Alex Sink Cites "Religious" Reasons For Not Supporting Gay Marriage

On Thursday June 10, speaking to a group in St. Petersburg, Gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink contradicted her pro-equality image by saying “I don’t support gay marriage. I think that is entirely a religious decision that individuals can make. I do support civil unions.”

“That’s not good news for gay marriage proponents hopeful that a new governor would make changes,” writes Christina Silva who broke the story for the St. Petersburg Times.

This is in contrast to what the LGBT community might expect from the winner of Equality Florida’s esteemed “Voice of Equality” award for the year 2009. At the reception gala she garnered standing applause from about 200 of South Florida’s gay community leaders. She spent approximately 10 minutes giving a stump speech about how “every American deserves to be treated equally” but mostly she gave the audience her resume from her days at Bank of America. She did not, however, talk about Florida’s controversial ‘Amendment 2’ which bans LGBT persons from participating in both marriage and civil unions.

At the beginning of that November 2009 gala, director Nadine Smith introduced Alex Sink by saying “when you look around at these galas… you see the backbone of the gay community.” Alex Sink took to the podium soon after where she made a total of eight pleas for campaign money while saying nothing about specific actions she would take as Governor in favor of the LGBT community

“I know that together, we can make equality for ALL Floridians a reality,” Sink said to the guests at the 2009 Equality Florida event, “that is - with the right officers in place."

“Tonight I stand before you as a candidate for Governor – a position for which no woman has ever been elected. And in 2010, with all your support and encouragement, and maybe some of your money, I intend to put Florida under new management.”

Update: Director of Equality Florida, Nadine Smith issued the following statement: "I disagree with all candidates of both parties who do not respect full legal equality for LGBT families including equal protection under our country'smarriage laws. "

Darrin McGillis, also a candidate in the Democratic Primary has expressed that his position is for FULL Marriage Equality. His campaign website is McGillis4Governor.com

Arizona’s Immigration Policy Would Not Have Stopped the 9/11 Hijackers

There has been a lot of blabber from the right-wing lately about how THEIR style of immigration reform is needed “in a post-9/11 world”.

That phrase, “post-9/11 world” is meant to imply that we now live in a more dangerous society than we did before. Thereby, right-wing pundits assert that new, tougher and more radical immigration reforms are needed – including Governor Jan Brewer’s controversial reform in Arizona.

The debate over Arizona’s new immigration policy can be framed in one of two ways. The right wing of American politics contends that we are losing jobs, security and quality of life due to excessive immigration (mainly from Mexico but not limited to that border).

The left wing argues that we lose more jobs from corporate outsourcing and that our immigration policies pose no particular threat to our security or quality of life – that those are false perceptions based in racism and classism. Furthermore, those on the left believe that better national security will arise from a uniform Federal immigration reform, as opposed to each state choosing their own immigration policies as Arizona has done.

So let’s take a quick look at this phrase that has become popularized within the right-wing media and see if it holds water… Sorry to spoil the surprise, but the answer is NO.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report and numerous Congressional Inquiries, all 19 hijackers who are commonly known to have been the perpetrators of 9/11 were in possession of the required documentation in Arizona’s new code.

None of the 9/11 Hijackers were known to have crossed the Mexican/United States border by foot and few of them even spoke broken English. They had even taken classes with large numbers of other foreigners on how to speak with American dialects, appear more American and blend into American society.

All the hijackers had visas, passports, and photo ID’s. All the 9/11 hijackers’ information was verified by the Concordance system prior to boarding their flights.
The Arizona Immigration Bill (SB1070) does not include any provisions which would require additional scrutiny in obtaining work visas or immigration status. It does not require any additional checks or procedures for national or state security in the process of obtaining citizenship or an identification document.

The Arizona Bill is primarily a set of laws which restrict LEGAL citizens from having any contact or collusion with illegal or undocumented workers. For instance, an Arizona citizen can be charged with a misdemeanor for knowingly or unknowingly giving an undocumented worker a ride in their car. The language of the bill encourages regular citizens to be “watchdogs” or “vigilantes” in the sense that it stiffens penalties for citizens who are found to have “reckless disregard” for another person’s immigration status.

The bill is very poorly written and unconstitutional at best and does absolutely NOTHING to prevent terrorism or to strengthen national security. SB1070 serves only to encourage distrust and skepticism amongst Arizonans based on race, class, employment and income.

Photo: Jan Brewer (R-AZ) and Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R-AZ) celebrating Pakistani Day 2006 with Arif Kazmi. Joe Arpaio is one of the most controversial characters in law enforcement. He has created prison camps in Arizona which are softly referred to as “tent cities” in which prisoners suffer in 120 degree heat and has been scolded by human rights advocates for digitally recording the daily activities of prisoners and putting these images on the internet for all to see – without knowledge or consent from the prisoners.

The Right Wing Has Now Self-Imploded...

Has the "liberal media" been unkind to the right wing lately? Perhaps... Or maybe we are just witnessing the end of an era.

First up, the Hutaree Militia has skyrocketed on search engines and now we have a group of half-assed unibombers to hold up in infamy.

Just a few weeks before that, the story broke that the Republican National Committee had plans to use "fear", "self-centeredness" and "tchotchkes" to solicit donations from party faithfuls. A painfully embarrassing slideshow demonstration which fully illustrated their lack of respect for their own GOP donors was left in a hotel room where some underpaid Democrat was sure to find it... Ooops!

Around the same time, lifelong Republican gone Democrat, Eric Massa was explaining to a sympathetic Rush Limbaugh that he had been ousted from his NEW party, not for tickling male interns, but for being a turncoat...

Then this week, after healthcare reform became a done deal, we had bailout supporters Sarah Palin and John McCain claiming ownership of the Tea Party Patriots. This is ironic considering that the Tea Party Patriots were "forced down our throats" by Fox News 24/7 as a "grassroots uprising" that was supposedly not just more Republican astroturf... In the same fell swoop, the co-mavericks decided to co-opt the phrase "hell no" to be their new party slogan.

Following that, umpteen reports came in that Teabaggers had been acting out in outrage over their new healthcare benefits by throwing bricks through windows, calling congressmen "fa**ots" and "ni**ers" and putting crosshairs on the offices of elected officials who voted to give them extended healthcare.

Then, just yesterday, the father of a US Soldier finally stood up to the Westboro Baptist Church and it looks like the "God Hates Fags" church will finally get their day in court... The Supreme Court. But wait, it gets better... Bill O'Reilly of Fox News declared that he would give $16,000 to the hate group... just to help out.

Speaking of court appearances, just today the anti-abortion activist who shot a doctor in church was sentenced to life in prison.

John McCain, now on the campaign trail again, has been clumsily trying to avoid answering any questions as to why he voted for Corporate Rape.

Speaking of rape, apparently The Vatican has sexually abused everyone in the world at some point while the Pope did his best to hide the dirty deeds...

Moving right along, McCain's "naughty librarian" sidekick, Sarah Palin has decided that she would pay for her new reality show on the discovery channel using old kickbacks from Alaskan state money that she installed before she quit her job as Governor there.

And finally, RNC Chair Michael Steele has joined the ranks of hypocritical Republicans with naughty sexy things going on, using tax payer money in an effort to "seduce donations".

Have you ever seen those videos of animals still running around after their heads have been chopped off, simply because they don't understand that they're already dead?