Gay couple's photo offends many (as this letter will insult you and me and...)

On Christmas Day and again on Jan. 7, the Daily Herald included a photo and blurb (Back Page section) about homosexuals Lindsay Lohan and her lover Samantha Ronson. Publicizing the couple's news was a multiple-prong offense against many.

The December inclusion occurred on what is predominantly a day centered around the family. Given that homosexual relationships are a truculent contrast to the traditional family unit, the photo and blurb essentially mocked the values of a large swath of Daily Herald readers. The newspaper's offense was determinedly underscored by its treatment of this relationship as normal and acceptable. Homosexual relationships are indisputably abnormal, and their acceptance is refuted by the controversy that envelops them. Having codified the homosexual couple's news in the same section as heterosexual couples' news was like commingling reports of depravity with stories of Boy Scouts and making no distinction between the two.

Yet homosexual relationships are not like heterosexual ones: one defies nature, is anatomically incongruent, and it contravenes societal mores in every country. The other conforms to nature's intent, is a perfect physical match, and is a universally accepted practice. The newspaper's juxtaposition of the two types, therefore, was a specious comparison and an insult to heterosexuals.

Including the couple's news also extended legitimacy to this sexually disordered type of relationship. Legitimacy in relationships that rankle mainstream sensibilities is, however, difficult to find. This couple's news, presented as it was in an untainted light, served to reframe sexually disoriented relationships as being respectable. Such reframing showed a disregard for convention, it was inappropriate, and it was cause for indignation.

Ken Libowicz

Hoffman Estates

 See Gay couple's photo offends many
Chicago Daily Herald, IL -

Weekend Opinionator: Barack Obama, Culture Warrior?

Remember the Culture Wars? They made the 1990s a grand time to be in the opinion business, and with the return of the Democrats to the White House and the rancor over California’s proposition 8, one might have expected to see the battle rejoined. Oddly, however, there has been a steadily growing feeling among the blogocracy that Barack Obama is the sole person with the power to take the nation above the fray. Andrew Sullivan wrote this more than a year ago in the Atlantic:

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce.

The discussion got a jump-start this week in the form of a column in the Daily Beast by Peter Beinart, the former New Republic editor, arguing that “when it comes to culture, Obama doesn’t have a public agenda; he has a public anti-agenda. He wants to remove culture from the political debate.”

 See Weekend Opinionator: Barack Obama, Culture Warrior?
New York Times, United States

"Everything But Marriage" bill

Providing security, second-class security

Editor, The Times:

Today I was pleased to celebrate the future rights of gays and lesbians in Washington state through the "Everything But Marriage" bill ["Domestic-partnership bill would expand protections," Times, Local News, Jan. 28]. While the passage of this bill will help Washington's lesbian and gay communities find much-needed security in these uncertain times, I am saddened by the second-class-citizen status domestic partnerships provide.

It is time for Washingtonians to give their hardworking neighbors, friends, co-workers and family the same dignity and respect of different-sex couples by granting full marriage equality. We need this legal protection now more than ever.

The Washington I know and love has a welcoming heart and an open mind. I believe with your help my family will finally be treated as full and equal citizens.

Please help us reach our goal of full-marriage equality by volunteering, donating money or simply engaging in positive conversations about the issues with your friends and family as we move toward full equality. The gay and lesbian communities will be forever grateful for your help and friendship.

-- Joseph Mirabella, Seattle

 See "Everything But Marriage" bill
Seattle Times, United States -

Gay mayor receives one LGBT paper's backing

A day after a California gay paper called on embattled openly gay Portland Mayor Sam Adams to resign, Washington, D.C. based gay paper the Washington Blade came out in support of the politician.

In an editorial in the paper’s January 30 edition, Blade editor Kevin Naff admonished Adams for lying about a sexual affair he had with an 18-year-old when confronted about it during his campaign last year. And he was also critical of the mayor for asking his young paramour, Beau Breedlove, to also lie about the true nature of their relationship.

But Naff wrote that he saw no need for Adams to step down.

 See Gay mayor receives one LGBT paper’s backing
Bay Area Reporter, CA -

DINALLY: Dems Play Hardball: Target Republican Senators For Stimulus Support (VIDEO)

Democrats are planning to aggressively target vulnerable Republican Senators on the stimulus package passed by the House Wednesday night without any GOP support. Greg Sargent has the adSee Dems Play Hardball: Target Republican Senators For Stimulus Support (VIDEO)

Right attacking stimulus money for health programs

Matt Drudge already collected one scalp in the battle over the stimulus package that will be voted on in the House today. After he highlighted money for family planning programs in the bill, Republicans started an outcry, and President Obama prevailed upon congressional Democrats to strike the provision. Now, he's eyeing another part of the legislation that provides for healthcare funding, specifically $335 million for STD education and prevention programs.

In his "flash" on the subject, Drudge writes:

In the past, the CDC has used STD education funding for programs that many Members of Congress find objectionable and arguably unrelated to a mission of economic stimulus [such as funding events called 'Booty Call' and 'Great Sex' put on by an organization that received $698,000 in government funds.]

"Whether this funding has merit is not the question; the point is it has no business in an economic plan supposedly focused on job creation," says a stimulated Hill source.

Over at the Corner, one of the National Review's blogs, Byron York took up the fight, and extended it, writing, "just looking at the part of the bill concerning some of the 'stimulus' money that would go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pretty amazing." Then, referencing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's fight against the Clinton administration's healthcare reform package, York added, "He didn't have to spin it for people if he could just get them to read what was actually in Mrs. Clinton's proposal. Now Republicans are asking the same thing again: Read the bill."

I took York's advice and read the section of the bill he posted -- turns out it's actually pretty impressive. First of all, the money that goes to these programs will mean new jobs. There are the additional people who'll be needed for administration, of course, as well as additional doctors and researchers. There will also be, to borrow a phrase, a trickle-down effect: Money for vaccinating uninsured children, for instance, means more vaccinations will be produced, which means there'll be more jobs producing and distributing the vaccines.

 See Right attacking stimulus money for health programs

The Anti-Stimulus Crowd Blows a Gasket

Published on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

by Dean Baker

The anti-stimulus crowd is getting desperate. The possibility that a young charismatic new president will push through an ambitious package that begins to set the economy right is truly terrifying to this crew. After all, if the economy begins to turn around and has largely recovered in three or four years, the Republican leadership can look forward to spending most of their careers in the political wilderness.

President Obama will cakewalk to re-election, and even his designated successor will be able to benefit from the glow of his success. If the New Deal serves as precedent, Congress will stay in Democratic hands long past the time that the current leaders of the Republican Party start collecting their pensions.

This explains the need that many Republicans feel to block the stimulus package. This desperation led them to fabricate a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which purportedly showed that most of the stimulus would not be spent in 2009, or even in 2010. Based on this report, they argued that President Obama's stimulus would do little to boost the economy out of recession. The Republicans managed to get a story to this effect in The Washington Post, in addition to extensive coverage in other major news outlets.

The only problem is that there was no CBO report. The CBO had done some very preliminary analysis of a package that was loosely modeled on a portion of President Obama's program. This preliminary analysis was done at the request of members of Congress to give them what was available at the time. It was not a full analysis that had gone through the CBO's normal review process, and was not posted on its web site where it could be assessed by budget analysts and the general public.

In short, this analysis was clearly not ready for prime time. But, when you're as desperate as the Republican leadership, you take what you can get. Unfortunately, many in the media got taken by this ploy and now have egg on their face as well.

The CBO will produce an analysis this week that examines the most recent version of the full stimulus bill. This analysis will provide a much more serious basis for assessing the proposals than the CBO "report" invented by the Republican leadership. It will provide a full analysis of the proposal, including an explanation of the methodology that the CBO used in its calculations.

In this respect, it is important to caution against one possible limitation of the CBO methodology. The CBO typically relies on rules of thumb in calculating spendout rates for types of projects.

For example, as a rule of thumb, the spending for highways in the first year after an appropriation may be just a small percentage of the total cost of the highway, with spending in the second year being a little bit higher. It takes time to plan a highway and to bid out contracts. Based on analysis of the time between the passage of appropriations and the actual spending, the CBO can project the time period over which a wide range of appropriations will actually be spent.

However, these rules of thumbs are likely to understate the spendout rate for the projects chosen as part of the stimulus package. These projects are being selected specifically because they are ready to go, with plans already in hand and contracts ready to be submitted for bids.

Furthermore, because of the severity of the economic downturn, contractors are likely to be able to move much more quickly than would usually be the case. Typically, contractors will have to find time to fit a government project in their queue of other work. With the sharp downturn in the construction sector, there are likely to be plenty of contractors who are ready to move almost immediately after a contract is signed.

Finally, the bill threatens state and local governments with the loss of funding if they do not move quickly to spend any money appropriated. For these reasons, the CBO's rules of thumb on spendout rates may substantially understate the amount of spending that will be carried through in the next two years.

The Republicans have raised a serious issue in questioning the rate at which the stimulus will be spent. The plan should be scrutinized to determine if there are not ways to get money into the economy more quickly. But this effort requires looking at evidence and data, not invented CBO reports.

 

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer ( www.conservativenannystate.org) and the more recently published Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of The Bubble Economy. He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.

Fox News Piles on Rynerson

 

By Thomas Francis in Politics

I bet Jack Seiler, Dean Trantalis, and Steve Rossi all have some familiarity with porn. The difference between those three candidates and the fourth candidate for Fort Lauderdale mayor is a paper trail: Rynerson's credit card statements contain charges that can be traced back to pornographic websites. Since the credit card is part of a civil case, the statements are public record

Juice was the first site to independently research the charges, and I've been told that copies of this Dec. 31 post were placed on cars parked outside a church where a mayoral candidates' forum was held.

Now Fox News has put an Earl Rynerson story on the front page of its website, and the Sun-Sentinel has posted a video: The subject of both? Those racy credit card charges.

Rynerson hasn't been returning my calls, which is a shame, because I suspect he knows exactly who's behind the whisper campaign that brought these rumors to light. In this instance, the rumor was that something sinister and scandalous was in Rynerson's public record. But while the material was salacious, it wasn't scandalous. Rynerson is openly gay and the porn sites appear legal. So it would be a shame if any voter who was leaning to Rynerson changed his or her mind based on these revelations. Let he (or she) who is without porn, throw the first stone!
 See Fox News Piles on Rynerson Broward New Times

Dr. and Mrs. King's words give insight into stance on gay rights

In his column "Gay rights debate: dream of fairness" (Jan. 20), Phillip Morris found himself confused about the status of gay and lesbian Americans and wondered what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. might have thought. I did some research to document that Dr. King and his widow shared their ideas on this topic many times.

My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' Like Martin, I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

-- Coretta Scott King, Introduction of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1994, at June 23, 1994, in Washington D.C.

Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.

-- Coretta Scott King, in a speech at the Palmer Hilton Hotel, quoted in the Chicago Defender, April 1, 1998

Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married. Why don't you want your fellow men and women, your fellow Americans to be happy? Why do you attack them? Why do you want to destroy the love they hold in their hearts?

-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on marriage

Morris seems to have aligned himself with the Rev. C.J. Matthews, the opponent of Cleveland's domestic partner registry. The registry costs money for a nonbinding sheet of paper that is not a civil partnership, not a marriage certificate and is worthless in a court of law, church or temple. It is the smallest bone Ohio could throw to our community in hopes of retaining or attracting educated, human capital. While not ideal, it is one positive step forward for LGBT families.

See Dr. and Mrs. King's words give insight into stance on gay rights
The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com, OH 

Now, about gay marriage

Pastor Rick Warren, the famous leader of Lake Forest's Saddleback Church, became a lightning rod in the same-sex marriage controversy when he was chosen to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration. Yet he didn't give his opponents anything to shout about Tuesday, offering a prayer that was short, inspirational and above all uncontroversial. That points up an uncomfortable truth for proponents of gay rights: Warren may not be as big a problem as the president he blessed.

Warren, who has infuriated many by equating homosexual unions with incest, child molestation and polygamy, is entitled to his religious beliefs. President Obama is too, but on Tuesday he swore allegiance to a document quite separate from the Bible: the U.S. Constitution, which forbids all forms of discrimination. Obama showed how clearly he understood that in his inaugural address, when he said: "The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." See Now, about gay marriage
Los Angeles Times, CA

Darwin detractors loose one in Texas

EDUCATION -- 'STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES' OF EVOLUTION REMOVED FROM TEXAS CURRICULUM: Yesterday, Texas's state board of education voted 8-1 against an amendment that would have maintained discussion of evolution's "strengths and weaknesses" in Texas classrooms. The phrase had been included in the state biology curriculum until a panel of teachers proposed removing it last September.  Predictably, social conservatives "lobbied heavily" against the change. Board member Cynthia Dunbar (R) made the motion for the amendment, which was defeated by a vote of  eight-to-seven.  The vote was particularly significant because "Texas is one of the nation's biggest buyers of textbooks, and publishers are reluctant to produce different versions of the same material." As a result, other states are often forced to comply with Texas's standards. Dunbar claimed that the debate over "strengths and weaknesses" was not an issue of religion, but rather of free speech. Fellow board member Ken Mercer (R) argued that removing the controversial language from the curriculum constituted persecution against Christians. But supporters of the change say that "strengths and weaknesses" is simply a slogan designed to sneak creationism into classrooms. "These weaknesses that they bring forward are decades old, and they have been refuted many, many times over," said Kevin Fisher, former president of the Science Teachers Association of Texas. "It's an attempt to bring false weaknesses into the classroom in an attempt to get students to reject evolution."

Right-Wing Myths About The Stimulus

Last week, House Democrats released an $825 billion economic recovery package, which consists of $550 billion in government spending and $275 billion in tax cuts. The provisions in the plan were marked up by various congressional committees this week, with the goal of passing a full stimulus package sometime in mid-February. Though they voiced some support when President Obama initially laid out his vision for a stimulus plan, conservatives balked upon seeing the bill that emerged from the House. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) made his opposition known by simply saying "Oh. My. God." Conservatives have coalesced around "alternative" stimulus proposals like one crafted by the Republican Study Committee (RSC). But in their opposition, conservatives have propagated several myths about the stimulus and its potential effect on the economy. Here are the three most prominent conservative stimulus myths, and why they amount to nothing more than hot air.

 

MYTH 1 -- SPENDING IS NOT STIMULATIVE: In response to the stimulus plan, conservatives on the House Budget Committee released a report stating that the proposal "pours taxpayers' money" into projects, "many of which may be worthy in themselves, but have little to do with 'stimulating' the economy." Harvard professor Robert Barro derided the plan as "voodoo economics," while right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin claimed that it will "at most be useless." However, an analysis by Moody's Economy.com found that government spending results in more significant "bang for the buck." For every dollar invested in specific types of spending, the boost in real GDP is more than $1.30. The most benefit comes from extending unemployment benefits ($1.64) and increasing food stamps ($1.73), but strong returns result from infrastructure investment ($1.59) and aid to state and local governments ($1.36), as well. Furthermore, Moody's also noted, "A well-timed, targeted, and temporary stimulus could in fact cost the Treasury less in the long run, since a debilitating recession would severely undermine tax revenues and prompt more government spending for longer." Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's and former adviser to Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) presidential campaign, released his analysis of the House plan on Wednesday, and concluded that it would "provide a vital boost to the flagging economy," without which full employment would not return until 2014.
 
MYTH 2 -- STIMULUS WON'T CREATE JOBS: Last week, Boehner claimed, "When it comes to slow-moving government spending programs, it's clear that it doesn't create the jobs or preserve the jobs that need to happen." Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said that "even if consumption were to bump up, it would not lead businesses to expand and to add jobs." However, as former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich explained, "The stimulus plan will create jobs repairing and upgrading the nation's roads, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewage system, public-transit systems, electricity grid, and schools." It stands to reason that investing in infrastructure is going to lead to job creation, as someone needs to be hired to actually complete the various projects. By investing $100 billion in clean energy infrastructure alone, the Center for American Progress (CAP) has estimated that 2 million jobs can be created in the next two years. Aid to states through bolstering Medicaid also "generates business and gets people into jobs," as a recent report by Families USA showed: "The new dollars pass from one person to another in successive rounds of spending, generating additional business activity, jobs, and wages that would not otherwise be produced." Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Christina Romer and Vice President Biden aide Jared Bernstein, meanwhile -- by using the "1% of GDP equals 1 million jobs rule of thumb" -- estimated that a stimulus plan will create or save three million jobs. According to their calculations, "30% of the jobs created will be in construction and manufacturing," while "the other two significant sectors that are disproportionately represented in job creation are retail trade and leisure and hospitality."

 

MYTH 3 -- PERMANENT TAX CUTS ARE THE BEST STIMULUS: The only stimulus idea that conservatives are wholeheartedly supporting is permanent tax cuts. At a hearing before the RSC, Romney, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist all claimed that the stimulus should include permanent corporate tax cuts, while Barro claimed that fully "eliminating the federal corporate income tax would be brilliant." But CAP'sWill Straw explained, "The track record for such steps is poor in general, but they are particularly ill-suited for a recessionary period. After all, the reason that businesses and individuals are not investing at the moment has little to do with the taxes they may pay in the future and everything to do with a fear of losing money because there is no demand in the economy." The Heritage Foundation, meanwhile, proposed an "alternative" to the House stimulus: "permanent tax reductions such as the ones Congress passed in 2003." "Tax cuts like those have a proven track record of encouraging economic growth," wrote Heritage. But this is simply the same supply-side approach adopted by the Bush administration, and the evidence that it helps economic growth is "weak at best." An analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund shows that every $10 billion spent on this kind of cut would create or save just 10,000 jobs, "versus nearly 60,000 jobs which could be created or saved by extending unemployment benefits and food stamps or investing directly in energy, transportation and education infrastructure." Furthermore, permanent measures will exacerbate the long-term debt much more than temporary measures will

Obama provides hope for gays, lesbians

San Francisco -- Hope - and the idea that the country's new leader would break down barriers of discrimination - overshadowed the disappointment many gays and lesbians felt as the Rev. Rick Warren, an outspoken critic of same sex-marriage, gave the invocation at President Obama's inauguration Tuesday.

"I am completely hopeful, optimistic, relieved, enthusiastic, even knowing that he's going to disappoint," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Obama's decision to tap Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County who has growing influence in the nation's evangelical community, dampened Kendell's expectations "of how culturally competent Obama is on gay and lesbian issues," she said. "That said, I think it's a reminder of how much work we have to do."

On the signature issue of today's gay rights movement - same-sex marriage - Obama is opposed, but at the same time doesn't support enshrining a ban in the U.S. Constitution.

He also has called for a repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and the "Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell" policy that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. And he believes the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act should be expanded to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

"I am hopeful that we will be an important part of the tapestry that is being woven by this administration," said San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who is gay.

 See Obama provides hope for gays, lesbians
San Francisco Chronicle,  USA 

Obama's gay-marriage waffle

On the heels of Pastor Rick Warren's invocation, Obama should drop the semantics and acknowledge that denying same-sex marriage is discriminatory. See Obama's gay-marriage waffle
Los Angeles Times, CA 

Analysis: Obama's comprehensive support for gay equality PinkNews.co.uk

What can lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans Americans expect from the new President of the United States?

Barack Obama, who will take the oath of office tomorrow afternoon at noon (5pm GMT), is the most gay-friendly politician to lead America.

During his campaign for the White House, the former Senator from Illinois spoke about his personal friendship with gay people.

"Michelle and I have been blessed with many openly gay and lesbian friends and colleagues whom we have been close to for many years," he revealed in a series of written answers to a gay newspaper.

"While that fact has made the issue facing the LGBT community more personal, the fundamental reasons I have for supporting equality are greater than any individual.

 See Analysis: Obama's comprehensive support for gay equality PinkNews.co.uk

Tintin gay? No way!

Former MP and noted British columnist Matthew Paris, recently came up with his theory that the teenage reporter is ‘gay’. This sent millions of fans into a speculative frenzy. Such sensational remarks are not new. Decades ago, the creators of Batman and Robin had to face rumours that there was a homosexual relation between the two characters. And more recently, iconic author JK Rowling shocked millions of Potter fans by proclaiming that their beloved Hogwarts head-master Albus Dumbledore, was gay. So, how do fans in Chennai react to such claims?

Kicking off the debate on Tintin’s orientation, actor Shaam confesses to be quite astounded on hearing this news. “Never in my dreams would I have thought Tintin would be gay. Just because his best friend is a male sailor, it does not mean that he shares any romantic feelings for Haddock. I simply cannot digest this theory,” he says. However, Jude, a college student thinks there is a valid point behind the theory. “It does sound far-fetched at first, but many of his characteristic such as his androgynous appearance, queer sense of dressing and the lack of any female love-interests in his life, do hint at homosexual undertones. So, the gay theory does seem quite plausible.” His college-mate Titus however is firmly at odds with this view. “I disagree with this ludicrous theory. This so-called scholar has no right to malign the product of someone else’s creativity and tarnish an image in front of fans,” he says.

To many comic fans, this latest controversy surrounding Tintin may bring about a change that the Batman and Robin comics experienced many years ago. Their creators had to invent female characters like Catwoman and Batgirl as their respective love-interests. However, fans of the caped crusader feel the concern is totally baseless. Pawan, an ardent comic lover feels, “Considering that Batman was created primarily to cater to a young teenage audience, such irresponsible comments will only pose the danger of distorting the mindsets of children.” His sentiments are echoed by Spurgeon, who wonders, “How can anyone have the right to pass such adverse statements without ever knowing the actual intentions of the creator of these characters?”  See Tintin gay? No way!
Times of India, India 

Lowery's Preaching, Not Warren's, Will Illuminate Inaugural Day The Nation.

No one should be surprised that President-elect Barack Obama would choose self-promoting Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inaugural. Warren has been hustling for years to make himself the "new Billy Graham" -- seeking to fill the vacating role of spiritual adviser to presidents, be they born-again Republicans or born-right-the-first-time Democrats.

Obama, always on the watch for ways to broaden his base of support, has been developing a relationship with Warren for many years, as he has with other fundamentalist preachers who try to put a smile on their intolerance.

Back in December 2006, when he was merely a senator with unannounced presidential ambitions, Obama delivered a smart, sensitive address at Warren's "2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church," a high-profile event on the pastor's Saddleback Church campus in Lake Forest, Calif.

Twenty months later, as the soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee, Obama went back to Saddleback for an unfortunate joint appearance with Republican John McCain -- the last major misstep of the senator's bid for the nation's top job.

Past is prologue, and Obama's dalliances with Warren, for better or worse, always pointed to the placement of this particular pastor on the inaugural stage.

What will be significant about Warren's remarks, however, is that they will be so insignificant.

Warren's invocation will be forgotten five minutes after it is finished.

Indeed, the only "news" that will come from his appearance at the inaugural is the controversy surrounding it -- and the protests that controversy may spark.

Far more significant, and encouraging, than his off-putting selection of Warren to deliver the invocation is Obama's choice of a genuine spiritual progressive to deliver the benediction.

It is the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery who will present the far more uplifting and meaningful religious message on Inauguration Day. And in his appealing selection of the 87-year-old Lowery, Obama has made a choice that is far more adventurous -- even, dare we say, radical -- than his unappealing designation of Warren.

Lowery was the longtime president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he co-founded in 1957, before Obama was born, with the Revs. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth. An essential player in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Lowery was sent by King to deliver the demands of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march to Alabama's segregationist governor, George Wallace, and it was to Lowery that Wallace apologized three decades later.

Long after King and most of the other founding fathers of the civil rights movement had been buried, Lowery carried on the struggle. He led the 1982 drive to extend the federal Voting Rights Act. In 2005, when it came time to renew the act once more, Lowery famously cornered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a memorial service for Rosa Parks to ask for maintaining voting rights protections. Why did Lowery choose so somber a setting to make his appeal to the most prominent African-American member of President Bush's Cabinet? "Because I knew she could not move," he explained.

 See Lowery's Preaching, Not Warren's, Will Illuminate Inaugural Day The Nation.

Far right slams Krispy Kreme celebrating our "freedom of choice" on Inauguration Day

Our favorite - Krispy Kreme - is offering a free doughnut to every customer next Tuesday in honor of Barack Obama's inauguration.

But no good deed goes unpunished by the "Christian" right.

It seems the phrasing of the company's announcement -- "Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. is honoring Americans'... freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer" -- made Judie Brown, the president of American Life League, an antiabortion group, mad. So she released a statement in which she said:

The next time you stare down a conveyor belt of slow-moving, hot, sugary glazed donuts at your local Krispy Kreme, you just might be supporting President-elect Barack Obama's radical support for abortion on demand - including his sweeping promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as soon as he steps in the Oval Office, Jan. 20...

Just an unfortunate choice of words? For the sake of our Wednesday morning doughnut runs, we hope so. The unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that "choice" is synonymous with abortion access, and celebration of "freedom of choice" is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand.

President-elect Barack Obama promises to be the most virulently pro-abortion president in history. Millions more children will be endangered by his radical abortion agenda.

Celebrating his inauguration with "Freedom of Choice" doughnuts -- only two days before the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to decriminalize abortion -- is not only extremely tacky, it's disrespectful and insensitive and makes a mockery of a national tragedy...

As of Thursday morning, communications director Brian Little could not be reached for comment. We challenge Krispy Kreme doughnuts to reaffirm their commitment to true freedom - to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - and to separate themselves and their doughnuts from our great American shame.

Op-Contributor Gay but Equal?

By MARY FRANCES BERRY

Philadelphia

AS the country prepares to enter the Obama era, anxiety over the legal status and rights of gays and lesbians is growing. Barack Obama’s invitation to the Rev. Rick Warren, an evangelical pastor who opposes same-sex marriage, to give the invocation at his inauguration comes just as the hit movie “Milk” reminds us of the gay rights activism of the 1970s. Supporters of gay rights wonder if the California Supreme Court might soon confirm the legitimacy of Proposition 8, passed by state voters in November, which declares same-sex marriage illegal — leaving them no alternative but to take to the streets.

To help resolve the issue of gay rights, President-elect Obama should abolish the now moribund Commission on Civil Rights and replace it with a new commission that would address the rights of many groups, including gays.

The fault lines beneath the debate over gay rights are jagged and deep. Federal Social Security and tax benefits from marriage that straight people take for granted are denied to most gays in committed relationships. And because Congress has failed to enact a federal employment nondiscrimination act, bias against gays in the workplace remains a constant threat.

Gays are at risk under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. And people who are only assumed to be homosexual have been subject to hate crimes. José and Romel Sucuzhañay, two brothers, were attacked in New York City last month by men yelling anti-gay and anti-Latino epithets. José Sucuzhañay died from being beaten with a bottle and a baseball bat. Yet the effort in Congress to enact a law that would increase the punishment for hate crimes against gays and lesbians is going nowhere.

Only two states, Massachusetts and Connecticut, permit gay marriage. New York acknowledges marriages from those states and from other countries, despite the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which was meant to allow other states not to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. Vermont, New Jersey and New Hampshire permit civil unions, which provide gay partners the rights, protections and responsibilities of marriage. On the other hand, a referendum that just passed in Arkansas goes beyond banning gay marriage to prohibit the adoption of children by unmarried couples. Mississippi, Florida and Utah have similar bans. And many Americans believe their religion forbids gay marriage or even civil unions.

In the 1950s, race relations in America generated escalating tension and strife. As Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told President Dwight Eisenhower, other nations vilified us for our treatment of “negroes” as less-than-first-class citizens. It was in this context that Congress, in 1957, granted Eisenhower’s request for an independent civil rights commission to “put the facts on top of the table.”

The commission conducted interviews and public hearings, prepared detailed reports and recommended new protections that would ultimately be passed in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. These laws embodied the goals of the protestors who marched, went to jail and died to end racial discrimination.

The commission became what the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, who was the chairman from 1969 to 1972, called the “conscience of the government” on civil rights issues.

There is no need to analogize the battle for the rights of gay and lesbian people to the struggle of African Americans to overcome slavery, Jim Crow and continued discrimination. But as Coretta Scott King said to me as she tried to imagine what position the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would take on “don’t ask, don’t tell”: “What’s the yardstick by which we should decide that gay rights are less important than other human rights we care about?”

The Commission on Civil Rights has been crippled since the Reagan years by the appointments of commissioners who see themselves as agents of the presidential administration rather than as independent watchdogs. The creation of a new, independent human and civil rights commission could help us determine our next steps in the pursuit of freedom and justice in our society. A number of explosive issues like immigration reform await such a commission, but recommendations for resolving the controversies over the rights of gays, lesbians and transgendered people should be its first order of business.

Mary Frances Berry, the chairwoman of the Commission on Civil Rights from 1993 to 2004, is the author of “And Justice for All: The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Continuing Struggle for Freedom in America.”

 Op-Contributor Gay but Equal?
New York Times, United States 

Attention queer drivers: GM now means ‘gay marriage’

Unbeknownst to the queer-friendly auto giant, General Motors has already paved the way for legalizing same-sex matrimony

DETROIT — We're immersed in a neo queer revolution. Across the U.S., our LGBT family has galvanized.

Recently in Dallas, we've seen angry protests against First Baptist Church, the Catholics, California voters, Cinemark screenings of "Milk" and no-trannies-allowed bars.

We should be damn proud of our family.
 
And maybe this is the Melissa Etheridge Kool-Aid that's talking, but let's consider alternatives to angry rallies. 
 See Attention queer drivers: GM now means 'gay marriage'

Gay Marriage in New York

To the Editor:

"Democrats Reach Pact to Lead the Senate" (news article, Jan. 7) notes that a bill to "legalize marriage of gay men and lesbians" doesn't have the votes to pass the New York State Senate.

But same-sex marriages have been legally recognized here, under the principle of comity, since they started being performed elsewhere — first in the Netherlands in 2001, then in Canada and Massachusetts, and now in Connecticut.

By failing to pass the marriage equality bill, which has been passed by the Assembly, the Senate is driving wedding business out of New York, hurting New York's crumbling economy without stopping gay New Yorkers from assuming the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

All the bill effectively does is open marriage bureaus here to gay couples who either cannot afford the train fare to Greenwich, Conn., or who are too disabled to travel.

Andy Humm
New York, Jan.
7, 2009

 See Gay Marriage in New York
New York Times, United States

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" switch makes "gay" the new civil rights issue

All that greenhouse gas carbon dioxide everyone exhaled during the presidential campaign in the big debate on race may have been unnecessary air pollution.

It turns out that Barack Obama's civil rights issue is now coming clearly into focus, and it's not about race. It's about gays.

And why not? Racial divides aren't gone. But look at it from Mr. Obama's perspective when it comes to prioritizing which minority group should get his attention: He's black. Starting Tuesday, he's president. Case closed. Or he could put it this way: I am, therefore it is. Let's move on (.org)

 See "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" switch makes "gay" the new civil rights issue
San Francisco Chronicle

From closets to living rooms

I read with great interest and sadness the front page article titled "Bill aims to protect groups from bullying" in the Dec. 29 edition of the News-Leader. It's kind of depressing to see that things have not changed that much in high schools since I came out about 15 years ago at my high school in Ohio. I remember all too well the torments and cat calls as I walked the halls from class to class. Thankfully, I also had a very good support network which stood by my side and with me during that period. And by the look of things, the new generation of gay youth are finding similar support and reasons for pride. See From closets to living rooms
News-Leader.com, MO 

Don't ditch your gay son's wedding

My son is gay, and I have never let that get in the way of our relationship. But last week, he asked his mother and me to walk him down the aisle for his wedding celebration, and I don't want any part of it. His mother feels bad, but she agrees with me. How do we get out of this?  See Don't ditch your gay son's wedding
USA Weekend 

Report Finds That Raids Are Not an Effective Tool Against Human Trafficking, Calls For Alternative Approaches

NEW YORK, NY -- A new report concludes that so-called "rescue" raids are not an effective way to stop trafficking in persons and in fact can be counter-productive.

The report from the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, released just in time for the National Day of Human Trafficking Awareness on January 11, summarizes findings from interviews with 46 people with experience of such raids, including service providers who have worked with hundreds of trafficking victims, law enforcement personnel, and 15 immigrant women who have been trafficked.

The National Day of Human Trafficking Awareness was established in 2007 by a Senate Resolution sponsored by President-Elect Barack Obama.

"Sixty percent of immigrant women interviewed who were trafficked into sex work had been arrested, some as many as ten times, for prostitution-related offenses without ever being identified as trafficked," said Dr. Melissa Ditmore, primary investigator for the report. "Predictably, Latina and Asian women were more likely to have been arrested than Eastern European women."

"Service providers added that very few trafficked people come to them as a result of raids," Ditmore said. "Rather than being 'rescued' by raids, many women who have been trafficked come forward on their own, with help from people they know -- sex workers, clients, fellow immigrants, anyone who steps in to help."

The study found that raids can be counter-productive to anti-trafficking efforts by further traumatizing, intimidating and sometimes violating the rights of people who have been trafficked, making them less likely to seek help. As one service provider said of one of her clients, "[She] was pulled out of a trafficking situation in such a way that she will never trust law enforcement or government and barely trusts me or her case worker."

Celia, one of the women interviewed for the report, was arrested seven times by local police without ever being screened for trafficking. "These raids are ugly and horrible. They ... bang on the door, they break the door, they come in with the guns out!" she told researchers. "It's really horrible, sometimes if they are very angry, they don't let you get dressed. ... One never lets go of the fear. Being afraid never goes away. They provoke that."

Jin, another study participant who was forced into prostitution, was arrested following a raid and sentenced to six months of incarceration before her defense attorney identified her as trafficked. She described being pistol-whipped and strip searched during a brothel raid:

"[A] police officer struck me in the back of the head with the back of a gun and I fell to the floor and I passed out. At the time I didn't know what was going on...I had no idea they were police when they all broke in. The ones that came in were not wearing uniforms. ... a female officer ... opened up my skirt and revealed my undergarments in front of everyone to see if I was hiding anything on me."

Police practices experienced by trafficked women were consistent with those reported by sex workers who did not self-identify as trafficked, as documented in a report released last year by Different Avenues, a DC-based organization. DC's approach to policing sex work is promoted in federal anti-trafficking legislation championed by Vice-President Elect Joe Biden and passed at the end of the last legislative session. According to Different Avenues, brothel raids and heightened policing of sex work in the nation's capital have pushed the industry further underground, driving people who may have been coerced into prostitution further from help.

This research suggests that raids should be reconsidered as a response to trafficking. As Jin put it, "A better way to help leave my situation would be anything that didn't involve the police."

 

"Anti-trafficking efforts should be community-based, led by people familiar with sex work and other sectors where there is vulnerability to trafficking, such as domestic work, agricultural labor, and service sectors, people who have experienced trafficking, social service providers, and immigrants rights advocates," said Andrea Ritchie, Director of the Sex Workers Project. "This kind of approach would not only be more effective, but would build community and empower people who have been trafficked rather than subjecting them to the additional trauma of raids, arrests, and detention."

People interviewed for the report included 26 service providers from around the country, 5 law enforcement personnel, 12 immigrant women who had been trafficked into sex work and 3 immigrant women trafficked into domestic labor and other forms of work. The women whose stories are featured in the report came to the US from Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

An Executive Summary and the full report can be found at: http://www.sexworkersproject.org/.

About the Sex Workers Project

Using human rights and harm reduction approaches, the Sex Workers Project (SWP) works to protect and promote the rights of individuals who by choice, circumstance, or coercion engage in sex work. In addition to providing direct legal services to individual clients in criminal legal, immigration, and police misconduct matters, SWP engages in policy advocacy at the local, state, federal and international levels aimed at securing systemic change grounded in the experiences and concerns of our constituencies.

About Different Avenues

Different Avenues (DA) works for the health, rights and safety of youth and young adults affected by violence, HIV and discrimination. DA provides harm reduction based direct service and advocacy to people engaging in formal and informal sexual exchange, people living with HIV/AIDS, and other marginalized communities.  Programs include a drop in center, job readiness program, venue outreach and referrals. As a social justice organization, we participate in advocacy and organizing to support these programs through policy and social change.  Different Avenues' report, Move Along: Policing Sex Work in Washington, D.C. is available at http://www.differentavenues.org/comm_research.html.

About H.I.P.S.

HIPS' mission is to assist female, male, and transgender individuals engaging in sex work in Washington, DC in leading healthy lives. Utilizing a harm reduction model, HIPS' programs strive to address the impact that HIV/AIDS, STIs, discrimination, poverty, violence and drug use have on the lives of individuals engaging in sex work. For the past 15 years, HIPS has assisted thousands of sex workers a year in creating options, realizing goals and leading healthy, self-determined lives.

Don't blame Proposition 8 on African-Americans

In the wake of California's passage of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state, many speculated that it was homophobia among African-Americans that led to the  measure's success, since exit polls suggested that as many as 70 percent of black voters supported the ban. Now, a new study by Patrick J. Egan of New York University and Kenneth Sherrill of Hunter College (h/t Hilzoy) purports to debunk that notion.

In their statistical analysis, Egan and Sherrill found that the exit polls dramatically overstated African-American support for Proposition 8. According to the two professors, 58 percent of African-Americans voted for the measure. By comparison, 59 percent of Latinos and Hispanics supported it, along with 49 percent of whites and 48 percent of Asians.

Egan and Sherrill came to their conclusions after doing a precinct-level statistical analysis of voting data. They examined the voting in Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco counties, where 66 percent of California's African-American voters live. Using estimates of the precincts' racial composition, they were able to then create an aggregate model comparing race and support of Proposition 8. The report calls the exit poll results an "outlier," and surveys conducted by two separate agencies just before the election seem to affirm Egan and Sherrill's conclusions. Both surveys found that the statistical differences between African-American support for Proposition 8 and the feelings of Californians generally were insignificant.

So what did account for the results of the vote? "Party identification, age, religiosity and political view had much bigger effects than race, gender or having gay and lesbian family and friends," the authors say. They add:

African Americans are more religious (as measured by frequency of attendance at religious services) than any other racial or ethnic group of California voters ... controlling for frequency of religious attendance helps explain why African Americans supported Proposition 8 at higher levels than the population as a whole. Among Californians who attend worship at least weekly, support for Proposition 8 was nearly uniform across all racial and ethnic groups. Among those who attend worship less than weekly, majorities of every racial and ethnic group voted "no" on Proposition 8.

Egan and Sherrill found that 70 percent of those who attend church weekly reported voting for the measure. Eighty-one percent of those identifying themselves as Republicans also voted for it.

In related news, on Thursday, Proposition 8 supporters filed a suit that seeks to have a federal judge invalidate the state laws that require the publication on the state's Web site of the identities of campaign donors who give $100 or more. The plaintiffs say the disclosure policy restricts free speech and has led to acts of vandalism against them.

― Vincent Rossmeier

Posted in: 2008 Election

Their hypocrisy is shocking.

Yesterday, the leadership of Yes on Prop 8 filed a lawsuit in federal court to void a voter-passed proposition that requires the disclosure of information for people who donate more than $100 to a campaign. They claim their donors have been victimized for bankrolling the ban on marriage for LGBT couples.
Their hypocrisy is shocking.
This is the same "leadership" that sent menacing letters to Equality California donors and corporate sponsors, threatening to "expose" them if they did not make a similar donation to the Yes on 8 campaign.
This is the same "leadership" that filed briefs in the California Supreme Court that argue that the voter-passed proposition cannot--and should not--be overturned by a court.
For decades LGBT activists have stood proud, risking their jobs and safety for fighting intolerance. We've never asked for anything less than equality and now they want special rights.
Is there no end to their hypocrisy?
In solidarity,

Geoff Kors
Executive Director
Equality California

P.S. If you have a story about how you stood proud after being victimized for fighting for LGBT rights, share it at stories@eqca.org. It may be published on our website to profile courage in the wake of adversity.

Editorial: An odious assault on Seattle gay bar patrons

USING the word terrorism is wholly appropriate to describe the anonymous letters sent to 11 Seattle gay bars threatening to poison at least five customers in each establishment.

The author's cold calculation of mass murder is intended to intimidate for some addled, unknown purpose. The writer's loathing is transformed into a monstrous desire to rob people of their personal security and peace of mind.

The Seattle Police Department is pursuing this criminal act, "actively investigating and coordinating with the FBI and other federal partners."

Employ all the resources available, because this intolerable and carefully premeditated assault is no prank.

A drink or a bite to eat with friends now includes a measure of vigilance and caution. A pleasant time tainted with a self-conscious tending of one's beverage. A reaction to a threat that cannot be ignored.

Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

 See An odious assault on Seattle gay bar patrons
Seattle Times 

Johann Hari | My New Year Resolution is to Lose My Bottle - and Quit Coke

By the time you read this, my head will be thump-thumping - but this is not a standard-issue New Year's Day hangover. No. My New Year's resolution is to finally give up my addiction to two liquids that are trashing the lives of some of the poorest people on earth: bottled water, and Coke. In 2009, I'm determined to lose my bottle.

There's nothing more tempting than to imagine our luxuries appear fully-formed on the supermarket shelf. It seems they come from nowhere, and when we toss them away, they disappear back to nowhere. It's disconcerting to break through this haze and trace them back to their origins. How can something so ordinary and omnipresent - something we all glug down daily - be destructive? But I have finally forced myself to read two new book-length exposés of my favourite drinks.

Since I was a teenager, I have thought drinking water comes in bottles. I don't know when I stopped using the tap. I never paused to think that it costs 10,000 times more to drink from bottles, or to read the shelves full of studies showing that tap water is just as healthy and impossible to tell apart in blind tastings. But I am not alone. Globally, we spend $60bn (£41bn) a year on bottled water. Its sales now surpass beer and milk.

In her book Bottlemania, the investigative journalist Elizabeth Royte traces one of the great scams of our time: why are we paying a fortune for something we have running almost-free into our homes? In 1929, Charles Kettering, the director of General Motors Research, outlined one of the rules of modern consumerism: "Keep the consumer dissatisfied." If the customer is happy with what they've already got, where's the profit? So the bottled water industry began to promote a series of myths. They claimed tap water was filthy, when in the US and Europe it is the safest drinking water on earth. They claimed you need to drink eight glasses of water a day, based on a garbled misreading of a creaky 1940s study. They falsely promised better health and taste.

If the only people being suckered were those of us dumb enough to buy the bottled water, this would be a minor-league scandal - but look at one of the primary sources of mineral water for the developed world: Fiji. Every day, a million litres of freshwater are pumped from an aquifer beneath a rainforest on Vitu Levu and shipped 10,000 miles to Europe and to the US. "This water may come from one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth," the adverts coo - without mentioning that it also helps to destroy it. By the time you factor in making the bottles and shipping this heavy liquid half-way round the world, every bottle of mineral water is - in effect - filled a quarter of the way up with petrol. The fizz might as well be greenhouse gases dissolving into the atmosphere.

And what of the people on the island of Fiji? While we merrily sip their water, a third of Fijians have no clean water at all. There are regular outbreaks of typhoid and dengue fever on the island, culling children and the elderly first.

The bottled water companies claim it is justifiable to take these people's water. They say they are carbon-neutral because they buy "carbon offsets". But as I've argued before, the evidence shows carbon offsets are a con - a way of salving our consciences, not the environment. Then they say they put money back into Fiji. But last July, the government there decided to introduce a tax on the bottled water being shipped off the island to pay for clean water for ordinary Fijians. The bottling companies went ballistic and threatened to shut down factories. The government gave up. The typhoid continues.

And what of my caffeine fix? I would have it running intravenously into my veins 24/7 if I could - but the comedian-activist Mark Thomas has persuaded me, in his excellent new book Belching Out The Devil: Global Adventures With Coca-Cola, that I have to find a different dealer to Coke.

In Carepa in north-western Colombia, Coca-Cola has a fairly typical bottling plant. Until 1994, the workforce was unionised, and successfully bargained for the basic workplace benefits we all want: bonuses, overtime and healthcare. But the corporation wanted to cut costs - and around the same time, the armed gangs arrived. The far-right militia the AUC presents itself as "the defenders of business freedom" in Colombia - they massacre trade unionists.

Soon after they showed up, Enrique Gomez Granado - one of the Coke-plant union leaders - was shot in the face on his doorstep, in front of his wife and kids. Five more union leaders were hunted down and murdered. There was, as Thomas puts it, "a campaign against the union at the Coca-Cola plant". The workers at the factory claim their plant manager would sit outside the factory with AUC paramilitaries, laughing and joking with them. Once the union was destroyed, the managers of the bottling plant promptly slashed the workers' wages: experienced workers went from earning $380 a month to $130.

At first, Coke said they weren't responsible for the behaviour of their subcontractors - even though they own a controlling share in this bottling company. Then they said "we take accusations regarding labour rights violations seriously". But in Carepa, Thomas found that "to this day, the Coca-Cola Company has not investigated the alleged links of Colombian bottling plant managers with the paramilitaries, despite a man being shot dead under their logo". Still the death-threats continue, pledging anyone "bad-mouthing the Coca-Cola Corporation... will be dealt with as they prefer: death, torture, cut into pieces, coup de grace. No more protests!"

This is not a lone horror-story. Thomas found children working for Coke contractors in El Salvador, and workers in Turkey beaten for trying to join a union. But the most striking story is from Plachimada, a village in Kerala, India. In the 1990s Coke opened a plant and began pumping half a million litres a day out of the underground aquifer. Suddenly the water in Plachimada's wells turned bad. A lab report for the BBC found it was now "so acidic it would burn up your insides. Clothes could tear in such water, food will rot, crops will wither". The village's children had to stop going to school and spend all day fetching water from far away.

As compensation, Coke's Indian subsidiary gave the local villagers their left-over industrial sludge to use as fertiliser. Incredibly, another test by the BBC found the "fertilizer" was filled with poisons. The doctors who examined it warned it could cause kidney failure or severe mental disability. Responding to this study, Sunil Gupta, Coca-Cola India's vice-president, said: "It's good for them because they are poor."

Yes, it will be annoying for me not to have my favourite drinks. But it's considerably more annoying to watch your children die of typhoid while your fresh water is being shipped off for the rich to quaff, or to be shot in the face for running a trade union. In 2009, I don't want to drink oil, or blood.

© 2009 The Independent

Johann Hari is a columnist for the London Independent. He has reported from Iraq, Israel/Palestine, the Congo, the Central African Republic, Venezuela, Peru and the US, and his journalism has appeared in publications all over the world. 

Johann Hari | My New Year Resolution is to Lose My Bottle - and Quit Coke
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/02-9

The left can breathe easy. Rick Warren is not Obama's Billy Graham.

The furor over Rick Warren is not about Inauguration Day but what comes after. When Barack Obama announced last month that Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church and the author of "The Purpose Driven Life," would deliver the invocation at Obama's Inauguration (Joseph Lowery, cofounder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will give the benediction), supporters of gay marriage and abortion rights were stricken. Warren, after all, has been avowedly pro-life throughout his career. He supported Proposition 8, the successful California initiative banning gay marriage. Many on the cultural left worry that in the selection Warren has gained new stature as counselor to presidents. They worry, in other words, that Obama has made Warren the 21st century's Billy Graham.

See An Unholy Analogy
Newsweek - USA