Tag: politics

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Obama To Talk About Gays In The Military In State of the Union Address

President Barack Obama is expected to talk about the "Don't ask, don't tell" rule that bars openly gay Americans from serving in the military during his State of the Union address this week, a senior lawmaker said on Monday. During his 2008 campaign for the presidency, Obama vowed to end the rule discriminating against gays and he renewed that pledge in a speech last year. "We were told by the Pentagon that they expected the president to say something in the State of the Union on it," said Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, referring to the speech Obama will deliver on Wednesday evening to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. But Levin added: "I have no idea" what Obama will say. The rule, which dates to the presidency of Bill Clinton, requires homosexuals to keep quiet about their true sexual orientation if they want to be in the U.S. military. It also stops recruiters or commanders from asking members of the armed forces whether they are gay. It was a compromise signed into law by Clinton in 1993 after the military objected to his calls for welcoming openly gay Americans into their ranks. Levin, a Democrat, is among members of Congress who favor ending the policy and allowing gays to serve openly in military ranks. Levin plans to hold a hearing of his committee on the policy by early February, he told reporters on Capitol Hill. He had considered holding the hearing in late January, but the Obama administration asked him to hold off until after the State of the Union speech. In his speech at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Obama will lay out the challenges and set the tone for his administration in 2010. Critics charge that having gays openly serve in the military would undermine morale and discipline. Any such proposal from Obama is likely to be controversial. Some key lawmakers oppose repealing the ban, including House of Representatives Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, Levin's counterpart. Gay rights advocates have accused Obama of dragging his feet about keeping a campaign pledge. (Reporting by Rutgers)

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Gay Officeholders Increasing In Dixie

The election of lesbian Annise Parker as mayor of Houston last week rightly made headlines. Houston is now the largest city in the United States to elect an openly gay mayor. Parker, however, is only part of the story of what has been happening, almost unnoticed, across the South as well as the nation in the past decade or so as hundreds of politically active gay men and lesbians have entered politics and started winning elections in places that weren’t suppose to be hospitable to their candidacies. In 2001, Southern Political Report produced a report, “Diversity in Dixie,” which looked at the growing influence of minorities in Southern politics. At that time, there were 31 openly gay men and women holding elective office in five Southern states. Today, only eight years later, there are 79 -- about two-and-a-half times as many. And they are present in 12 Southern states, everyone but -- surprise! -- Mississippi. Openly gay politicians have won seats in the legislatures in Alabama (state Rep. Patricia Todd), Arkansas (state Rep. Kathy Webb), Georgia (state Rep. Karla Drenner), North Carolina (state Sen. Julia Boseman), Oklahoma (state Rep. Al McAffrey), and Virginia (state Rep. Adam Ebbin). Several prominent gay lawmakers have retired from Southern legislatures, including former state Rep. Glen Maxey in Texas, and former state Sen. Ernesto Scorsone in Kentucky. All are Democrats and represent urban areas, where gay voters often make up a significant portion of the electorate. Gay political power has been especially evident in Southern city governments. While Parker’s election in Houston is certainly the most noteworthy example -- nationally, not just in the South -- gays have made their presence felt in other Southern urban centers as well. Last month, the Broward County Commission elected Ken Keechl as mayor. And in Atlanta, Cathy Woolard was elected president of the Atlanta City Council in 2002, making her at the time one of the highest ranking openly gay officeholders in the nation. This is not to say that the South, a bastion of fundamentalist Protestantism, has become a land of opportunity for candidates who are not part of the nation’s heterosexual mainstream.  Nationwide, some 700 gay men and women hold elective office; the South, with about 35 percent of the US population, accounts for only about 11 percent of them. Moreover, anti-gay laws -- such as bans on same-sex adoptions and restrictions on what may be taught about homosexuality in schools -- have often passed legislatures and city and county councils in the South. And some politicians still feel free to criticize the gay minority. Just last week, US Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), an increasingly influential Republican conservative, described gays as “socially destructive” in a television interview. Nevertheless, the increasing presence of gay officeholders as part of the South’s political fabric has already had an impact. The South’s wide network of gay political activists was part of the coalitions that helped Barack Obama and other Democrats win office last year. Lobbying by gay groups, aided by the presence of a gay lawmaker, have resulted in some pro-gay laws, including hate crime laws that cover gay people as well as other minorities, and bans on anti-gay hiring discrimination by city and county governments. At least one study has shown that having even one openly gay member of a governing body provides a more hospitable reception for pro-gay proposals. Of interest: The extent to which the gay liberation movement is a product of the economically advanced Western nations is apparent in the worldwide statistics on openly gay officials. North America has 736, Europe 162 and Australia 26, while South America has 8, Africa 6 and Asia 5.   Number of openly gay elected officials in the South*

	2 0 0 1	2 0 0 9
Alabama	0	2
Arkansas	0	2
Florida	12	23
Georgia	7	10
Kentucky	0	8
Louisiana	0	2
Mississippi	0	0
North Carolina	4	9
Oklahoma	0	2
South Carolina	0	1
Tennessee	0	1
Texas	7	14
Virginia	1	5
Total	31	79

*Source: The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund; www.victoryfund.org

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California Appoints First Ever Openly Gay Speaker of the House

Assemblyman John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) has been selected as the next Speaker of the House in the California State Assembly. He is the first openly gay man to hold this position in the United States. This is the state assembly's top leadership position. Lawmakers think Perez will bring valuable assets to the table and will effectively combat California's economic troubles.was endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. Perez served on the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and is a board member for the California League of Conservation Voters, AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Latino Coalition against AIDS, the California Center for Regional Leadership, and the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. In 2008 he was endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. [HRC]

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28th Openly Gay Mayor In The United States Sworn In!

A changing of the guard took place this afternoon for Broward County, Florida as a new Mayor took the Oath of Office. Ken Keechl got his turn as Broward mayor, becoming the first openly gay person in that spot and join an elite group as one of a relatively small number of openly gay or lesbian mayors in the U.S. Keechl is the 28th openly gay mayor in the United States, according to statistics from the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a national political group. (The comparison isn’t exact, since many mayors are elected by all residents of the jurisdiction in question; in Broward County, Florida it rotates among county commissioners elected by district.) But he’ll be representing one of the largest populations of any openly gay officials in the country, said Denis Dison, the Victory Fund’s vice president of communications. “It is significant. Any time that an openly gay or lesbian person is in a political leadership role or any leadership role, it gives an opportunity for people to see them as normal human beings, people like themselves who are invested in things that the broader community cares about,” Dison said. “That is important because it kind of puts the lie to the notion that we are somehow ‘other.’ The other side, that people who in the anti-gay industry, they have a vested interest in keeping us ‘other’ and in keeping us on the outside of the mainstream, because then it allows them to talk about us in ways that other people may not challenge. “When you see someone like Ken who has been elected to office and is dedicating his time to everyone’s issues, not just his own, but the larger community’s interests, it really puts the lie to the notion that we are ‘other.’ And we are not. We are as concerned about education or potholes or the environment or crime. It affects us like it does everyone else,” Dison said. Dan Pinello, a political scientist who specializes in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender politics at the City University of New York and past chairman of the LGBT caucus of the American Political Science Association, said it wouldn’t be a big deal in New York or Massachusetts. “Especially in a state like Florida, … that’s progress where there’s a lot needed. So bravo,” Pinello said. “In places like Florida or Texas it is comparatively monumental. “Any public officeholder who is openly gay and is known as such, who has greater, increased visibility, it is an important event,” he said. And anytime one of those public officials can “demonstrate that they’re an effective public servant and that they’re not in any way different from their heterosexual counterparts is a win for the LGBT community. Hastings Wyman, founding editor of the Southern Political Report newsletter, also said Keechl’s new role is significant. “I think it’s a big deal. It’s one more step in growing acceptance of gay people in public life. Also history shows that when people begin to work with gay public officials they find a much greater willingness to listen to them on gay issues,” he said. Florida doesn’t have many openly gay public officials. The Victory Fund counts 21 in the Sunshine State, including four county commissioners and seven judges. The state has never had an openly gay member of the Legislature. Until that happens, Dison said, “we won’t have significant change in Florida. To do that, you do have to build the bench so to speak. To do that it’s on city councils and county commissions, and it’s people like Ken.” “It’s slow all over the South,” Wyman said, though many other Southern states have elected gay or lesbian legislators. “A lot of it has to do with the makeup of the districts. You have to have a certain base there with gay votes and sophisticated voters. It’ll happen in Florida.” Even though he’s on the other side politically from Democrat Keechl, Benjamin Lewis, president of Broward’s largely gay Sunshine Republicans, said it’s good to have openly gay people serve prominently. “I’d like to see more openly gay Republicans. But I welcome anyone from our community to be actively involved in all politics,” he said. “It really doesn’t make any difference to me as long as he’s an effective leader I don’t think his sexual orientation should come into play when it means a person’s ability to lead or anything like that. I think it’s completely their ability to manage and to lead the county as necessary. “Anybody within our community should respect the position that he’s entrusted to. If he does do a good job and everything I think he will become a role model for future people who want to become involved in our government.

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Germany's Likely Next Foreign Minister Openly Gay

In this July 25, 2009 file picture, Guido Westerwelle, chairman of the German Free Democratic Party, right, and his companion Michael Mronz, left, pose.

Guido Westerwelle and his gay partner are Germany's new "power couple" — at least according to the nation's leading daily, which splashed a photo of the pair hugging on election night on the front-page above the fold in Tuesday's paper.   The ringing endorsement for the 47-year-old Westerwelle, who is widely expected to be tapped for the high-profile post of foreign minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's new government, in the Bild daily also highlighted his personal life in a way he rarely has. "His man makes him so strong," Bild wrote about Westerwelle, declaring that his 42-year-old partner Michael Mronz was not only his most important adviser during the campaign, but also "gives him security and ... supports him when he suffers a setback." Despite eight years as leader of the pro-business Free Democrats, Westerwelle's homosexuality has generated relatively little discussion. But with his party set to become kingmaker to Chancellor Merkel's conservatives and him foreign minister, it has been thrust into the spotlight. On Monday, a local official had to apologize for an anti-gay remark he made about Westerwelle on election night. Peter Langner, the city treasurer of the western city of Duisburg and a Social Democrat, had said that "I don't want a gay foreign minister." Germans have been generally tolerant of openly gay politicians and others have paved the way, including Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who already declared back in 2001 that "I'm gay, and it's good that way." While Westerwelle's certainly no gay activist, he has said before that his lifestyle may be "encouraging for some young gays." "I can only tell all young gays and lesbians to not be disheartened, if not everything goes their way," Westerwelle told the Berlin's gay magazine Siegessaeule this month. "This society is changing for the good in the direction of tolerance and respect ... though slower than I would wish." Westerwelle has been known to be gay since 2004, when he brought his partner to Merkel's 50th birthday party. "I've never been hiding my life," Westerwelle said back then. "I just lived it." Mronz, who met Westerwelle in 2003 according to Bild, is an event manager who also organized the athletic world championship in Berlin this summer. He recently joined the Free Democrats, saying that after having listened to 120 speeches of his partner, "I am completely convinced." Westerwelle, who has led the Free Democrats since 2001, also spoke out for stronger civil rights during the election campaign and has criticized in the past that German law does not give complete adoption rights to gay couples. The Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany welcomed Westerwelle's victory and hoped his election would become a motor for gay rights in Germany. "We think it's awesome that it has become so normal that an openly gay man becomes foreign minister," said Klaus Jetz, the head of the association, adding that the gay community expected him to advocate gay rights in Germany and abroad as well. "It's important that as foreign minister he will openly talk about human rights and the persecution of gays and lesbians in other countries." STORY FROM: The Associated Press

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The Gay Confederacy

Some folks believe that if a man is gay, he is less than a man. In fact the Southern Baptists and other Southern Holy Rollers in and around the buckle of the Bible Belt think of a gay man as a person as some sort of a demon called up from the pits of hell. Homophobia runs deep in the south. Living in the closet or living out a double-life is all so common in the southern states. I have always found Southern American history interesting and I really love to read gay Southern history. Unfortunately there is not a great deal of it documented. For so long many believed that the gay experience was urban and that sexual freedom was only found in bigger cities. The assumption was that rural areas regulated untraditional sexual practices. However, gay culture and gay sex existed and is quite flourishing in small towns and communities throughout the south. Gay history is always in the making and I believe we are living in a day and age that is very fascinating, as fascinating as the Stonewall Riots 40 years ago. The Advocate has a great account of the pioneers who never knew a time before Stonewall in their June/July Double Issue in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Be sure to check it out, as it lists 40 people under 40 years old and their dedication to the promise of the pioneers who came before them. I wanted to give you my take on my gay history that I grew up around and with by sharing with you some things about a film I think you would really enjoy and a film which contains the only known video footage of Matthew Shepard before his death while he was a college student in North Carolina. More than a decade has passed since Tim Kirkman filmed his Emmy-nominated documentary Dear Jesse, yet the piece retains its significance as one of the first accounts of the divisive rhetoric that has come to characterize American politics. This short film is a first-person compare-and-contrast between the gay filmmaker and the notoriously conservative Jesse Helms, who served five terms as a Republican senator from North Carolina. Kirkman, who grew up in a Monroe, North Carolina, seeks to understand what motivates decent, “God-fearing” people to practice the politics of hate.

 

In 1972, Helms became the first Republican to represent North Carolina in the U.S. Senate since the 19th century. His conservative politics quickly earned him the moniker “Senator No” -- that is, no affirmative action, no abortion, no gay rights. Despite his tendency toward intolerance, Helms would become the longest-serving popularly elected U.S. senator in his state's history. Yet it would be a mistake to characterize North Carolina as a state other than one built on “churches and banks,” says local theater director Steve Umberger. His production of Angels in America, a play sympathetic to gays and people with AIDS, met with firm disapproval from conservative Carolinians. And the state was and still is very much composed of middle-class Americans who respect Helms for his consistent -- albeit bigoted -- rhetoric. Although times have changed -- the 1998 film was produced before same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts -- Kirkman shows us that we are still a nation deeply divided over issues of moral “right” and “wrong.” And he points to the toll that this division can take on the American public.

[PLAYLIST not found]

The movie concludes with a short clip of Matthew Shepard, interviewed with his boyfriend at Catawba College in North Carolina two years before his tragic death. Not included in the original documentary, the 1998 tape included the footage as a reminder that a lack of tolerance can breed violence. “This is the only footage I have of Matthew,” Kirkman comments on the film. “It's not fair. It isn't enough.” And it isn't enough to encompass the vitality of the young man. But it does serve to emphasize the necessity for understanding -- on both sides of the divide. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW AND ORDER DEAR JESSE This telling documentary is an "open letter" to Jesse Helms, the infamously conservative "Senator No." Director Kirkman, a 25-year-old gay man and North Carolina native, who left for the more liberal world of New York returns in this personal quest for understanding and perspective.

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McCain’s Chief of Staff is gay ?

THE RUMOR:  JOHN McCAIN'S CHIEF OF STAFF IS GAY ?

Since last night, we here at Just One Hot Minute have been following the spiraling story of Mark Buse, John McCain’s chief of staff. Mike Rogers at BlogActive and Michelangelo Signorile released evidence of Buse’s gayness last night, citing “unnamed sources” plus a man who claims to be Buse’s ex-boyfriend, Brian Davis. Today, the blogopshere has been on fire. We try not to out people here, which is why we didn’t report on it earlier. But once the Miami Herald’s Steve Rothaus posted about it, we felt that we should at least alert readers. Why is this important? Because Mark Buse is not a celebrity. He is a political figure who is one of the most important advisors to a man running for President - a man who does not support ENDA, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, gay marriage or civil unions, gay and lesbian adoption, or the ending of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Hypocrisy Bombshell: Antigay John McCain has a Gay Chief of Staff

What does John McCain’s loyal chief of staff – a man who apparently is in a long-term relationship with another man, and appears to be open about it to John McCain -- think about the fact that Sarah Palin devoutly worships at a church that promotes “converting” gays to heterosexuality? What, conversely, does she think of him? More importantly, what does John McCain think about all of this? And don’t we deserve some answers from the American media? Over the past month I’ve been contacted by three different individuals (two of them members of the Log Cabin Republicans) claiming that McCain’s Senate chief of staff, Mark Buse, is gay. None of these individuals would be quoted by name, though each described Buse as being rather “open” to those around him and to his family – in a “glass closet” rather than deeply undercover or trying to appear heterosexual. Then I was contacted in recent weeks by 46-year-old Brian Davis, an Arizona resident, who told me about his intimate relationship with Mark Buse (confirmed by Davis' mother, as well as by a long-time friend), and who decided he needed to tell the truth about Buse, on the record, in light of John McCain’s dramatic shift to the ideological religious right in this election and his choice of Sarah Palin, starlet of the evangelical movement, as a running mate. (Repeated calls to Mark Buse's office and calls and email to McCain's communications office in the Senate regarding this story were unreturned. Mike Rogers, the blogger and activist who revealed the truth about Senator Larry Craig and others in politics, today reports this same reality about Mark Buse that I report here, with separate, independent sourcing.) “We met in June of 1986,” Davis told me about the night he first laid eyes on Buse, who was also in his early 20s at the time. (Below is a video Davis gave to me, which, though it is of poor quality, shows both of them inside Buse’s apartment in Washington years later, in 1993). “It was at a bar in Phoenix called Connections," Davis continued. "I will never forget it, because it was a big night. Divine was performing there that night.” The reference is of course to the legendary, late drag queen and star of John Waters’ early films, certainly a memorable figure and huge attraction on the gay dance club circuit at that time. Brian Davis says Mark Buse loved Connections and enjoyed going out to the gay clubs in Phoenix in those days. Today, Buse, 44, is one of the closest and most loyal men to Senator John McCain. He knows McCain's family "intimately," says Davis, and has spent much time with Cindy McCain. When Buse was in his early 20s, when Brian Davis met him, Buse worked as an intern for McCain, back when McCain was a House member. Twenty years later Buse has risen to the highest position in McCain’s Senate office. During those two decades he left McCain for a while to become an influential K Street lobbyist for Exxon Mobil, AT&T Wireless and other multinational corporations, emerging as someone very valuable to those companies – and to John McCain -- after he returned to McCain's Senate office. Some media attention has in fact focused on Buse’s lobbying years, particularly in light of McCain’s claims that he takes on “the special interests.” In The New York Times’ controversial story last February about McCain’s relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman – and, according to the paper, the rumors among some advisers that McCain appeared to be having an affair with the woman -- the Times noted, for example: "Mr. McCain has hired another lobbyist, Mark Buse, to run his Senate office. In his case, it was a round trip through the revolving door: Mr. Buse had directed Mr. McCain’s committee staff for seven years before leaving in 2001 to lobby for telecommunications companies." But though some in the media have focused on Buse’s role as a lobbyist, none have looked at another increasingly relevant detail: Mark Buse’s sexual orientation. And yet, it’s a detail that reveals hypocrisy about John McCain that is as clear as that of his reputation to take on the corporate interests while he has registered lobbyists on his staff and campaign. John McCain is opposed to every single gay rights measure of recent years –- from a hate crimes bill, to an anti-discrimination bill to an attempt to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military –- and is publicly on record supporting a ballot measure in California this November to strip gays and lesbians there of their legally-won right to marry in that state. If that isn’t enough to make it relevant to report on his 20-year-relationship with a close aide and chief of staff who is gay, the fact that Sarah Palin is now on the ticket -- garnering support for McCain from previously reticent antigay leaders like James Dobson of Focus on the Family –- surely does. Mark Buse, after all, is a public figure in his own right. His role as chief of staff to a man running for president has elevated him and certainly his controversial former role as a prominent lobbyist has brought media scrutiny to him. And he is running the Senate office of a 72-year-old presidential candidate who has had recurrent cancer and who might well usher into the White House as president a woman who, by what evidence we have, has melded her politics with her evangelical religious beliefs. Sarah Palin has been a prominent and visible member of two controversial churches in Wasilla, though much of the media has shied away from telling us much about them (even though cable networks had no problem giving us every minute detail about Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor, and his church). Palin adheres to Pentecostalism, a religious fundamentalist movement that is vehemently antigay and believes in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Little has been asked of Palin –- or of the McCain campaign –- about the relationship between Palin's faith and her political positions, even as many of us have seen her worshipping in her church on YouTube, explaining “God’s plan” for Iraq, praying to God for a pipeline, and thanking a Kenyan evangelical pastor known as a "witchhunter" for laying hands on her and helping her become governor. As a member of the Wasilla city council Palin reportedly inquired about banning a children's book about gay parents – Daddy’s Roommate -- and she is a darling of the evangelical right, which is hell-bent on keep gays from attaining further rights and stripping them of every right they've already won. She is opposed not only to marriage for gays but to domestic partnership benefits: Though the media has often gotten it wrong when they cared to look into it, Palin only vetoed a bill that would strip partnership benefits for government employees because the Alaska Supreme Court ruled the bill unconstitutional. Palin’s current church, the Wasilla Bible Church, just this month promoted a “conversion” therapy conference for gays, organized by Focus on the Family in Anchorage.Palin has not come out against the church’s sponsorship, though the American Psychological Association has condemned these programs as psychologically harmful. Mark Buse’s sexual orientation and his relationship with McCain certainly are relevant facts in light of Palin’s positions, beliefs, past political career and silence on the issues right now. And John McCain is the person responsible for making them relevant by choosing Sarah Palin as a running mate. *** “I met Mark that night and we went back to my place,” Brian Davis, who is now an Arizona trucker, continued, telling me about when he met Mark Buse . “The following day I came home from work and there were flowers for me. I was always hoping that I would get into a long term relationship. Back then, I was like a cute little twink. I didn’t have trouble picking up guys and used to hope the guys would be interested long term. But you know, usually they weren’t. But Mark sent me flowers. The following weekend we went out dancing at Connections again. My watch broke on the dance floor and I put it in my pocket. The following week Mark came over and gave me a present -- a brand new Gucci watch.” Davis was working for American Express in Phoenix at the time. Buse was attending Georgetown University, interning on the hill for John McCain, then a member of the House. It might seem odd for a college student to be able to buy a Gucci watch for his older boyfriend, but this wasn’t just any college student: Mark Buse, like John McCain’s wife Cindy, comes from a wealthy family that had built an empire in Arizona. Buse Printing & Advertising clearly has had its own close relationship with John McCain over the years: According to an article last year in the Washington Post about McCain's PAC's overspending, “McCain's PAC paid $7,274 to Buse Printing, a Phoenix shop run by the family of Mark Buse, who was staff director at the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. McCain chaired the committee at the time.” Brian Davis says Buse’s affection didn’t end with a Gucci watch. Buse asked him to move back with him to Washington. After first conducting a long-distance relationship for several months, Davis moved to DC. They lived in two different apartments in Washington during their relationship. In that time Davis says he met John McCain several times at his office. Whatever John McCain might have thought of the relationship, Davis doesn’t think Buse had told McCain about it at the time – he was introduced as Buse’s “roommate” --but he’s pretty sure that Buse came out to McCain as the years went on. Within a year of Davis’s move to DC, he and Buse broke up, Davis explained, after Buse turned to him one morning in bed and said, “Brian, I’m not in love with you anymore.” Davis was heartbroken. He says Buse left him for another man –- the man he says Buse now lives with today. But Davis got over it in time, and remained in touch with Buse, having a friendly relationship, and checking in on the phone or seeing one another every few years. The video below is from 1993, on the weekend of march on Washington for GLBT rights. Davis attended the march, though Buse, he says, did not, and would not do something that public. (In the video, Davis is holding the camera, in the mirror; Buse is the man who eventually hides behind a pillar). The last time Davis says he spoke with Buse was in 2003. Davis describes Buse as someone who, like himself at the time, was “more on the conservative side” on fiscal issues but cared about gay rights, and who really believed John McCain would not bow to extremists. And that’s why he can’t believe Buse went back to work for John McCain: Davis, like other self-described libertarian and Independent gay men, voted for McCain in his Senate elections and supported him for president in the 2000 primary. But, he says, he couldn’t possibly support John McCain now for president, not with his lurch to the extremist right. Davis remembers the John McCain who called people like Jerry Falwell an “agent of intolerance,” something McCain of course took back after he decided to run for the 2008 presidency. He even remembers Buse having been upset when McCain did something seemingly opportunistic and ugly in pandering to the far right back in 1993, something he says Mccain apologized to Buse about. Davis in fact inferred from his discussion with Buse about the incident that McCain likely knew by that time that Buse was gay and that Buse cared about gay civil rights issues. “It was around 1993, and Mark was upset, because McCain was going to speak before an antigay group, the Oregon Citizen’s Alliance,” he remembers. “Mark went to him and said this group is antigay and expressed his personal feelings. McCain said he didn’t know the group’s agenda when he accepted the invitation but that now he couldn’t cancel.” I was in Oregon throughout 1992, covering the gay rights battles there for my first book, when Lon Mabon, leader of the OCA, put a measure on the ballot to declare homosexuality “unnatural and perverse” in the Oregon Constitution. The measure had a good shot of passing ( though, thankfully, it did not). Worse yet, it inspired an ugly wave of hate and violence in a previously placid place. I wrote a piece about it for the op-end page of the New York Times, sounding the alarm. While it’s possible that McCain didn’t know what the group was about, it seems implausible: fighting the gay movement was the OCA’s major issue, and certainly its cash cow, even if the group did stand against other issues, such as abortion. As I noted in my op-ed, several Republican senators were pacifying Mabon, fearing he would mount a campaign against embattled Oregon Republican Senator Bob Packwood. Those senators -- including McCain’s good friend and current economic advisor, former Texas Senator Phil Gramm -- were feting Mabon in Washington, and more importantly, staying silent about his dangerous, hate-filled campaign in Oregon. In essence, they were throwing gays to the wolves as a way of keeping those wolves at bay. Oregonian columnist Jeff Mapes last April chronicled the events of 1993 and McCain’s speech (his piece includes articles from the time) which caused much outrage in the gay community in Arizona and elsewhere. He concludes that McCain was part of the effort with Gramm and others to placate Mabon. In response to the uproar, McCain carefully tried to use his speech to talk about tolerance, but Lon Mabon himself didn’t find it objectionable at all. He of course got what he wanted: John McCain speaking at his event. Whatever the truth about McCain’s motivations or knowledge of the group, Brian Davis says that McCain told Mark Buse that it was a mistake and that it wouldn’t happen again. It's a telling anecdote and it raises many questions about the events of today and this election. And really, those questions mirror other questions many have been asking about John McCain for a long time. Has Mark Buse been assured by John McCain that his bowing to religious conservatives is all just politics, that he’s just stringing along the fundies, and that he wouldn’t sell him and his kind to the far right as president? If that is the case, what would the Christian right think about that now and don’t they have a right to know? And, if true, how would Buse and certainly McCain then explain the choice of Palin, beyond admitting that it is simply a reckless gamble, since it’s quite possible she could become president and bring the ideologues into the White House? Is there some other plan for how do deal with Palin? Or has McCain’s shift to the far right been more profound rather than solely opportunistic? Perhaps he does truly stand behind his positions against gay rights and perhaps he truly respects Palin’s politics that appear to erase the lines between church and state. In that case, has Mark Buse completely sold out, perhaps transformed by those years as a lobbyist and perhaps having different priorities now -- gay rights be damned? What else does the reality of Mark Buse's life say about John McCain? Does he see his own chief of staff, someone he has known now for 20 years, as someone who should have no rights, no hate crimes protections, and no employment protection in the private sector? Does he see his own loyal chief of staff as someone who should be hounded by Christian conservatives, pressured to enter damaging “conversion” therapy programs, and made a target of violence that is inspired by the hate spewed by agents of intolerance? And what does Sarah Palin think of all of this? Does she know about John McCain's gay chief of staff? Is Palin an opportunist too, and is her allegiance to the evangelical right skin deep? Or, is she a true believer who would believe Mark Buse should be sent to an “ex-gay” therapy program to “convert” him to heterosexuality? If she were to become president, will she give more power to the people who would very much like to put every gay American through such a program? These questions are not going to go away. As I was working on this story I got wind that activist Mike Rogers – the “most feared man on the hill” as the Washington Post called him – was working on it as well. On Friday, Mike, with separate and independent sourcing, went to John McCain’s office to give Buse a "Roy Cohn Award." He filmed it and today he reveals whom he gave the award to on his much-read site, Blogactive. The traditional media may be petrified to pick up this story but people across the country who see McCain's hypocrisy and who support equality will only demand more answers. Certainly our media could serve us better by getting us those answers rather than once again putting their heads in the sand. THE ABOVE WAS TAKEN FROM http://signorile2003.blogspot.com/2008/09/hypocrisy-bombshell-antigay-john-mccain.html [kaltura-widget wid="gauvfy28h0" width="410" height="364" /]

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Log Cabin Endorses John McCain for President

Log Cabin’s Big Tent event at the Republican National Convention today featured the McCain campaign’s National Political Director. Mike DuHaime accepted Log Cabin’s endorsement on behalf of Sen. McCain. He told the crowd of 200 people, “On behalf of Senator McCain and the campaign, thank you for this endorsement. Sen. McCain is running an inclusive campaign and he’ll have an inclusive administration [as president].”

DuHaime also said that Sen. McCain will win this election because he is the “only one who has the ability to unite the entire party.” He went on to say that everyone supporting Sen. McCain must talk to others about why they’re voting for him. “This is so important in the gay and lesbian community,” said DuHaime.

Former Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), who retired after 11 terms in the U.S. House, spoke about the day that he told his Arizona colleague, Sen. John McCain, that he was gay. “John [McCain] is the first person in the political realm I talked to" I said, ‘John, this is going to come out. I need you to know.’”

Kolbe said McCain’s response was: “Jim, it doesn’t make any difference. You’re a great legislator today. You’ll be a great legislator tomorrow. And you’re my friend today. And you’ll be my friend tomorrow.”

Upon taking the stage, DuHaime told the crowd, “I can’t say what’s in Senator McCain’s heart better than Jim Kolbe did.”

In announcing the endorsement, Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon said, “On the most important issue gay Americans faced in the last decade—the federal marriage amendment—Sen. John McCain stood with us. Now we stand with him.” Read Log Cabin’s news release.

The Big Tent Event drew a strong presence from the news media.

Read an article from Reuters.

Read an article from CQ Politics.

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Gay Lawyer With Porn Links Wins State Primary

Mike Colona, a gay lawyer from St. Louis, won his Democratic primary Tuesday for a Missouri house seat despite controversy over his ties to the gay porn industry, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Colona took 42% of the vote in his five-candidate race and should head directly to the statehouse: He has no Republican challenger in the fall. He'll become the second out gay man elected to the Missouri legislature, after Tim Van Zandt, who was elected in 1994. He received endorsements from local police, firefighters, and teachers unions as well as the Communications Workers of America and the National Abortion and Reproduction Rights Action League. But it was another outfit that nearly cost him -- X99 Media, a Springfield, Ill., producer of adult websites and DVDs. X99's founder also contributed to Colona's campaign. No one accused Colona of doing anything illegal, but eyebrows were raised when adult sites that had listed Colona as a "custodian of records" abruptly removed his name or replaced it with that of another law firm. Colona, for his part, defended his role and said it was limited to ensuring that no minors were used in productions. "A small part of my job is to ensure no minors are exploited by the pornography industry," Colona, 39, told the Post-Dispatch. "Some of my opponents want to mischaracterize the work I've done. Make no mistake, my work is focused on keeping kids safe." But, said the Post-Dispatch, his porn ties proved "just an embarrassing hindrance" in his district of Tower Grove, a fast-gentrifying neighborhood in south St. Louis of stately Victorian homes lining a namesake park that often hosts Pride events. Two other candidates each got about 23% of Tuesday's vote, the Missouri secretary of state's office reported. Missouri in 2004 elected its first lesbian lawmaker, state representative Jeanette Mott Oxford. She was joined in 2006 by out state senator Jolie Justus. Both face only token opposition in November, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)