SC Prog Blog

From SC GLPM:

Our community has been rocked twice, first with the news of Sean Kennedy’s brutal murder, and second the shameful involuntary manslaughter indictment voted on by the Grand Jury. The Solicitor’s office acknowledged in its Oct. 22 press release the inadequacies of our state’s current statutes: “I hope the Kennedy family will join me to encourage the legislature to review their situation, and to modify our current statutory law so that we can address the present inadequacy in the law,” stated Robert Ariail, Solicitor of South Carolina’s 13th Judicial Circuit. 

We are aware of the outrage that many of you feel regarding the indictment last Tuesday and the indefinite postponement of the arraignment, and many of us feel the same way. Therefore, the South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement has partnered with Sean’s Last Wish Foundation and the South Carolina Equality Coalition in order to foster awareness and educate the public at large of the need for hate crimes legislation in our fair state. We will continue to work closely with Elke Kennedy [Sean's mother] as well as the staff and Board of SCEC, to determine our next course of action. These future actions may include coordinated press conferences with organizations throughout the state, forums to educate our local communities, and a vigil to be held the evening of sentencing for Sean Kennedy’s murderer.

Elke Kennedy has been brave these last few months, fighting a homophobic mindset ˆstatus quoˆ that has taken the life of her 20-year-old son. While Sean, a member of the gay community, was brutally murdered five months ago, she continues to travel across our state fighting for his dream of equality and inclusion. Do not let her fight alone; join us in helping to make Sean’s last wish a reality, and let not his death be in vain.  

For more information, or to be kept informed on the actions, please visit the following web sites:

Sean’s Last Wish
SC Equality Coalition
SC GLPM

To join our email listserv, and be kept up to date with all activities at the Harriet Hancock Community Center, and to be kept aware of what we are doing for Sean Kennedy and his family, please join the listserv by emailing scpridevols-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Elke Kennedy, left, remembers her son at a vigil at the State House in Columbia. Since her son’s death, she has since been working to pass hate crimes legislation in South Carolina.

Gay community will protest Obama’s Columbia fundraiser
By Becci Robbins

Our Co-Chair Rev. Bennie Colclough left a Progressive Network meeting last night to dial into a conference call with the Barack Obama campaign and a handful of SC gay rights activists to discuss the rising controversy over a “healed” gay minister headlining a fundraiser in Columbia this Sunday. From all accounts, the call got heated and ended with two more calls: the Obama camp’s call to stand firm and the activists’ call to arms.

The latter has called for a protest of the event on Sunday at 5pm at the Township in downtown Columbia.

Rev. Donnie McClurkin claims to be sexually reformed, and now preaches that homosexuality is a choice. For a flavor of the man, check out his web site. (Be patient while it loads all its bells and whistles.)

The last-minute inclusion of Rev. Andy Sidden, the openly gay Pastor of Garden of Grace United Church of Christ (a Network member) has done nothing to appease the gay community.

In a statement, Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said he thanked Obama for including Sidden but said he was disappointed McClurkin will remain part of Obama’s program.

“There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies,” he said. “That’s a message that certainly doesn’t belong on any presidential candidate’s stage.”

Obama is on record speaking against homophobia. He supports civil unions for same-sex couples but not gay marriage.

In a letter to the Obama campaign that was cc’d around, SC GLPM’s Tony Snell put it bluntly: “Adding a gay minister at the McClurkin concert is a weak attempt to appease the LGBT community. It’s like asking Julian Bond to speak at a Klan rally in order to ease the pain. I was told by a campaign staffer yesterday that your umbrella had to be expanded to cover many people with differing opinions. I say the Obama umbrella has a big hole in it - providing little to no refuge for gays and lesbians. It feels like we’re getting soaked wet and left out to dry!”

Today SCEC issued this press release:

According to the Obama campaign website, “With the help of many talented, spirit-filled supporters, Barack Obama’s campaign is hosting Gospel concerts throughout South Carolina on October 26, 27, and 28 to bring South Carolinians together for a few evenings of song and praise.”

While Senator Barack Obama may be committed to bringing people of all faiths together, he has chosen to ignore the concerns of the LGBT community and its allies in the clergy. Against the recommendations of South Carolina Equality Coalition (SCEC) to remove Donnie McClurkin, a self-proclaimed “ex-gay” from their upcoming gospel concert and fundraiser in Columbia, the Obama for America campaign is proceeding with the event as planned.

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The FBI’s Right to Threaten Torture
by James Bovard

A federal appeals court has concluded that an FBI agent must go to trial on charges he coerced a false confession out of a prime suspect in the 9/11 attacks. But the FBI still insists that its agent did nothing wrong. And the feds swayed the court to suppress that portion of a recent decision detailing how the FBI agent used the threat of torture to break an innocent man.

Abdallah Higazy, a 30-year-old Egyptian student, arrived in New York City to study engineering at the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn on August 27, 2001. A U.S. foreign-aid program reserved and paid for his room at the Millennium Hilton Hotel, next to the World Trade Center. After the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center, Higazy hot-footed it out of the hotel. After the terrorist attack, the hotel was sealed.

Three months later, guests were allowed to retrieve their belongings. When Higazy went to the hotel on December 17, he was arrested and accused of possessing an aviation radio. (A hotel security guard reported finding the radio in a safe in his room.) Higazy denied owning the radio. He was arrested as a material witness and locked up in solitary confinement.

Higazy wanted to clear his name so he agreed to take a polygraph test. FBI agent Michael Templeton wired him up for the test but then proceeded to browbeat him for three hours until he finally admitted to owning the radio. Higazy said the FBI agent warned him, “If you don’t cooperate with us, the FBI will… make sure Egyptian security gives your family hell.” The FBI refused to permit Higazy’s attorney, Robert Dunn, to be in the room while he was given the polygraph. After the interrogation, Higazy was “trembling and sobbing uncontrollably,” according to Dunn.

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This was the t-shirt that Tommy wore to school on Tuesday.

This is the t-shirt that Tommy wore going home.

See Oct. 23 post if you missed the story.

Climate Warming Causes Drought-Fueled Mega-Fires
By Tom Turnipseed
Published @ Common Dreams

Five years ago my wife and I discontinued using our lawn irrigation sprinkler system. Now we only water our small vegetable garden. Facing evidence of climate change, we are trying to do our part to save water.

With water supplies rapidly shrinking, Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia declared a state of emergency for 85 counties and asked President Bush to declare it a major disaster area on Oct. 20. A drought of historic proportions is affecting Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, as well as parts of North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia. Meanwhile, drought is feeding a fiery fiasco in California.

In the past five days, parts of southern California have become out-of-control, raging infernos as another hot dry summer turns dehydrated forests into combustible tinderboxes.

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Reading Suzanne Levine’s account of her years at Ms., brought back fond memories of my own about the magazine that changed my life. My sister had a subscription in high school, and I became an avid reader of Ms. in 7th grade. It educated and inspired me, and started me on the path of political activism.

In college, I spent a week in New York City in search of a summer internship. My first stop was at Ms. Although the magazine wasn’t hiring, then-editor Pat Carbine spent a couple of hours with me talking about my aspirations and calling editor friends in the city to see about other job options. Looking back, it moves me that such a powerful woman would take time out of her busy day to help a kid with big dreams and no plan.

I ended up spending my summer in New York at McCall’s magazine. But I will never forget the kindness of the good people at Ms. I congratulate them on helping grow the feminist movement not just here but around the world.

Becci Robbins

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Ms. Memories
By Suzanne Braun Levine
The Women’s Media Center

It is always stunning to me to realize that an event that still lives in my contemporary memory actually took place decades ago; so when I was invited to a 35th anniversary celebration for Ms. Magazine (yes, it lives! The current publishers are the Feminist Majority Foundation), it was as though my life was flashing before my eyes. I joined the magazine in the summer of 1972 for the very first monthly issue. When we put Wonder Woman on the cover, we felt empowered and protected by her magic bracelets. But I had no idea what a life-changing and world-changing adventure I had signed up for.

At the time I was an only half-awake feminist. But I did have one bond with the magazine. When the Preview Issue came out the previous winter it featured a list of celebrities who admitted that they had had illegal abortions; amended to the article was a coupon for other women to add their names. I filled out the coupon, glad to step forward on an issue that mattered a lot to me. By the time those coupons were being compiled, I was on the job and actually found and opened my envelope.

The women I worked with came from a range of backgrounds - the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, and those like myself who were magazine types and somewhat less activist. I wore a pink silk blouse and matching cashmere skirt to my first day of work - only to discover that my “desk” was a pile of boxes in a small dusty room I shared with three others. It didn’t take long before I - along with many of the readers of Ms. - was becoming radicalized by the injustices toward women that we were encountering at every turn. I was also a little scandalized by some of the more way-out seeming discussions that I found myself editing. Back then, I found the idea of not shaving your legs, for example, almost unthinkable. And “Liberating Masturbation” … Well, you can imagine.

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Photo by Charles Dharapak, Associated Press

Today, CODEPINK activist Desiree Fairooz walked up to Condi Rice during a Congressional hearing and displayed her hands covered in blood. She yelled “War Criminal” as Condi prepared to testify and was immediately dragged out of the room by the police. This triggered a surge in the police, who began arresting everyone in pink. Click here to see the videos, photos, read news stories and read our CODEPINK’s DC House Blog on the day’s events.

Pay attention!
By Becci Robbins

Tonight we got a call from Jennifer Tague seeking counsel after her son, Tommy, was muzzled today on the grounds of Dutch Fork High School in Columbia.

Tommy Gordon is a 14-year-old in the 9th grade. He has uppity roots. His grandmother is Harriet Hancock, the Columbia lawyer and longtime Network member and gay rights activist who has been shaking up the state’s homophobic and closeted communities since her son came out in the ’80s, when it was still dangerous to so. It’s still a harsh culture for gay folks, but is much less so over the past decades in large part because of Harriet and others who have made it their life’s work to seek parity and respect for all people.

That’s just background for this account of the incident, along with a photo of a friend (his political polar opposite) sporting her message:

today at school a lot of kids who are pro-life wore shirts reflecting that view (shirts with big red lettering that says PRO LIFE, SILENCED FOR THOSE WHO WILL BE SILENCED or things of that nature.). i heard that kids were doing this so i made myself a Pro-Choice shirt that reads:

pro life is sexist. a woman should have the right to choose what she does with her body.

i was stopped while i was walking toward my first class of the day by an administrator who said: “We don’t do that here! Go to the office and change your shirt now!” and was forced to put a bright-orange shirt on with the words “Today I Violated The Dutch Fork High School Dress Code”.

i understood and wore the shirt all day. meanwhile the people who were wearing their Pro-Life shirts did not have to censor their shirts. i was deeply humiliated to have to wear this shirt that marked me as a rule-breaker while other kids who had done the same thing as i, but held different views about the issue than i did, were allowed to continue wearing their shirts.

my mom told me to email you about this.

thanks!

Tommy Gordon

this is an example of what the pro life people were wearing today. its a picture of my friend alix, in her pro life shirt, taken from her myspace site. the lettering on the shirt is backwards because the picture was taken with a camera phone.

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While it’s no surprise that Tommy has decided to make waves at Dutch Fork, my favorite part of the story is that, after wearing the dreaded orange tee all day, he was allowed to take it off during 6th Period, when his teacher instructed him that as long as there was a pro-choice shirt being worn in the classroom (there was) there would be equal exposure for tees of a different political hue. Kudos to Mr. Geliske.

Profound thanks to the good professor, who understands that democracy is not a spectator sport. And hats off to Tommy and Alix, who understand that friendship trumps ideology.

We could all learn something here.

Democracy for America is sending around an invitation to vote in its Pulse Poll for your favorite Democratic presidential candidate. If you had to vote today, who would you choose?

Add your two cents.

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DFA:

Our challenge to Al Gore: Jump In or Drop Out!

Something surprising is happening at Democracy for America; former Vice President Al Gore is leading the race for the DFA Presidential endorsement - as a write-in candidate.

Voting is still open until November 5 at midnight, and there is plenty of time for any candidate to win. All your candidate needs is your vote right now:

VOTE in DFA’s Pulse Poll

Despite the fact that Al Gore has not announced that he will run and wasn’t even included in the endorsement poll, DFA members have seized the power and written him in. With over 65,000 votes cast so far, the time has come for Vice President Gore to make a decision.

The clock is ticking. We are deep into the 11th hour. There are fewer than 90 days until the first votes are cast. And filing deadlines to be on the ballot start closing in just days.

You deserve to know. Is Al Gore in or out?

Fixing Cocaine Sentencing Laws
By Kara Gotsch

This month the Supreme Court heard a case which touched on a 20-year-old controversy involving justice and crack cocaine. The court will rule early next year in Kimbrough v. United States whether a federal district judge’s more lenient sentencing decision, based on his disagreement with policy that punishes crimes involving crack cocaine more harshly than those involving powder cocaine, is reasonable. The case will help judges determine their ability to sentence below an advisory guideline range. Unfortunately, the outcome will leave in place the excessive mandatory penalties that the Kimbrough judge found unjust.

The case of Derrick Kimbrough stems from his 2005 guilty plea in Virginia for possession with intent to distribute 56 grams of crack cocaine and possession of a firearm. Kimbrough, a Desert Storm veteran with no previous felony convictions, was prosecuted in federal court where penalties involving crack cocaine are harsher than in state systems. As a result, instead of receiving a sentence of about 10 years under Virginia law, he faced a federal sentencing guideline range between 19 and 22 years.

Federal District Judge Raymond A. Jackson, who presided over Kimbrough’s case, called the recommended guideline sentence “ridiculous” and instead sentenced Kimbrough to 15 years, the minimum required by mandatory sentencing laws.

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If you caught the story on this blog, or elsewhere, about students at Claflin University being recently told that they couldn’t form a Students for Barack Obama - then getting coerced into participating in a Clinton for President campus rally that pulled them out of class - you are beginning to understand what pundits mean when they talk about the “inevitability” of a Clinton nomination.

The Clinton muscle was flexed at Claflin by Sen. John Matthews (D-Orangeburg), a black legislator who has been in the legislature for 32 years.

It was given another workout at a recent fundraiser for a Columbia-based nonprofit, which charged $50 a head for tickets sold to folks with the expectation of hearing US Rep. Jim Clyburn keynote.

Clyburn, one of the most powerful black men in America, has repeatedly said that he was not going to make a primary endorsement in the Democratic presidential contest. So it was a bit of a surprise to those who turned out for the dinner when it was announced that Clyburn couldn’t make it and that Sen. Hillary Clinton would fill in for him.

Event organizers say they didn’t expect the event to turn into a Clinton rally, but that’s what happened. Rep. John Lewis, arguably one of the most progressive members of Congress, had announced his endorsement of Clinton earlier that day in Atlanta, and was on hand to introduce AME Bishop James, Chairman of the nonprofit. James happened to be the Bishop of Arkansas when Bill Clinton first ran for the White House, was credited with helping deliver the black vote, and has been tight with the Clintons ever since.

James told the crowd that there wasn’t time to recognize all the politicians in the room, “like Senators Ford and Jackson,” so he wouldn’t mention any names. Both Ford and Jackson are on the Clinton campaign payroll. Bishop James then lead the roughly 1,000 assembled guests in a prayer that he had written as a poem. The refrain was, “We had a leader, Lord, and Bill Clinton was his name, and what we need, God, is more of the same.”

Hillary then took the stage and gave a great speech about leading us to the promised land of peace, prosperity and health “coverage” for all. If you didn’t know the back story on all her positions, you would have cheered!

It was an amazing display of the power of the “Clinton machine,” and a lesson on what some interpret as the inevitability of another Clinton presidency (or at least candidacy).

Brett Bursey

Clinton rakes in cash from the weapons industry
by Leonard Doyle
The Independent

The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street’s favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.

Clinton’s wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.

Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers - Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon - gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. “The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed,” said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.

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The Real Estate of Women’s Health
By Ann Friedman

In the politics of providing reproductive health care to women, opponents are using three important things as weapons: location, location, location. Which is why health-care providers scored a major victory this month with the opening of a sparkling new $7.5 million clinic this week in Aurora, Illinois.

Abortion may be legal in America, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s available to all American women. For years, right-wing activists have used property law and building codes to make the provision of women’s reproductive care prohibitively burdensome. They’ve successfully passed laws in a number of states that target abortion providers, requiring expensive interior renovations to change air-circulation methods, heighten ceilings, and widen halls and doorways.

Some who oppose abortion have made a practice of buying up the property leased by women’s health clinics, then installing a so-called crisis pregnancy center – where right-wing activists try to guilt women out of having abortions – on the premises. These property grabs are typically made by a third party whose name is unfamiliar to clinic directors, as was famously done in Wichita, Kansas, by Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue. But when Planned Parenthood went to open its new Aurora clinic, opponents cried foul because the reproductive health-care provider built its facility and obtained building permits through a subsidiary, Gemini Office Development, LLC.

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Students told attending Hillary press conference was “part of class”

FITSNews - October 18, 2007

Students at Claflin University, a historically black college in Orangeburg, are accusing the school’s administration of prohibiting them from forming a Students for Barack Obama chapter, yet simultaneously compelling them to attend a press conference supporting his chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In fact, several students who serve as volunteers on Obama’s presidential campaign tell FITSNews that they were coerced into holding Clinton signs and standing behind State Sen. John Matthews, who unveiled Clinton’s higher education plan at a press conference held at the school last week.

Which would probably explain some of the unenthusiastic expressions visible in this photograph.

Here’s what we’ve been told:

About three weeks ago, an honors student at Claflin University says she approached the administration about establishing a Students for Barack Obama chapter at the school. The student was told that she and fellow students could not form such a group on campus, but no reason was given for the school’s decision.

Fast-forward to last week, when this same honors student says that she and other Obama supporters were in a class that was cancelled so that students could attend Sen. Matthews‚ presentation on behalf of the Clinton campaign. She and other scholarship students say they were “coerced by administrators” into standing behind Matthews during his address. About half of those students are Obama volunteers who felt they had “no choice” but to stand behind Matthews at the event.

Not surprisingly, Clinton stickers and placards were passed out while the Senator was making his presentation, and a sign-up form for the Clinton campaign was circulated, which many of the students said they felt they were obligated to sign.

Claflin is technically a private institution, but it receives millions of dollars in government grants each year due to its historically-black designation.

According to a senior U.S. Department of Education official who spoke with FITSNews on the condition of anonymity, the school’s political favoritism - if proven true - may violate the irst Amendment rights of these students, as well as a federal prohibition against using tax dollars to promote a political campaign.

“It stinks to high heaven,” the official said. “Given that Claflin receives federal money and based on the school’s clear support for Clinton and its efforts to limit support for Obama, this could be a violation of that prohibition. It could also be a potential violation of the First Amendment rights of free speech and free association, but you’d have to determine the constitutional standard for a private school that accepts federal dollars. Are they considered a government actor for constitutional purposes or not? That’s what a case like this would hinge on.”

Claflin University did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. Clinton’s campaign said it would look into the allegations.

America’s Anti-Militarist Tradition
by Sheldon Richman

The right wing went apoplectic at the skepticism that greeted Gen. David Petraeus’s recent testimony about the alleged success of the military escalation in Iraq. It was as though a member of the military was incapable of engaging in spin to support his commander in chief’s war policy. President Bush summed up this attitude revealingly when he said it was one thing to attack him, but quite another to question General Petraeus.

War, Clausewitz noted, is politics by other means. That makes high-ranking generals a species of politician. Not a few have harbored presidential thoughts, and some have made it. It is said that Petraeus would like to be another. These are the people the pro-war conservatives are willing to trust implicitly? (Anti-war members of the armed forces, on the other hand, are, in Rush Limbaugh’s words, “phony soldiers.”)

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