Jasmyne Cannick

American's and people around the world have something to say about Bill Clinton's remarks and actions throughout his wife's, Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign. We will hear from one of our well known LGBT leader's Jasmyne Cannick. Cannick is well known all over the world for speaking her mind and letting people know "the deal".

She has also been on the top of her game when it comes to current events and politics. Even though Cannick's opinions are often at odds with mine, we are still on the same team. After all she is what I consider to be my LGBT sister.

Now we shall hear what Cannick has to say about the Clinton campaign.

Former NJ Gov. McGreevey says threesome happened with wife and lover

Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey said he and his wife engaged in threesomes with a male aide.
In an e-mail to The Associated Press, McGreevey confirmed published reports by former campaign aide Teddy Pedersen. Pedersen said he had consensual sex with the couple for about two years before McGreevey became governor.

McGreevey said the encounters happened, but the couple needs to move forward for the sake of their 6-year-old daughter.

"This happened, this happened in the past, and now we need to move on with our lives," McGreevey said.
In 2004 the governor resigned after acknowledging an affair with a male staffer who he said was trying to blackmail him. The ex-staffer said he was sexually harassed by the Democratic governor.

The McGreeveys are in court trying to settle a bitter divorce.

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The Defense of Marriage Amendment (DOMA) was passed by Congress by a vote of 85-14 in the Senate and a vote of 342-67 in the House of Representatives, and was signed by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996.

In a MTV interview, Bill Clinton acknowledged that at that time, he and his wife were concerned that a repeal of the entire DOMA would result in more states passing constitutional amendments banning gay marriage; doing so, out of fear that the repeal would force them to recognize gay marriages from Massachusetts.

The following is a transcript of Bill Clinton's DOMA remarks:

Q: The gay community has traditionally been a huge base of support for the Democratic Party. But recently Melissa Etheridge accused you of throwing the gay community under a bus. And I think that she was referring to the fact that in 1996 you signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to refuse recognition of same-sex marriage. Given that my home state of Massachusetts has legalized gay marriage, in the interim period I wanted to know what your position on same-sex marriage is today and how you would hope the---

Clinton: Well, I think it is a slight re-writing of history. Let me just say, let me remind you that one of the reasons that the Republican Party used to get its base out - I think it was in 2004 - was to have all these amendments on the ballot to change the constitution of these states to ban gay marriage.

There wasn't the time for a serious effort to argue that the Congress ought to present to the states a national constitutional amendment on gay marriage. So the idea behind the Defense of Marriage Act was not to ban gay marriage but just simply to say that just because Massachusetts recognized gay marriage that they - Hillary and I at the time defended their right to do - that marriage had always been a matter of state law and religious practice. The Defense of Marriage Act did nothing to change that. All it said was that Idaho did not have to recognize a marriage sanctified in Massachusetts.

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Chris Mathews interviews Bill Maher, comic and sage, on the current Democratic campaign. This is a great interview both funny and very insightful.

 

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has always spoken out against gay marriage, defining marriage as a sacred institution between "a man and a woman." With that in mind, he recently admitted to cheating on his wife by having an extramarital affair. If I were speaking out on how marriage should be between a man and a woman, I wouldn't be sleeping with another person outside of my marriage like Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick was allegedly spotted at a luxury resort with a woman identified as Carmen Slowsky, reports GayWired.com. This is almost like "the pot calling the kettle black", the hypocrisy of this man is insurmountable.

This is the second time that the mayor was under fire for cheating on his wife. The first time was earlier this month when text messages between Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty were uncovered by state officials. According to freep.com, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and former chief of staff Christine Beatty were charged in a 12-count indictment with perjury, , conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice, misconduct in office and conspiracy because of their conduct in last year's police whistle-blower trial, Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced. Kilpatrick who is 38, is charged with eight felonies and Beatty is charged with seven.

Worthy said the perjury charges accuse the two of lying during a whistle-blower lawsuit about the firing of Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown and about their romantic relationship.

"Lying cannot be tolerated, even if a judge and jury can see through it and doesn't buy the line," Worthy said at a packed news conference.

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 Here, the full text of Sen. Barack Obama’s speech, “A More Perfect Union,” as prepared for delivery.

A More Perfect Union

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

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African-American scholars and leaders see this as the presidential candidate's moment to lead

By Liz Halloran

Political strategists today were quick to parse how Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's sweeping speech about race and the American experience may affect his campaign to become the nation's first black presidential nominee.

But among African-American scholars and leaders, the post-speech talk wasn't of polls and focus groups but of witnessing history. Obama's words—about slavery, black anger, white resentment, and the imperative to move forward—harked back, they said, to those of Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, and they deserve a similar place in history.

"This was his kairos moment," said the Rev. Alton Pollard, dean of Howard University's School of Divinity, using the ancient Greek word that characterizes moments that can alter destiny. It was, he said, Obama's particular "moment in time," and one that required him to lead.

"Race was never an issue that was going to disappear," Pollard said. "It's too much a part of our national fabric to think that we can gloss over it and move on without having to contend mightily with each other."

Obama was hastened to his kairos moment by incendiary comments made by his longtime friend and former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who in past sermons (videotaped and played endlessly over the past several days on television), had condemned the United States for its foreign policy and made other comments that have been viewed as anti-American. Obama has repudiated Wright's comments, and Wright stepped down from an advisory role in the campaign. In his speech, Obama again rejected some of the pastor's comments, but he also embraced much of Wright's powerful community ministry. And he bluntly talked about how a black man of Wright's generation could hold on to feelings of betrayal and discrimination, as well as how resentments could build in the white community.

That context was important for Americans to hear, says Walter Earl Fluker, executive director of the Leadership Center at Morehouse College and a prominent voice in the black community. And it's quite different from the context of the 1960s when King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

"We have at least two, possibly three generations that have been born into this huge cultural void of memory," Fluker said, referring to Americans born between the 1960s and now. "So we take fragments of this past and base much of our understanding on these fragments." In today's context, Wright's fiery words—born, Fluker said, of the disappointments that followed the promise of the '60s—"seem very, very hard and harsh."

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Obama's Speech on Race
(Be patient there is heavy traffic)

 

By Scott Martelle

Sen. Barack Obama took the unusual step Friday of posting an online column to further distance himself from his longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose incendiary sermons have spurred renewed controversy in recent days.

Obama's relationship with the minister has come under fresh scrutiny as videos of Wright's sermons have appeared on television and been posted on YouTube -- including one from last Christmas when he railed against Obama rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single-parent home -- Barack was," Wright said in the Christmas sermon, delivered from the pulpit at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.

"Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary! Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a nigger! Hillary has never had her people defined as non-person."

In another recently aired video, Wright referred to the United States as the "U.S. of K.K.K.A." He also drew parallels between the tragedy of the Sept. 11 attacks and the suffering of blacks through years of American history. The remarks have drawn intense criticism from conservative bloggers and commentators.

In a column published Friday afternoon on the Huffington Post, Obama noted that Wright is retiring from his pulpit and added that he has drawn attention recently because of "some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics and my political opponents."

"I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy," Obama wrote.

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Obama on Rev. Jeremiah Wright

 

Rev. Jeremiah Wright and comments by Keith Boykin on MSNBC

NPR's Tony Cox continues the discussion about black gay politicians with gay rights activist Jasmyne Cannick and openly gay conservative and Washington insider Robert Traynham.

Cannick is co-founder and former board member of the Black Justice Coalition, a gay rights organization based in Washington, D.C. Traynham is an openly gay, African-American Republican. He was a spokesperson for former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum.

Click to listen to the radio discussion

 

By Richard Ford and Rajeev Syal

A gay Iranian teenager is to be allowed to stay in Britain because his case is now so notorious that it would be dangerous to deport him to Tehran.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, granted Mehdi Kazemi a temporary reprieve yesterday as she announced that his case would be reconsidered when he returns from the Netherlands. In reality, the case of Mr Kazemi has now received so much publicity in Europe that if he were sent back to Iran, there would be a real risk of him facing persecution.

Ms Smith intervened after receiving representations from MPs and peers alarmed that Mr Kazemi, 19, could face execution if returned to his homeland. In a statement, Ms Smith said: “Following representations made on behalf of Mehdi Kazemi, and in the light of new circumstances since the original decision was made, I have decided that Mr Kazemi’s case should be reconsidered on his return to the UK from the Netherlands.”

Borg Palm, Mr Kazemi’s solicitor in the Netherlands, welcomed the news but said that it would give his client a future only if he was granted asylum.

“He is very much afraid of being allowed to stay in Britain but without being granted official permission. That would then put him in a no man’s land. He would be very unhappy in the long term.”

A relative of Mr Kazemi, who lives in London but asked not to be named, told The Times that the teenager would be relieved.

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Indiana Democrat Andre Carson will replace his late grandmother in representing that state's 7th district.

Indiana Democrat Andre Carson

Carson, a convert to Islam and only the second Muslim in Congress, won yesterday's special election with 54 percent of the vote. He must now win both a May primary election and the November general election to serve a full term in Congress.

"We offer congratulations to Representative Carson, whose election demonstrates the strength of our political system and the growing positive role of American Muslims in our society," said Legislative Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Corey Saylor. He said the other Muslim in Congress is Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).

Saylor also noted that the political participation of American Muslims is increasing. Just this week, Muslims from around the nation held more than 70 Capitol Hill meetings with representatives and congressional staffers. Those meetings focused on issues such as racial profiling, citizenship delays and anti-hunger initiatives.

The Washington-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy group recently led a four-week effort that produced more than 17,000 constituent letters on the issue of Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 35 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

The first and only other Muslim member of the US Congress is Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, also a Democrat, who is in his first term.

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David Patterson has been in the dark too long. He is now front and center in the spotlight

Since Former New York Governor Spitzer has resigned. Paterson has become the first African-American to be Governor of the state and the first blind Governor in US history.

"David Paterson is a terrific, progressive guy, extremely LGBT-friendly," Ethan Geto, a Democratic analyst and LGBT activist, told The Advocate.

"He is somebody who would absolutely follow through on the commitment of the senate Democratic conference to pass gay marriage."

Paterson, said this to the New York Blade, "I'm not going to be in that fight, I am going to be in front of that fight because my first day as (state Senate Minority Leader) was the day we passed the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act".

"One of the reasons we need same-sex marriage is because the statistics for heterosexual marriage are so bad; that might be a way to upgrade some of the success rates."

In 1985 Mr Paterson was elected to represent Harlem in the state Senate and in 2002 was elected minority leader, the first non-white legislative leader in New York's history.

In 2004 he became the first visually impaired person to address a Democratic National Convention.

Paterson earned his bachelor's degree in history from Columbia University and got his law degree from Hofstra Law School in 1982.

Paterson is a leading advocate for the visually and physically impaired. His 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention marked the first time a visually impaired person addressed the convention. He is a member of the American Foundation for the Blind, serves as a member of the Democratic National Committee and is a board member of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

According to the National Governors' Association, previous African-American governors were P.B.S. Pinchback, who served as acting governor of Louisiana for 36 days in 1872-73 while the sitting governor was being impeached; L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, who became the nation's first elected black governor in 1990; and Deval Patrick, the current governor of Massachusetts. He lives in Harlem with his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, and their two children, Ashley and Alex

Paterson has been fighting for Gay Rights for two decades.

By Michael Hill

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The man poised to succeed Gov. Eliot Spitzer would not only become the first black governor of New York. He would also be the state's first legally blind governor and its first disabled governor since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Though his sight is limited, Lt. Gov. David Paterson walks the halls of the Capitol unaided. He recognizes people at conversational distance and can memorize whole speeches. He has played basketball, run a marathon, and survived 22 years in the backbiting culture of the state Capitol with a reputation as a man more apt to reach for an olive branch than a baseball bat.

If Spitzer resigns after being snared in a prostitution scandal, the biggest changes in a Paterson administration would probably revolve around style.

"He's a guy who had two handicaps: his blindness and his race. And he never made excuses for it," said civil rights leader Al Sharpton, a longtime friend. "He's the guy who has said, 'I have been in a minority group and a minority within a minority group. And I can make it, so don't give me no excuses.'"

Paterson, 53, is the son of former state Sen. Basil Paterson, a member of the storied "Harlem Clubhouse" that includes fellow Democrats U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel and former New York City Mayor David Dinkins. The elder Paterson was the first in the family to run for lieutenant governor in 1970. He lost, but later became New York's first black secretary of state.

David Paterson lost sight in his left eye and much of the sight in his right eye after an infection as an infant. Refusal to bow to his handicap came early. When New York City schools refused to let him attend mainstream classes, his parents established residency on Long Island, where they found a school that would let him go to regular classes.

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Rapper Q-TIP has recruited U.S. presidential hopeful BARACK OBAMA to lay down vocals on a politically motivated track for his latest LP. The Breathe And Stop star, who uses Democrat Obama's inspirational voice over hip-hop music on his new album The Renaissance, has also collaborated with soul singer Norah Jones and controversial filmmaker Spike on the political project.

The 37-year-old tells the New York Post's Page Six, "I've got Norah Jones on there, but Barack is the big one. You'll see what happens, I can't reveal too much." The hip-hop hitmaker joins former Batman Michael Keaton, Oscar winner Halle Berry, actress Jessica Alba, will.i.am, Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith, all of whom have spoken openly about their support for Obama.

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By Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - Barack Obama's presidential candidacy is winning over hearts and minds in Europe, where his race, youth and promise of change are raising hopes for an America the world can like again.

Obama's bid for the U.S. presidency suffered a setback on Tuesday when he failed to clinch the Democratic nomination, losing crucial contests in Ohio and Texas to rival Hillary Clinton.

But in Europe he has emerged as a favourite of the people and media, political analysts say, after a brief European infatuation with the better-known Clinton last year.

Influential German weekly magazine Der Spiegel put a picture of the Illinois Senator on its cover in February under the headline "The Messiah Factor - Barack Obama and the Yearning for a new America".

Inside, the magazine described Obama as a symbol of America's rejection of the George W. Bush era, a period linked in the minds of many Europeans to the Iraq war, Abu Ghraib prison scandal and go-it-alone U.S. diplomacy.

"Germans are in love with Obama," said Volker Perthes, head of the Berlin-based SWP foreign policy think tank. "His election would show America is capable of renewing itself, of self-correcting after the Bush years."

Karsten Voigt, coordinator for U.S. relations in the German Foreign Ministry, said Berlin could work well with Obama, Clinton and the Republican nominee John McCain -- a sentiment echoed in other European capitals.

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His closest rival, Mike Huckabee, has dropped out of the race and pledged to support Mr McCain's candidacy.

Mr McCain's victories take him to 1,224 delegates, well over the threshold of 1,191 needed to claim the nomination at the party's national convention in September.

Both Democratic candidates called Mr McCain to congratulate him on clinching the Republican candidacy.

'Coming back'

Speaking to jubilant crowds in Columbus, Ohio, Mrs Clinton said she was determined to stay in the race and looked forward to continuing the debate with Mr Obama "in the weeks ahead".

"For everyone here in Ohio and across America who has ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you," she said.

Mrs Clinton also pointed to Ohio's status as a state which had picked the winning presidential nominee in every contest in recent history.

"You know what they say - as Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Well, this nation's coming back and so is this campaign," she said.

Addressing supporters in San Antonio, Texas, Mr Obama congratulated Mrs Clinton on running a "hard-fought race" but pointed out that he still held the advantage.

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John McCain has won the Republican party's nomination to run for US president with projected poll wins in Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island and Texas. His closest rival, Mike Huckabee, has dropped out of the race and pledged to support Mr McCain's candidacy.

The Democratic contest remains on a knife-edge, with Hillary Clinton projected to win Ohio and Rhode Island.

Barack Obama is projected to win in Vermont, while in the Texas Democratic poll the result is too close to call.

Mrs Clinton's projected wins in Rhode Island and Ohio appear to have ended Mr Obama's month-long winning streak.

Mr McCain's victories in all four states take him over the threshold of 1,191 delegates needed to claim the candidacy at the party's national convention in September.

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By Michael Foust

NELSONVILLE, Ohio (BP)--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama defended his belief in same-sex civil unions March 2 by referencing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and then implicitly criticizing those who view Romans as a binding teaching on homosexuality.

Obama made the comments during a question-and-answer session with voters in Nelsonville, Ohio. A local pastor asked Obama how he plans to win the votes of evangelical voters when they disagree with him on moral issues.

"I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each other," he said, referring to unions that grant all the legal benefits of marriage, minus the name. "I don't think it should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans. That's my view. But we can have a respectful disagreement on that."

The Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew 5-7, the passage in Romans is found in chapter 1, verses 26-32.

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Hutchins hopes sentiment of ‘change’ spreads to congressional race

By Ryan Lee

U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an 11-term Congress member and unwavering supporter of gay rights, faces a primary challenger who believes voters are looking for more than experience in their elected officials during these politically dynamic times.

With his public profile rising due to his role as spokesperson for the family of Kathryn Johnston, the 92-year-old woman killed by Atlanta Police in November 2006 during a misguided drug raid, Rev. Markel Hutchins was contemplating a bid for the U.S. Senate. Then someone encouraged him to run to represent Georgia’s 5th Congressional District.

“My initial response is I could not imagine running against Congressman John Lewis because he was a physical representation of the tradition from which I came,” Hutchins said in an interview Monday. “But I wouldn’t be running against John Lewis, I would be running for progressive change.”

Lewis, 68, was first elected to Congress in 1986. The civil rights veteran responded to Hutchins’s campaign announcement by issuing a statement that said, “Leadership cannot be given. It must be earned with integrity and respect.”

“There is no question that something is happening in America,” Lewis said. “There is a movement, a movement that I helped give birth to, that creates the conditions and the climate for change.

“I have always been a fighter,” Lewis said. “I was born to fight, and I want to assure the people for the 5th Congressional District that I will continue to fight for what is right, what is fair, and what is just in the halls of the U.S. Congress.”

The Democratic primary takes place July 15.

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By Maxine Clarke

There’s no denying that South Africa is a country renowned for its past human rights atrocities. Under the Apartheid era, which began in 1948 and officially concluded in 1994, the South African government segregated the country’s inhabitants into racial groups, with excellent education opportunities, services, human rights protection and a good quality of life reserved for whites only.

Individuals in opposition to apartheid faced detention without trial, torture and censorship. Political opposition from liberation movements such as the African National Congress and the Black Consciousness Movement was banned.

During the time of Apartheid rule, white supremacy dominated national policy, and inequality, legalised discrimination, police brutality and prejudice pervaded, with South African blacks effectively stripped of their citizenship. Apartheid was dubbed a crime against humanity by the United Nations General Assembly in 1973.

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