importantly, his congregation has rallied to his side.

"Of course we support him," a congregant who gave his name only as Roger said after a nearly three-hour service of rollicking music and praise for Long, and insistent appeals for donations -- appeals that were repeatedly answered as thousands streamed up to the pulpit to lay wads of cash in a growing pile on the stage.

"We're just men. We have no right to judge," Roger said. "Whatever happens is between you and God."

"He's doing what God anointed him to do," agreed his wife, Eleanor, as they pushed a stroller with their 1-year-old grandson. "This is a little thing," she said of the charges. "There are so many big things to worry about."

That's not how a lot of other voices in the black church see clergy like Eddie Long.

"They're pastors, but they're really in the Halloween costume of a Fortune 500 CEO. And in the process they're trick-or-treating the people," Jonathan L. Walton, an assistant professor of African-American religion at Harvard Divinity School, told an appreciative audience three days earlier at Ebenezer Baptist Church in downtown Atlanta.

Ebenezer Baptist is 20 miles away from New Birth Missionary Baptist, and light years distant in terms of black history and a lot of contemporary black Christianity.

Founded in 1886 during the brutal post-Civil War period of Reconstruction, Ebenezer Baptist was the church of Martin Luther King, Jr., (and his father), the seat of "pastoral royalty" in the church, and the icon of what the black church hoped to be, and what it became. The event where Walton and others spoke opened with the black gospel standard, "We've Come This Far By Faith," and concluded with "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," known since the civil rights era as the black national anthem.

Yet for all that poignant history, the Ebenezer Baptist panel focused on what the black church needs to do today in order stay relevant, and above all to help a community struggling more than ever.

During the discussion, participants lamented the growing conservatism and anti-intellectualism that they often found in the black church. They also cited the community's broad antagonism toward homosexuals, a phenomenon that has been widely noted as black voters have been crucial blocs in voting against gay marriage ballots.

The panelists also ripped what they see as the accommodation of black churches like New Birth to the kind of winner-take-all, capitalist mentality that Dr. King struggled against in the name of social justice -- a gospel concept that has become anathema to believers like Glenn Beck and his Tea Party followers.

"We're baptizing a lot of this crap in the name of Jesus," Walton protested, sparking more applause.

These vastly disparate views of contemporary African-American Christianity -- and the fact that the differences are roiling the black church to such a degree -- can come as a surprise to outsiders who tend to see "the black church" as a monolithic entity, a community of like-minded liberals walking arm in arm like those grainy newsreel images from the civil rights era.

But in fact the problems are real, the arguments are passionate, and it has all spilled in to the open over the past year.

The precipitating event was an essay posted last February on the Huffington Post by Eddie Glaude, Jr., a young African-American religion professor at Princeton who gave his column the eye-catching title, "The Black Church Is Dead," and continued that with an equally arresting lead:

"Of course, many African-Americans still go to church," Glaude began, noting surveys that track the higher-than-average religiosity of American blacks. "But the idea of this venerable institution as central to black life and as a repository for the social and moral conscience of the nation has all but disappeared," he said.

In his obituary, Glaude cited a number of official causes of death, including the fact that black churches are -- like houses of worship in other communities -- increasingly just another facet of people's lives rather than the central organizing principle: "I am not suggesting that black communities have become wholly secular; just that black religious institutions and beliefs stand alongside a number of other vibrant non-religious institutions and beliefs."

Also, upwardly mobile blacks are continuing the process of assimilation and are therefore attending traditionally white churches, while African-Americans of all classes are drawn to megachurches led by white pastors such as Joel Osteen and Rick Warren. Entrepreneurial black clergy, including Bishop Long and Creflo Dollar, are also trying to create their own megachurch phenomena, and are building on the legacy of flash-and-cash African-American pastors of the past like Reverend Ike and Prophet Jones.

Above all, however, Glaude in his essay was hoping to expose the "myth" of the black church as a unified, progressive entity that served as both central rallying point for the African-American community and its engine for social and economic uplift.

That view never really reflected the reality on the ground, Glaude notes. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his activist allies were sharply criticized by some fellow black clergy for being too liberal, for example, and split from the more conservative black church establishment of the day to establish the Progressive National Baptist Convention.

If anything, that myth of a large, liberal and influential black church is less viable today than ever, and that has profound political ramifications. Resurgent conservatism like the Tea Party movement, for example, seems to have channeled the grass roots energy that the black churches once had, and the black churches -- representing as many as 30 million people in 50,000 congregations -- have not been able to marshal the votes to respond in kind.

Just look at exit polls from the 2010 mid-term elections, which indicated that only 10 percent of African-American voters went to the polls, a dismal turnout of what is by far the most reliably Democratic bloc and in a campaign in which every sign of support was critical for the political prospects of Obama, the first African-American president.

"If the 2010 election is a preliminary tea-leaf-reading to 2012, then President Obama has a lot to think about in terms of re-mobilizing the strong African-American voter base that he enjoyed in 2008," Anthea Butler, a professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania and a prominent African-American voice, wrote in a post-mortem. "Part of that base -- the old guard 'black church' coalition -- is not as strong as it could be. Republicans have learned to mobilize their 'affinity groups,' but black churches do not have the same strong community and 'affinity' links that existed in the past."

But whatever the realities, the black churches occupy such a sacred space in the African-American imagination, as well as the national consciousness, that Glaude's obituary was bound to spark intense debate. And did it ever.

The website ReligionDispatches.com called Glaude's essay "the Digital-Age equivalent of nailing a set of theses to a church door" when it hosted a series of often pointed responses a month later, in March 2010. Glaude and one of those respondents, Josef Sorett, an assistant professor of religion and African-American studies at Columbia University, engaged in a bloggingheads.tv debate on the topic.

Then just last month, leaders representing the nine largest traditionally black denominations gathered in Washington to try to re-launch a national entity to "fill the void for a unified voice of faith" -- an implicit acknowledgment of aspects of Glaude's critique. The newly constituted Conference of National Black Churches (CNBC) aims to affect public policy on issues like health care, education and the economy, all areas where the black churches have had nothing like the impact they had during the civil rights era.

"[T]he absence of voice has allowed more conservative voices to come in and say they speak for the black church," the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, head of the CNBC, told NPR. "They may speak for some aspect of it, but that's not the whole story. What we want to make sure is that the whole story of prophetic social engagement, public policy challenge is a part what it is that we do."

While Richardson acknowledged the truth in some of Glaude's critique, others were not so open to his jeremiad.

Some sharply criticized Glaude for airing the community's dirty laundry -- allowing the broader public, as Samuel Freedman put it in a New York Times column, "to eavesdrop on the theological equivalent of a black barbershop, a place of glorious disputation that is usually kept out of white earshot."

Others objected that Glaude's own connection to the historic black churches was too tenuous to give him standing to criticize the community (Glaude was raised a Catholic and considers himself a Christian but rarely attends church) while a few protested that he was an intellectual, not a minister with experience in the pews.

"Theologians and philosophers like Eddie Glaude don't go to black churches," Lawrence H. Mamiya, a professor of religion at Vassar and co-author of the "The Black Church in the African American Experience," told Freedman. "They haven't been out in the field. And unless you're in the field, you can't see what's happening."

But in the end, many seem to accept that the debate has been healthy, even if uncomfortable, including Glaude.

"I was somewhat shocked by the initial reaction," Glaude told PoliticsDaily last week. "But I think the subsequent conversation was really good, despite the passions of some of the exchanges."

He said the essay helped to show that black churches "are not inherently progressive or somehow necessarily places where prophetic energies emerge," and to push the black church "to insist that progressive black Christians insert their voices more powerfully into the national conversation."

"This is really about turning over the soil so we can think about what it means to be black and Christian in the 21st century."

"In Christianity death never has the last word," Glaude said. "So to declare the death of the black church is actually to declare the precondition for its resurrection."

 

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]]>Bishop Eddie Long African-Americansblack churchCivil Rights eraConference for New Black ChurchesEbenezer Baptist ChurchEddie GlaudeNew Birth Missionary Baptist ChurchRev. Martin Luther KingDavid Gibson2011-01-15T23:00:00+00:00Herman Cain Would Focus on Economy, National Security as Presidenthttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/13/as-president-herman-cain-would-focus-on-economy-national-secur/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/13/as-president-herman-cain-would-focus-on-economy-national-secur/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/13/as-president-herman-cain-would-focus-on-economy-national-secur/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , ,

On Wednesday, ex-Godfather's Pizza CEO and popular conservative radio host Herman Cain announced an exploratory committee for president. Today, he spoke with me about his potential run.

Cain promises an ambitious agenda if he is elected president, saying: "I plan to mobilize the public -- to not just stop stuff, but to get stuff done."

Saying "transparency starts with simplicity," Cain added he will "never sign a 2,700-page bill as president of the United States."

While Cain is an unabashed pro-life social conservative who believes in traditional marriage, he clearly sees the economy and national security as the most pressing issues on which to focus his time. As he told me:
I will not sign any legislation that is going to weaken traditional marriage, but I am not going to make getting a constitutional amendment on traditional marriage the centerpiece or the leading issue of my administration. We have a few issues relative to national security, the economy, spending immigration and education that I think we ought to focus on first.
Cain went on to add that "leadership is saying very clearly what our priorities are and what we are going to focus our energies on. There are some things that should not distract us from our most pressing priorities."

When asked what his campaign's message would be, Cain, who was a corporate vice president for Burger King before running Godfather's Pizza, answered, "Problem solver . . . that's what differentiates me from politicians."

Cain, who also served as chairman of the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City -- and was chairman of the board for the National Restaurant Association -- cited his business experience when referencing how he would conduct a war: "I know how to listen to the people that know more about the problem than I do." He added, "We can't fight a politically correct war. . . . We can't fight a war on TV."

When asked whether being an African-American Republican might impact the race, he said: "Many black voters are looking at me as a refreshing opportunity as someone who does have a track record. I will pick up a sizable amount of the black vote -- not because of my color, but because of what I bring to the table."

Cain said he has been to New Hampshire several times recently and to Iowa seven times, with another trip there on Friday. He praised the early primary and caucus states for allowing "a much deeper vetting of candidates."

 

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]]>Herman CainMatt Lewis2011-01-13T10:05:00+00:00Westboro Baptist Church Backs Off Protest Plans at Tucson Victims' Funeralshttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/12/westboro-baptist-church-backs-off-protest-plans-at-tucson-victim/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/12/westboro-baptist-church-backs-off-protest-plans-at-tucson-victim/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/12/westboro-baptist-church-backs-off-protest-plans-at-tucson-victim/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church have decided not to picket at the funerals of the victims of the fatal shootings in Tucson, Ariz., in exchange for publicity, a spokeswoman says.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the Kansas-based church's pastor and founder Fred Phelps, said Westboro agreed to drop its plans to protest outside the funeral of Christina Taylor Green and the others killed last Saturday because it preferred to reach a wider audience over the air waves, the Topeka Capital-Journal said.

In an interview with 102.1 The Edge in Toronto, Canada, on Tuesday, Phelps-Roper agreed to call off the protest outside the funeral of 9-year-old Christina if host Dean Blundell permitted her to talk on the air about her church's views, which she did. Christina died when a gunman opened fire at an event hosted by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). The congresswoman was severely wounded.

Westboro Baptist Church demonstratorsAfter getting a promise for an interview on the nationally syndicated Mike Gallagher Show in New York, Phelps-Roper said the church agreed not to protest at any of the six victims' funerals, the Topeka newspaper said. Gallagher, in an e-mail, confirmed that church members would appear on his program Monday. "I 'm proud that my radio show could be used as an effective tool to prevent them from hurting those grieving families," he told Politics Daily. Westboro also has an interview scheduled with KXXT-AM Christian radio in Phoenix Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

Westboro Baptist, a small, militantly anti-gay church, routinely demonstrates at the funerals of U.S. service members and others who, members believe, are part of an American culture that accepts homosexuality. Their deaths are a sign of God's wrath, the church says. Westboro members often hold aloft placards with such slogans as "God hates fags."

Members would have been kept at bay had they followed through with their plans to picket in Arizona. Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday signed into law a prohibition on protests within 300 feet of a funeral for one hour before a service and for an hour afterward.

Folo Tom Diemer on Twitter http://twitter.com/tomdiemer

 

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]]>christina green funeral protestdailyguidanceGabrielle GiffordsTucsontucson shootingwestboro baptist churchTom Diemer2011-01-12T17:28:00+00:00Westboro Baptist Church to Picket Funeral of 9-Year-Old Arizona Shooting Victimhttp://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/11/westboro-baptist-church-to-picket-funeral-of-9-year-old-arizona/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/11/westboro-baptist-church-to-picket-funeral-of-9-year-old-arizona/http://politicsdaily.com/2011/01/11/westboro-baptist-church-to-picket-funeral-of-9-year-old-arizona/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

Here they go again. Members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church plan to protest outside the funeral of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, one of six people killed Saturday in the Tucson, Ariz., shootings.

But some in area are planning a counter-action to protect the grieving family from the unwelcome picketers and their slurs.

Christin Gilmer of Tucson told CNN her hometown is a "loving, peaceful community" and the prospect of a protest by the small Kansas church was a "nightmare." In response, Gilmer said she is planning an "angel action" -- a group of volunteers wearing 8-by-10-foot angel wings to visually shield mourners from the demonstrators, who typically number no more than a dozen but hold aloft offensive signs.

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"We want to surround them in a nonviolent way, to say that our community is united," she said. "We're a peaceful haven."

Forty-two people have signed up to volunteer, she said.

Christina Green memorial in TucsonWestboro Baptist, a small church in Topeka, pickets at funerals of military veterans and people who have died of AIDS because its members say their deaths are God's punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality. Salon reported that a flier posted by the church on its website regarding the Tucson protest declared "God hates Catholics" -- the little girl's family is Catholic -- and "God Hates Fags." The church website also features a video with founder/pastor Fred Phelps thanking God for the deadly shootings.

In Tucson, they're understandably upset about that. Some 4,500 have joined a "Show Support" Facebook page started by 20-year-old Chelsea Cohen, a University of Arizona senior. Cohen says she isn't organizing a counter-protest but rather a demonstration of silent support. "We plan on being completely silent, and we're asking people not to bring signs or make comments about the Westboro Baptist Church," she said.

 

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]]>christina taylor greendailyguidancefred phelpswestboro baptist churchTom Diemer2011-01-11T12:02:00+00:00