Will Southern Suburbs Abandon the GOP?

One of the keys to turning Virginia blue in statewide elections has been growing support for Democrats in suburban areas, particularly Northern Virginia.  The reality has become that if a Democrat carries the so-called "urban crescent" from Northern Virginia southward to Richmond and then southeaster to Hampton Roads, there simply are not enough votes in the rural, reactionary regions of the state to overcome the deficit.  One aspect of this change has been the flight of college educated whites from the GOP, a party that now is overtly racist, panders to Christian extremists, and embraces ignorance - all thing deemed offensive by a majority of college educated whites (and I would argue, decent, truly moral people). As the 2018 midterms approach (and 2020 two years from now), one of the questions of the day is whether the flight from the GOP in other southern suburbs can propel Democrats to statewide victories and flipping congressional districts.  A piece in CNN looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

One key measure of any Democratic wave in the midterm elections will be whether it crests high enough to overcome the formidable Republican defenses in the growing suburbs across the South. The answer will have implications that extend far beyond 2018.

While Democrats have notched significant gains since the 1990s among white-collar suburban voters in most parts of the country, they have until recently made very little progress at loosening the Republican hold on affluent and increasingly racially diverse suburbs around such Southern metro areas as Atlanta, Houston and Dallas. But suburban unease with Donald Trump's turbulent presidency may finally provide Democrats an opening to establish a beachhead in such places -- a development that would rattle the electoral map. Although the recoil from Trump among white-collar suburbanites inside the South is not as great as outside of it, both public and private polls signal that enough suburban voters are pulling away from him to create much greater opportunity than usual for Democrats this fall in the governor's race in Georgia, Senate races in Tennessee and Texas, and several suburban House seats across the region.
 [W]e are also definitely making inroads first and foremost with college-educated white women, but also college-educated white men." Many of the most vulnerable Republican House seats around the country are centered on white-collar suburbs. Democrats have strong opportunities in suburban seats from New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia through Northern Virginia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Denver and Los Angeles. That vulnerability is rooted in the unusual resistance Trump faces among well-educated white voters: Three national polls last week each found that around 60 percent of whites holding at least a four-year college degree disapproved of his performance.
 In addition, gains in white-collar suburbs will be critical to Democratic prospects in the Georgia governor's race between African-American Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp; the highly competitive Tennessee Senate contest between former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen and Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn; and the more uphill, but still competitive, challenge by Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas.
 Even if Democrats fall short in some or all of these races, a significantly improved performance in white-collar suburbs could offer them a roadmap for seriously contesting North Carolina, Georgia and perhaps even Texas against Trump in 2020 -- when African-Americans, Latinos and other minority voters, who mostly lean Democratic, will likely comprise a bigger share of the electorate than this fall. But in virtually every state in which Democrats have grown more competitive since the early 1990s, increased minority participation has been only part of the equation -- it has been necessary, but not sufficient. Whether in California, Illinois and New Jersey, which tilted toward Democrats in the 1990s, or Colorado, Virginia and (more equivocally) North Carolina, where the party strengthened its position in the 2000s, the winning Democratic formula has combined both an increase in minority participation and improved performance among college-educated white voters. In the states where Democrats have gained ground in recent decades, those two changes have offset lackluster, and an often deteriorating, performance with evangelical, rural and non-college educated white voters. [Wendy] Davis pointed to two principal reasons Southern suburbs have remained so difficult for Democrats.  "One is that we've had a booming economy and it's the economy stupid as the saying goes, so people have felt pretty satisfied with where things are," Davis said. "We also suffer the problem of being absolutely ignored in presidential election contests which means that we haven't built the infrastructure that's necessary to communicate with a lot of the voters that are needed."
 The Democratic improvement in white-collar suburbs in other regions has been keyed largely by cultural affinity, since many college-educated voters, especially women, take more liberal positions on social issues from abortion and gay rights to gun control. But fewer Southern suburbanites are social liberals, probably because more of them than elsewhere are evangelical Christians or otherwise religiously traditional. Democrats still confront all of these barriers this year. But Trump's rise has provided them a new opening. With his racially infused nationalism and belligerent personal style, Trump conspicuously lost ground across many Southern suburbs in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton when compared to Mitt Romney's performance in the same places in 2012. . . . in key suburbs around the major metropolitan areas, such as Gwinnett and Cobb counties outside of Atlanta, the shift away from the GOP was undeniable and ominous for Republican strategists. . . . Basically we've traded the smaller, slower growing more rural counties for larger fast growing suburban counties." In last November's Virginia governor's race, Democrat Ralph Northam posted big advances not only in suburbs outside of Washington DC, which politically behave more like Northern suburbs, but also the suburban communities around Richmond, which have tilted more reliably Republican. A more immediate problem for Texas Democrats, he said, may be improving their performance among Latino voters, among whom Republicans have retained a significant minority of support even under Trump. Still, the most recent statewide poll conducted by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune in June shows some clear openings for Democrats among well-educated white voters who have previously resisted them.
 [N]ow in Georgia, he adds, "If you are the business community, you have to think twice about do you get behind a Republican as you normally would, or would Kemp scare away business?" . . . Whether or not Abrams makes history as the nation's first female African-American governor, November's results in suburban Atlanta will provide one revealing measure of whether Democrats can truly pressure Trump in 2020 in Georgia -- and perhaps elsewhere across the South.

I truly hope that Democrats replicate Northam's ground game which resulted in a surge of Democrat turn out across demographic groups.  Of course, Gillespie's decision to tie himself to Trump made that all the easier.  

NFL To Georgia: No Super Bowl If Anti-LGBT RFRA Bill Isn't Vetoed

Georgia Republicans are about to learn that self-prostitution to Christofascists can carry a significant price.  Yesterday, the NFL said that, if the anti-gay "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" (RFRA) bill passed by the legislature isn't vetoed by the governor, Atlanta can kiss its Super Bowl bid goodbye.  The Atlanta Constitution has details:

If Georgia chooses to turn the “religious liberty” bill into law, be prepared: Atlanta may not get a Super Bowl.

That was the suggestion from the NFL on Friday when the league released a statement in response to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s question about whether the league had any position on Georgia House Bill 757.

The statement from league spokesman Brian McCarthy reads, “NFL policies emphasize tolerance and inclusiveness, and prohibit discrimination based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other improper standard. Whether the laws and regulations of a state and local community are consistent with these policies would be one of many factors NFL owners may use to evaluate potential Super Bowl host sites.”

Falcons owner Arthur Blank has hoped to land multiple Super Bowls in the team’s new stadium, which is scheduled to open in 2017. The NFL has previously moved a Super Bowl from Arizona to the Rose Bowl near Los Angeles in the 1992 season after that state refused to recognize the Martin Luther King holiday.

God, Gays and the Atlanta Fire Department

The Christofascists are always looking for new "martyrs" who are held up as proof that Christians are "under attack" and subject to "persecution."  It is all part of their agenda to claim special rights for themselves while trampling on the rights of others and, as in the instance of former Atlanta fire chief, Kelvin Cochran, ignoring normal personnel policies and intimidating subordinates.  Despite warnings and a suspension for forcing his self-published book on department employees, Cochran continued to violate directives and ultimately was fired.  Now he is a Christian martyr in the ruse that the "religious liberty" of Christians is under assault.  If anything is truly under assault it is the religious freedom of everyone but far right Christians.  An editorial in the New York Times looks at Cochran's justified firing.  Here are excerpts:

Mr. Cochran, a veteran firefighter, is also a deeply religious man, and he was eager to bring his Christian faith into the daily functioning of his department — or, as he put it in a book he authored in 2013, to “cultivate its culture to the glory of God.”

But, as the book revealed, his religious beliefs also include virulent anti-gay views. He was fired on Jan. 6 by Atlanta’s mayor, Kasim Reed, for homophobic language in the book, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” Among other things, he called homosexuality a “perversion,” compared it to bestiality and pedophilia, and said homosexual acts are “vile, vulgar and inappropriate.”

Mr. Cochran had already been suspended for a month in November for distributing the book to staff members. Following an internal investigation, the mayor did the right thing and dismissed Mr. Cochran for what he called poor judgment: specifically, for failing to get approval for the book’s publication, for commenting publicly on his suspension after being told not to, and for exposing the city to possible discrimination lawsuits.

Cue up the outraged claims that Mr. Cochran’s rights to free speech and religious freedom have been violated — an assertion that is as wrong as it was predictable.

Mr. Cochran said he was fired “for no reason other than my Christian faith.” But he and his sudden coterie of supporters have it backward. This case is not about free speech or religious freedom. It is, as Mr. Reed said at a news conference, about “making sure that we have an environment in government where everyone, no matter who they love, can come to work from 8 to 5:30 and do their job and then go home without fear of being discriminated against.”

Unfortunately, Georgia’s lawmakers are headed in the opposite direction, considering for the second year in a row a “religious-freedom” bill that, like others around the country, would do little more than provide legal cover for anti-gay discrimination.

The First Amendment already protects religious freedom. Nobody can tell Mr. Cochran what he can or cannot believe. If he wants to work as a public official, however, he may not foist his religious views on other city employees who have the right to a boss who does not speak of them as second-class citizens.

Few are more selfish and self-centered than the "godly folk" who think they are above the law and policies that govern others.

Atlanta Fire Chief Suspended for Anti-Gay Book Disseminated to Employees

A blogger friend on Facebook asked how a supposedly educated person could embrace the type of ignorance and bigotry as that displayed by Kelvin Cochran, the fire chief of Atlanta, Georgia,  in a self-published book that equates homosexuality with bestiality and pederasty, which Cochran then distributed to fire department employees.  My response in one word?  Religion.  Anti-gay bigots like Cochran wrap their hate and bigotry in the cloak of "deeply held religious belief" just like so many throughout history have done to justify their inhumanity to others.  In the process, of course, Cochran embraces ignorance as a badge of honor.  Cochran has been suspended without pay for one month - better that he had been outright fired.  Here are highlights from the Atlanta Constitution:

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran has been suspended without pay for one month because of authoring a religious book in which he describes homosexuality as a “perversion” akin to bestiality and pederasty.

Mayor Kasim Reed’s spokeswoman Anne Torres said the administration didn’t know about “Who Told You That You Are Naked?” until employees came forward with complaints last week. In addition to suspending Cochran, Reed’s office has now opened an investigation to determine whether the chief discriminated against employees.

Cochran has been ordered to undergo sensitivity training and barred from distributing copies of the book on city property after a number of firefighters said they received them in the workplace, Torres said.

Reed said he was “deeply disturbed” by the sentiments Cochran expressed in his book and will “not tolerate discrimination of any kind” in his administration.

“I want to be clear that the material in Chief Cochran’s book is not representative of my personal beliefs, and is inconsistent with the administration’s work to make Atlanta a more welcoming city for all of her citizens — regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, race and religious beliefs,” Reed said in a statement on Monday.

In a copy of the book obtained by Channel 2 Actions News, Cochran wrote that his “job description” is to cultivate the department’s culture “for the glory of God,” as well as to focus on the mission of saving lives and property.

 

And in passages about sexual relationships, he wrote that “since God made sex for procreation, he only intended it to be between a man and a woman.” He continued, saying that those who live without God’s purpose “pursue sexual fulfillment through multiple partners, with the opposite sex, same sex and sex outside of marriage and many other vile, vulgar and inappropriate ways.”

He later defined terms such as “uncleanness” as: “whatever is opposite of purity; including sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, bestiality, and all other forms of sexual perversion.”

District 6 Councilmember Alex Wan, who is openly gay, said he’s concerned Cochran’s book could create a hostile work environment. He and others say while Cochran is free to express his personal views, they should be left outside the office.

 Cochran, who is also a deacon at Elizabeth Baptist Church in Atlanta needs to decide if he wants to be a preacher or a fire chief.  He cannot be both.  Religion has no place in governmental agencies.  None.

Emory University Dumps Chick-Fil-A

While Neanderthals and Christofascists may continue to support Chick-Fil-A's policy of funding anti-gay organizations, another major university has decided that it doesn't like Dan Cathy's style of bigotry and is dumping Chick-Fil-A from its food court.  No doubt some of the Christofascists will howl that "Christians are being persecuted" as they forget that freedom of speech and freedom of religion are two way streets.  Kudos to Emory University for sending Chick-Fil-A packing.  Here are highlights from Huffingon Post:

In the wake of its 2012 anti-gay media firestorm, Chick-fil-A has been removed from the food court at Emory University.

Think Progress points to a tweet from the Georgia-based university's campus newspaper Emory Wheel, which confirms the news but offers few details:

UPDATE: Chick-fil-a to be removed from Cox Hall this Summer as part of FACE's new Cox Hall layout.

Previously, the university's administration issued a Dec. 17 statement saying Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy's confirmed donations to anti-gay organizations did not reflect the school's "values of access, inclusion and equity," according to the Georgia Voice. Still, the statement did not ask for the restaurant to be removed, according to the report.

Despite the administrators’ stance, lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender (LGBT) students and allies continued to campaign against the restaurant.   Atlanta is also home to Chick-fil-A’s corporate headquarters.