Will Gays Be Virginia Republicans' 2019 Bogeyman?

For many years the three pillars of the Virginia Republican Party's get out the vote effort has been god - claiming to be the party of true Christians - guns - opposing any form of gun control - and gays - depicting gays as perverts who threaten families and children. With control of the Virginia General Assembly at stake in Virginia's November 2019 elections, early indications are that the Virginia GOP will likely double down on all three as the campaign season heats up.  On guns, the arrogant adjournment of the special session on gun control that Democrats will be depicted as seeking to confiscate guns.  On the issue of gays, recent attacks on Adam Ebbin, Virginia's sole gay state senator, suggests gays - and the likely enactment of LGBT non-discrimination protections by a Democrat controlled General Assembly - may once again be demonized to excite the bigoted GOP base in Virginia.  A piece in The Washingtonian looks at shots made against Ebbin. Here are article highligts:

Shortly before the Fourth of July, a rather remarkable set of quotes appeared in the Washington Post.

Virginia state Senator Adam Ebbin, a speaker intoned at a recent National Rifle Association event in Fredericksburg, is “the only openly gay senator in our Senate” and has an agenda that “means infanticide is coming, all the gun bills.” State Senator Bryce E. Reeves claimed Ebbin supported raising the minimum wage to as much as $25 and that he’d heard Ebbin say Democrats planned to “radically change Virginia” if they won control of the state this fall.

The nasty comments, which came just days before a scheduled special legislative session on gun control, were taken as a sign of how polarized the state had become. But they also thrust Ebbin into the headlines in a way he wasn’t expecting—although he’s long been a champion for LGBTQ rights in Virginia, he didn’t think his colleagues would invoke his identity to turn off voters. Why Ebbin? It doesn’t take a keen political strategist to come up with a theory: In a state increasingly torn between its growing urbanized population around Washington and a beleaguered rural conservative demographic, a gay liberal from the DC suburbs makes a great target. “I was really disappointed to be used as a bogeyman to divide Virginians just because of who I am,” Ebbin says. “My sexual orientation shouldn’t be relevant to gun safety.” 

November’s general election will determine whether Virginia Democrats will take back control of the House and Senate, where Republicans currently hold a razor-thin majority. If that theory is correct, Ebbin’s name may ricochet around a lot more political events in the Virginia’s red areas before this state election cycle is done.

Ebbin was born in Long Island in 1963. His passion for politics began in grade school, where he would walk around his classrooms wearing a “Ford for President” button and worked for a moderate New York Republican running for Congress. While his party affiliation has shifted, his interest in legislation hasn’t waned.

In 1989, his college friends tipped him off about a reasonably priced condo in Alexandria, which was all of the convincing he needed to move to the area. In 1992, he co-founded the Virginia Partisans Gay/Lesbian Democratic Club and spent several years working on the campaigns of two gay elected officials, Arlington County Board’s Jay Fisette and Alexandria City Council’s Paul Smedberg. As a day job, he sold advertising space for Washington City Paper. 

Ebbin says that he felt isolated when he first arrived in Richmond. “In 2004, there was a lot of hostility to LGBT people with anti-gay legislation, whether it was anti-gay adoption, anti-gay straight alliance, anti-gay marriage,” he says. “But I’m proud to say that has changed drastically; we’re in a position where we’re promoting pro-LGBT legislation, and I’ve been really honored to carry legislation for non-discrimination in hiring and housing in Virginia.” 

After eight years in the House of Delegates, Ebbin ran for the Virginia Senate. His platform focused on defending LGBTQ Virginians, investing in public schools, and welcoming immigrants. He faced the first Republican who bothered to contest the district since 1999 and won with 64.7 percent of the vote. He’s run without a Republican opponent ever since and represents south Arlington, parts of Alexandria, and Mount Vernon—an increasingly diverse, growing area that’s an example of the sweeping demographic and political changes in the state.

Reeves sort of apologized to Ebbin: “I certainly meant no disrespect to him or anyone in the LGBTQ community,” he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Ebbin says the two have been in touch briefly since the comments surfaced. He’s saddened by the rift, but he says it makes fits the tone set by the current occupant of the White House. “As long as the current president is in office, Trump will divide people among Virginia just as he is across the country.” As an important election approaches, Ebbin says, “you never know what tactics Republicans will turn to next.”

LGBT Virginians best brace themselves for yet another round of attacks from Virginia Republicans. 

Why Carson and Trump Are Not Going Away

As a former Republican activist years ago, I often lament the insane asylum that the Republican Party has become.  No better proof of the party's descent into insanity exists than the continued support shown for Donald Trump and Ben Carson in polls of Republican voters.  Today's GOP base is terrified about the demographic and social changes overtaking the country and long for the bad old days of the 1950's and view anyone deemed other - read non-white, non-heterosexual, and/or non-far right Christian as a threat to themselves, their fairy tale religious beliefs, and their warped version of of what western civilization should be.  Trump and Carson more than most others in the GOP clown card have read this mood and open insanity (and racism in the case of Trump) and are riding  it to the top of the polls.  A column in the Washington Post looks at why neither of these highly undesirable candidates are going away any time soon.  Here are excerpts:

Why haven’t Donald Trump and Ben Carson faded away? Because they’re saying what much of the Republican Party base wants to hear on such emotional issues as immigration, gun rights and opposition to President Obama.

Trump and Carson are also fortunate to be outsiders at a time when the GOP is in chaos and the party establishment is discredited in the eyes of many voters. And the two improbable leaders in the race for the presidential nomination are compelling characters — Trump the brash and blustery billionaire, Carson the gentle and pious man of medicine.

According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Carson is at 24.8 percent and Trump at 24.6 percent — a dead heat.   And they are lapping the field. Marco Rubio is a distant third at 11 percent, which is well below where he stood in May. And poor Jeb Bush, with his not-so-shiny new campaign slogan — “Jeb Can Fix It” — has slid all the way to 5.8 percent.

Trump pledged to do two things: Deport the estimated 11 million men, women and children living here without papers; and build a “great, great wall” along the 2,000-mile southern border, with the Mexican government paying for its construction. Critics immediately pointed out that neither is remotely feasible, let alone wise. Yet Trump has never wavered. In speeches, interviews and debates, he still promises mass deportation and a wall. 

Why? Because he knows that illegal immigration is a galvanizing issue for some in the GOP base. A Pew Research Center survey in September found that 73 percent of Republicans “favor building a fence along the entire Mexican border.” Pew also found that 32 percent — a third of the party — opposed any kind of legal status for undocumented immigrants.

[N]o one can get to the right of Trump on immigration. If this is an issue you really care about, and you feel betrayed by the way establishment Republicans have handled it in the past, Trump is your guy. Even if he can’t do all the things he promises, maybe he’ll do something .

Similarly, Carson has gone where others fear to tread on the issue of gun rights. A Pew Research Center survey last year found that 76 percent of Republicans believed it is more important to “protect the right of Americans to own guns” than to “control gun ownership.” . . . Carson outflanked the field when he opined that gun control laws imposed in Nazi Germany in 1938 enabled the Holocaust. This aligns nicely with the tea party argument that Americans must be armed in case a tyrant comes to power and has to be overthrown.

Majorities of Republicans do not favor deporting 11 million people, reject all gun control legislation or believe Obama is a psychopathic slave master. But enough do hold such views to make it unlikely that the Trump and Carson campaigns will collapse of their own weight. The outsiders look to be settling in for a long stay.

The GOP’s Gay Rights Melt Down

I have frequently bemoaned the Frankenstein monster that was created when the so-called Republican establishment - and this includes sane individuals at the local level that allowed Christofascists to be voted onto city and county committees - let the Christofascists infiltrate and eventual take over the grassroots of the Party.  Now, with the country's demographics changing rapidly and attitudes towards gays and other minorities likewise changing, the racist and homophobic Christofascist /Tea Party base of the GOP has the party trying to race backward.  In the long run, gerrymandered districts  and voter disenfranchisement efforts will not save the GOP, yet the lunatic base is preventing the GOP from making need platform changes.  A piece in Salon looks at the GOP's gay rights dilemma.  Here are excerpts:

Eleven states had same-sex marriage bans on the ballot in 2004, and all of them passed. Giddy conservatives saw the trend continuing. “It may well be that contemporary liberalism cannot and will not abandon the quest for same-sex marriage,” a National Review writer argued after the election. “But it is sheer self-delusion to pretend that there will be no electoral price to pay.”

Here we are, a decade hence, and the political dynamic has been completely flipped. The Supreme Court, through meaningful inaction, effectively unmade several state bans on same-sex marriage, and Democrats and liberals are embracing and encouraging the movement for equality, buoyed by an American public that is increasingly supportive of marriage rights for gay couples. Republicans, meanwhile, are doing everything in their power to duck the issue out of fear that they’ll alienate their base, the broader American public, or both.

The dramatic realignment of the politics of gay marriage was underscored by this remarkable quote in Time magazine from an adviser to a Republican presidential wannabe:

Advisors to multiple likely 2016 candidates told TIME after the news broke that they are hopeful that swift action by the Supreme Court will provide them cover. “We don’t have to agree with the decision, but as long as we’re not against it we should be okay,” said one aide to a 2016 contender who declined to be named to speak candidly on the sensitive topic. “The base, meanwhile, will focus its anger on the Court, and not on us.”

The Republicans spent decades nurturing the Christian right and other anti-gay constituencies, extracting votes and money from them with promises to halt the country’s moral decline. “God, Guns, and Gays” was the culture war mantra for the Republicans and, in the case of Jim Inhofe’s 1994 Senate run in Oklahoma, an actual campaign slogan.

The same-sex marriage opponents the party empowered aren’t likely to give up so easily. They may not have the clout they once had nationally, but they’re still a potent force within the party.

The fight over immigration reform is instructive here. Republicans spent years and years battling “amnesty” and calling for border lockdowns to keep the more nativist elements of their base happy. The 2012 election and Mitt “Self-Deportation” Romney’s dismal showing among Latinos shocked the party and, for a brief time, there was significant momentum within the GOP for comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship. But then the conservative base began reasserting itself on the “amnesty” issue and Republicans who’d been preaching the need for reform slipped back into their old ways to ward off the threat of primary challenges.

Republicans recognize the political peril of continuing to alienate Latino voters, but they answer first to the base. A similar dynamic will make it impossible for Republicans heading into 2016 to dodge gay marriage or the conservative opposition to it. While most GOP presidential aspirants were quiet on the Supreme Court non-decision, Ted Cruz was anything but.

As he does with every other issue area, Cruz is dragging the same-sex marriage debate within the GOP as far to the right as he possibly can. The activist Christian right already considers Cruz to be one of the most influential people in the party, and (assuming he runs in 2016) the other Republican candidates will have to decide where they’ll stand. “If you’re a candidate for president who refuses to oppose homosexual marriage, I don’t see how you get elected,” an Iowa GOP official told TPM. “You’re going to get clobbered.”

Let's hope that the GOP as a whole gets clobbered!

Conservatives Draft Manifesto to Help GOP Attract Middle-Class Voters

Given the reality that the GOP base - a base cynically cultivated and to which GOP elected officials continue to prostitute themselves to - is focused largely on Gog, guns, gay bashing, and restoring white supremacy as the law of the land, the small number of rational Republicans may find it difficult to sell a new manifesto that is aimed at attracting middle class voters.  For every vote they attract, they may lose votes amongst the knuckle dragging spittle flecked crowd that dominates the GOP grass roots.  They may even find themselves labeled as RINO's - Republicans in Name Only.  Undeterred, a group that calls itself the YG Network is releasing a book - a manifesto, if you will - of ideas aimed at changing the course of the GOP.  It would be nice if it worked, but I suspect these folks fail to grasp the reality that most of the GOP is now an insane asylum.  The New York Times looks at the effort.  Here are excerpts:

Hoping to push their agenda ahead of the presidential election, a group of prominent conservatives has devised a 121-page policy manifesto aimed at giving the Republican Party a message that will attract some of the middle-class voters the party lost in recent White House races.

The document, to be unveiled Thursday, features eight essays with proposals on issues including health care, taxes and education. The authors hope the book will help Republicans address the economic anxieties of Americans and nudge the party from its most polarizing positions and constant confrontations with President Obama.

“We have to do more than ‘Stand athwart history, yelling stop,’ ” said Pete Wehner, a conservative scholar, referring to William F. Buckley Jr.’s vision for National Review, the conservative magazine he founded.

A group of right-leaning writers and policy analysts, calling themselves “reform conservatives,” have been all but pleading with Republican leaders since the 2012 presidential election to move from the Reagan-era’s small government bromides and a mere opposition to liberalism to address voters’ everyday challenges.

But there has been little appetite for embracing such an expansive agenda among Republicans, many of whom see more benefits in their confrontations with Mr. Obama over issues like the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya.

The Republican worries outlined in the manifesto are echoed in a new Democratic research project showing their House candidates faring better when Republicans are portrayed as not caring about working-class Americans in favor of the wealthy and corporations.

The new Republican ideas are being promoted by a conservative group, the YG Network

The set of proposals in the manifesto, titled “Room to Grow: Conservative Reforms for a Limited Government and a Thriving Middle Class,” address domestic matters exclusively; there is no mention of foreign policy or any discussion of immigration, a divisive issue within the Republican Party.

Instead, the authors lay out a set of ideas that they hope elected officials and candidates can make their own: replacing the new health law with tax credits for those who do not receive employer-based coverage; a tax overhaul that benefits middle-class parents; and changes to the student loan system.

These writers and scholars thought Mitt Romney was overly focused on entrepreneurship. Kate O’Beirne, who is an adviser to the YG Network, said the 2012 Republican convention “seemed like an N.F.I.B. convention,” a reference to the National Federation of Independent Business.

“News flash: Most people don’t own their own businesses,” she said.

The “reform conservatives” also hope to avoid a repeat of some of the 2012 debates.  “There was more talk in the Republican primary debates about electrified fences than higher education,” said Mr. Wehner, referring to discussions about border security. “We’re not going to win another presidential election if that is our approach.”

It would be nice to see the GOP return to sanity.  However, it may be a mission impossible situation given the extremism of the Christofascists/Tea Party.  The Frankenstein monster is going to prove to be very difficult to kill.

The Growing Urban-Rural Divide: Is the GOP Paying Attention?

 

As the recent Virginia statewide elections demonstrated, rural voters are increasingly out numbered by urban voters and while the GOP's "God, guns and gays" and demonizing of the nation's first non-white president may play well in the hinterland, the game plan is falling flat in urban areas.  And urban area populations are increasing even as rural populations drop in many states.  Yet, like in so many other things, the GOP seems to be ignoring the hand writing on the wall in terms of what this means for the party's long term viability.  A piece in Bloomberg looks at the fact that all of America's largest cities are now governed by mayors who are Democrats.  Here are excerpts:

Twenty years ago, half the 12 largest U.S. municipalities had a Republican mayor. When Bill de Blasio takes office in New York on Jan. 1, none will.

As middle-class residents moved out of cities and immigrants and young people replaced them, the party lost its grip on population centers even as it increased control of governor’s offices and legislatures. The polarization has pitted urban interests against rural areas and suburbs, denying Republicans a power base. 

“The New York election hopefully is somewhat of a wake-up call,” said Scott Smith, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “If that doesn’t get Republicans on the national level more interested, then it should.” 

De Blasio’s election means that besides New York, there will be Democratic mayors next year in Los Angeles; Chicago; Houston; Philadelphia; Phoenix; San Antonio; Dallas; San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; and Jacksonville, Florida.

In all but three of the dozen most populous cities, mayoral elections are nonpartisan and candidates’ affiliations don’t appear on the ballot. Yet their party is often known to voters. 

Racial and ethnic minorities that overwhelmingly support Democrats accounted for 83 percent of U.S. population growth from 2000 to 2008, with most living in the largest metro areas, according to Brookings’s 2010 “State of Metropolitan America” report. And cities themselves are growing. Between 1950 and 2010, the proportion of Americans living in urban areas increased to 80.7 percent from 64 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Voters selecting mayors care most about who can do the job, and national Republicans are more focused on dogma, said Mayor Greg Ballard in Indianapolis, the most populous U.S. city run by a Republican. 

“If they campaign or govern with a basis in ideology, they’re going to fail,” said Ballard, a 59-year-old former Marine who has supported mass transit and opposed a ban on same-sex marriage. “Being a mayor is about getting things done, and I do wish a few more people understood that.” 

The divide is dramatic in places such as Texas, where Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin are run by Democrats while the state as a whole is reliably Republican. 

“Not only do people have different views, but they don’t even see the other people,” Kotkin said by phone. “Having a one-party system is just not a very good way to get to the best policy.”

Insurers Refuse To Cover Kansas Schools Where Teachers Carry Guns

In the wake of the Newtown, Massachusetts, school massacre, many on the far right - including many Neanderthal members of the Virginia GOP - rushed to allow teachers and school personnel to carry guns at school.  It's typical of the mentality of the God, guns and gays crowd who care nothing for all of the statistical data that demonstrates that the presence of guns INCREASES the likelihood of gun violence.  In what really is no surprise, insurance carriers DO pay attention to such data and  schools in Kansas where guns are allowed are receiving a reality check: insurance companies are refusing to insure them.  Why?  Because having lots on guns on the school premises is too dangerous and poses too much of a liability danger.  Think Progress looks at this almost humorous example of the far right cretins getting a slap in the face with reality.  Here are highlights:

In the wake of the Newtown massacre, several states passed laws to allow school officials to carry firearms on campus, arguing that more guns would keep students safe. Insurance companies apparently disagree now that these laws are beginning to take effect. In Kansas, where the law kicked in July 1, major insurers have deemed the new policy too risky and are refusing to cover schools that arm their employees.

Des Moines-based EMC Insurance, which covers 85 to 90 percent of Kansas school districts, has a longstanding policy of denying coverage to schools that arm employees, and they seem unlikely to change it to accommodate Kansas’ new law. Two smaller insurance firms that cover the remaining 10 percent of Kansas schools are also adopting the same policy. Insurers say the risk of giving guns to anyone but law enforcement in a building full of children would make a school’s coverage much more expensive.

“We’ve been writing school business for almost 40 years, and one of the underwriting guidelines we follow for schools is that any on-site armed security should be provided by uniformed, qualified law enforcement officers,” EMC executive Mick Lovell told USA Today.

A week after the Newtown shooting in December, the National Rifle Association pushed for more guns in schools, arguing that “gun-free zones” attract killers. However, as the insurers recognize, arming teachers and custodians poses a far greater danger. Nor do more weapons do much to stop gunmen from doing harm; Columbine High School, the site of one of the most deadly shootings in U.S. history, had an armed guard. Most gunmen wreak havoc in just a few minutes, which would require an armed staffer to have a lightning-fast response time to disarm the shooter. Indeed, even gun shows require aficionados to check their weapons at the door for safety reasons.

Colorado's Lax Gun Laws

Here in Virginia, the GOP controlled General Assembly seems to want nothing less than a return to the old west where almost everyone is packing.  Worse yet, the guns are often concealed thanks to easily secured concealed carry permits.  And obviously, the more legal guns there are, the greater the supply available to fall into the hands of criminals and obviously mentally ill "law abiding citizens" like the shooter in Colorado.  The extremists who can always be relied upon to whine and carry on about 2nd Amendment rights - which in their warped world the right to have virtually any deadly weapon - bear a direct guilt for the lives lost yesterday.  As do the gutless politicians who roll over like cheap whores to the elements of the far right and the gun lobby.  The frightening truth is that what happened in Colorado could easily occur in Virginia because almost anyone can secure a gun if they really want one.  And to me, it's no coincidence that typically the gun advocates are the same folks who seethe with anti-gay, anti-Muslim, and anti-minority venom.  That's why it is telling to look at Colorado's pathetic gun laws that allowed James Holmes to purchase 4 guns in a two month time period - particular an automatic weapon.  Here are highlights from a New York Times article:

As a mountain state, Colorado has a history of broad support for Second Amendment rights. But in the years since the Columbine tragedy, the state’s lawmakers and voters passed some gun restrictions, including requirements governing the sale of firearms at gun shows, a law regulating people’s ability to carry concealed weapons and legislation banning “straw purchases” of weapons for people who would not qualify to buy them legitimately. 

Still, James Holmes, 24, the former neuroscience student believed to be the lone gunman in Friday’s shootings in Aurora, armed himself with an assault rifle, a shotgun and a handgun to allegedly kill 12 and wound 59 others, many critically. All were weapons that would probably be legal for him to possess.   “The guy basically had normal guns,” said Eugene Volokh, an expert in constitutional law at the University of California, Los Angeles. Unless some new evidence of documented psychiatric disturbance emerges, Mr. Volokh added, “there’s no indication that, from his record, he is someone whom more restrictive screening procedures would have caught.” 

Despite the changes over the past 13 years, Colorado law still prohibits local governments from restricting gun rights in several significant ways. Moreover, gun rights organizations have successfully fought other efforts to restrict access to guns, including blocking a University of Colorado rule prohibiting concealed weapons on campus. 

Carrying a concealed weapon requires a permit, but Colorado is among those states whose rules on permits are relatively lax, said Heather Morton of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Colorado is one of 38 “shall issue” states. She explained that this meant “if a person complies with all of the requirements, then the state must issue a concealed weapons permit.” 

In the never-ending argument, tragedy can become a talking point. Luke O’Dell, a spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a Colorado-based group that fights gun control measures, said private gun restrictions may well have had “tragic consequences” in the shootings. 

He noted that the theater chain that owns the Aurora movie house bans firearms on the premises, and said that if other patrons had been legally able to carry weapons, the death toll might have been less. Mr. O’Dell also said that Mayor Bloomberg’s call for a discussion of gun issues was “exploiting the blood of these innocent victims to advance his political agenda.” 

I'd argue that it is O'Dell who is exploiting the blood of the victims, not Michael Bloomberg.  Can you imagine how many more lives might have been lost if, as Mr. O'Dell argues, a panicked shooting free for all had broken out between Holmes and gun packing movie goers?  The only real solution is to get automatic weapons out of the hands of civilians and to have strict limits on hand gun purchases.

Gun Carrying Homophobe Shoots Up Anti-Amendment One Sign

I shared with readers yesterday an abusive comment that I received that was apparently authored by someone who wasn't happy with a post I wrote in March about a foul, hate motivated, self-styled Baptist church that recently made the registered anti-gay hate group list maintained by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  As I noted, it is ALWAYS the "godly Christian" crowd that is spewing venom and hate.  Now, out of North Carolina where the Christianists are pushing for passage of the very toxic Amendment One that was described by the New York Times as "gratuitous bigotry," we see yet another proof that it is the Christianists, not the LGBT community, that are the gravest threat to the rule of law and civil behavior.  Both Towleroad and Joe.My.God are reporting on an anti-gay extremist who used a rifle to shoot up a neighbor's yard sign that opposed passage of Amendment One. First this from Andy Towle:

Says the gun owner in the video: "Right now there's this amendment trying to be passed, Amendment One. It's gonna state that marriage is between a man and a woman, which is how it ought to be. Somebody thought it'd be a good idea to put this sign near my house. They oughta know not to put stuff like that near my house."

Joe Jervis asks a pertinent question:

How is NOM going to spin THIS?  .   .   .   .   I have spoken to the Kannopolis, North Carolina police department and they are looking into what will be classified a crime if the shotgun was fired onto property that includes a home or business. Kannopolis is 20 minutes outside of Charlotte, .  .  .  

The simple truth - as the Times duly noted - is that Amendment One and similar laws are based on hate and contempt for the civil rights of others, be it in terms of freedom of religion or freedom of speech.  The far right constitute a clear and present danger to constitutional government and religious freedom for ALL citizens.  Here's a video clip of the anti-gay douche bag:

Walking While Black - Bigotry is Alive and Well in America

The tragic death - actually, murder seems a more appropriate term from the facts available - of 17 year old Trayvon Martin continues to make headlines and put in sharp detail the continued hate and bigotry still too prevalent in American society. Especially, the so-called conservative elements of society that rally to the GOP message of hate and the playbook of God, guns and gays. This sickness of having to have others to look down upon and hate in order to feel good about one's self is the common thread that traces through the undisguised anti-immigrant, anti-black, anti-gay - even anti-woman mindset that are the pillars of Republican Party policy and the "purity tests" of the white males who predominate the GOP. This inability and/or refusal to see the humanity of others is both scary and disturbing. Eugene Robinson has a column in the Washington Post that looks at the frightening reality faced by black males in America. Here are some highlights:

For every black man in America, from the millionaire in the corner office to the mechanic in the local garage, the Trayvon Martin tragedy is personal. It could have been me or one of my sons. It could have been any of us.

How many George Zimmermans are out there cruising the streets? How many guys with chips on their shoulders and itchy fingers on the triggers of loaded handguns? How many self-imagined guardians of the peace who say the words “black male” with a sneer?

We don’t yet know every detail of the encounter between Martin and Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., that ended with an unarmed 17-year-old high school student being shot dead. But we know enough to conclude that this is an old, familiar story.

We know from tapes of Zimmerman’s 911 call that he initiated the encounter, having decided that Martin’s presence in the neighborhood was suspicious. We know that when Zimmerman told the 911 operator that he was following Martin, the operator responded, “Okay, we don’t need you to do that.” We know that Zimmerman kept following Martin anyway.

“This guy looks like he is up to no good,” Zimmerman said on the 911 tape. Please tell me, what would be the innocent way to walk down the street with an iced tea and some Skittles? Hint: For black men, that’s a trick question.

Some commentators have sought to liken Martin’s killing to the 1955 murder of Emmett Till . . . When Till was killed in Mississippi at 14 — accused of flirting with a white woman — this was a different country. State-sanctioned terrorism and assassination were official policy throughout the South.

I hear from people who contend that racism no longer exists in this country. I tell them I wish they were right. Does it matter that Zimmerman is himself a member of a minority group — he is Hispanic — or that his family says he has black friends? Not in the least. The issue isn’t Zimmerman’s race or ethnicity; it’s the hair-trigger assumption he made that “black male” equals “up to no good.” This is one thing that hasn’t changed in all the eventful years since Emmett Till’s mutilated body was laid to rest.

Whether Zimmerman can or should be prosecuted, given Florida’s “stand your ground” law providing broad latitude to claim self-defense, is an important question. But the tragic and essential thing, for me, is the bull’s-eye that black men wear throughout their lives — and the vital imperative to never, ever, be caught on the wrong street at the wrong time.

Unlike blacks, gays can "pass" much of the time. But that doesn't mean there isn't often an undercurrent of fear in some settings. As recent anti-gay assaults in Washington, D.C., have underscored, like being black, simply being gay can put one's life in danger. Generally, one doesn't worry about it - not until you're being mocked and jeered in uncomfortable settings by folks who cheer on politicians like Rick Santorum - or even the local police as once happened to me right in Norfolk. Then the fear becomes palpable and one feels what Robinson describes..

GOP: Ghastly Out Dated Party

As the Republican Party continues to stampede back towards the 11th Century, some Americans seem to be waking up to the reality that the GOP is totally out of touch with reality. Or at least any semblance of a modern day reality. At best, the GOP seems to want to return to the 1950's with all its glory: segregation, back alley abortions, bans on interracial marriage, gays force totally into the closet and subject to rampant discrimination, and clergy sexually molesting children and youth with impunity and little likelihood of being held to accountability. Obviously, the GOP's image of a golden age wasn't so golden for many Americans. Maureen Dowd looks at the GOP in a cutting column in the New York Times. Here are some excerpts:

IT’S finally sinking in. Republicans are getting queasy at the gruesome sight of their party eating itself alive, savaging the brand in ways that will long resonate.

“Republicans being against sex is not good,” the G.O.P. strategist Alex Castellanos told me mournfully. “Sex is popular.” He said his party is “coming to grips with a weaker field than we’d all want” and going through the five stages of grief. “We’re at No. 4,” he said. (Depression.) “We’ve still got one to go.” (Acceptance.)

The contenders in the Hester Prynne primaries are tripping over one another trying to be the most radical, unreasonable and insane candidate they can be. They pounce on any traces of sanity in the other candidates — be it humanity toward women, compassion toward immigrants or the willingness to make the rich pay a nickel more in taxes — and try to destroy them with it.

Newt Gingrich, a war wimp in Vietnam who supported W.’s trumped-up invasion of Iraq, had the gall to tell a crowd at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., that defeating Obama — “the most dangerous president in modern American history” — was “a duty of national security” because “he is incapable of defending the United States” and because he “wants to unilaterally weaken the United States.” Who killed Osama again?

“It makes the party look like it isn’t a modern party,” Rudy Giuliani told CNN’s Erin Burnett, fretting about the candidates’ Cotton Mather attitude about women and gays. “It doesn’t understand the modern world that we live in.”

After a speech in Dallas on Thursday, Jeb Bush also recoiled: “I used to be a conservative, and I watch these debates and I’m wondering, I don’t think I’ve changed, but it’s a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people’s fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective.”

Republicans have a growing panic at the thought of going down the drain with a loser, missing their chance at capturing the Senate and giving back all those House seats won in 2010. More and more, they openly yearn for a fresh candidate, including Jeb Bush, who does, after all, have experience at shoplifting presidential victories at the last minute.

Santorum, whose name aptly comes from the same Latin root as sanctimonious, went on Glenn Beck’s Web-based show with his family and offered this lunacy: “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college,” because colleges are “indoctrination mills” that “harm” the country.

The barking-mad Republicans of Virginia are helping to make the party look foolish and creepy. A video went viral on Friday in which Delegate Dave Albo comically regaled his fellow lawmakers on the floor of the Statehouse with his own Old Dominion version of “Lysistrata”: he suggested that he was denied sex with his wife because of a Republican-sponsored bill that would have made ultrasounds, often with a vaginal probe, mandatory for women seeking abortions.

The Republicans, with their crazed Reagan fixation, are a last-gasp party, living posthumously, fighting battles on sex, race, immigration and public education long ago won by the other side. They’re trying to roll back the clock, but time is passing them by.

I'm glad Maureen gave the Virginia GOP its due recognition for being a leader in utter insanity and backwardness.

Bad News for Taliban Bob - Good News for America

As I've noted before, Virginia Governor Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell has ambitions to be the GOP vice presidential nominee. Apparently, McDonnell has been drinking lots of Kool-Aid because he polled pitifully in a weekend CPAC poll and in national polling. The chart above tells the tale. The positive side of the polling news is that the extreme reactionary agenda that McDonnell and the Republican Party of Virginia are inflicting on the Commonwealth - it will soon be easier to by a gun than to go to the polls and vote - may not be allowed to try to go nationwide. Personally, I hope the anti-gay bigotry, religious based discrimination and voter suppression legislation McDonnell is overseeing comes back to bite him in the ass big time.

Hate Speech Has Consequences - Especially When Combined with Guns

A few days ago I wrote about nutcase Arizona Pastor Steve Anderson - yep the same guy who advocates the execution of gays and wants Obama dead - and now it turns out that one of the gun carrying fruit loops that appeared at a townhall meeting on health care reform attends Pastor Anderson's Kool-Aid cafe parish. People and the MSM in particular try to laugh off these loons, but I see them as a clear and present danger. Do we really need those who hold lunatic beliefs and have a persecution complex walking around with assault weapons? I think not and it is only a question of time before some religiously motivated far right individual goes over the edge and things get violent. Personally, I do not believe anyone needs to own an assault weapon and this guy is a case in point. Here are some highlights from Crooks & Liars:

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So it turns out that Contessa Brewer had good reason to see a connection between the rabidly hateful rhetoric spewed by the likes of Pastor Steven Anderson and the angry, gun-toting protesters turning out for presidential events: One of the most prominent of these, an African-American man named "Chris", is in fact a member of Pastor Anderson's congregation. "Chris" was on Alex Jones' "Prison Planet" radio show late last week and discussed how "my pastor was beaten up" at a Border Patrol checkpoint.

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Yes, that pastor is indeed Steven Anderson, who was arrested in April by the Border Patrol for being uncooperative at a patrol checkpoint. Anderson attempted to make himself something of a national martyr to the conspiracists out there by posting a video to YouTube about it that quickly went viral.

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The funny thing about these gun-toting protesters is that they like to portray themselves as being simple, honest defenders of their gun rights when they show up for public events, especially those featuring the president, packing heat publicly. They adamantly deny that they're bringing their guns to intimidate their fellow citizens from speaking out with a contrary view. But this is beyond disingenuous; it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the vast majority of the people who attend a public debate will perceive someone with a gun as someone they should fear -- particularly if they have an opposing view.

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Moreover, these gun-toters want to assure us they pose no threat whatsoever to either the president or his supporters by bringing these guns. They're just ordinary citizens standing up for their rights, right? The Secret Service need have no fear about their motives. But then we find out that at least one of them ardently admires a pastor who preaches how much he hates Obama and wishes him dead, in order "to save this country." And we're supposed to tell these "innocent" gun nuts from the people who might actually aim their weapons at the president how?

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Yes, America has always had a lunatic fringe, but these folks honestly frighten me. I believe some of them are ticking time bombs waiting to go off. I believe we need some serious gun control legislation that takes assault weapons out of the hands of potential crazies. Here's a reminder of Pastor Anderson's and his flock's message of "love:"

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Hillary's Serious Gay Problem (Updated)

It seems more and more people and blogs are waking up to the fact that Hillary Clinton - despite all her self-serving claims to the contrary and occasional appearance at a pride event - is no true friend of the LGBT community. Except when she wants money, of course. Hence why the LGBT community is invisible on her campaign web site and why she struggles to even say the word "gay" even when doing a pre-arranged interview with a gay media outlet. Now Daily Kos has piled on further with an updated look at Hillary's "gay problem" - and it is rather scathing. It is nice to see others coming to the hold the view of Hillary that I have long held. She is a cynical opportunist who cares nothing for the LGBT community when push comes to shove. Here are some Daily Kos highlights:

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In Hillary Clinton's disturbing attempt to rebrand herself as a Bible-totin', gun-slinging Annie Oakley, complete with right-wing talking points, I guess it's not surprising that gays would end up with the short end of the stick in Camp Clinton these days. Hillary has given lip service to supporting GLBT rights, but her actions over the past few months - not to mention the past few decades - have shown that Hillary is not only trying to distance herself from the gay community and GLBT issues but has done her best to use anti-gay sentiment to her advantage. There's a disturbing pattern at work here, folks, that should outrage any true Democrat who cares about equality.

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As a gay man who has fought hard for GLBT rights my entire life, I am frankly a bit mystified by the conventional wisdom I have heard over that past few months that the GLBT community is more strongly behind Hillary than Obama. I have not seen any hard numbers to back up that claim, and I certainly have not seen that play out in my own life. Most of the gay folks I know can't stand Hillary.) And Hillary's conduct in this campaign certainly give me cause for concern.

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Setting aside the fact that Bill Clinton's presidency brought us two of the worst pieces of anti-gay federal legislation this country has ever seen: Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act - with nary a peep of protest from Hillary - Hillary's own actions during this campaign should give pause to anyone who cares about GLBT rights.

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Even in front of a gay-friendly audience, Hillary seems afraid to use the word "gay" (and you can forget about using the word "lesbian.") Exactly why is Hillary afraid of any video footage floating around that shows her uttering the word "gay"??? Inquiring minds want to know. Out-and-proud Pam Spauding over at Pam's House Blend . . . noted that Hillary is clearly trying to use anti-gay tactics to win over the Bubba vote: "Take the homo money and run, as it were."