Obama, race and gay business

Hey

it has been a while - work it mad ATM.

Anyway my friend asked me what I thought about diversity strategies encouraging companies to purchase services from businesses just because they are gay owned, and why I published this article on the website I edit.

Here is what I said - probably the most logical thing I am going to write tonight, so enjoy!

gay businesses: interestingly Stonewall ask that their workplace diversity champions ensure their suppliers have gay-friendly hiring policies, which I agree with

But just going to a business because its owner is gay is madness, and only in America would I back going to a business because its owner is from an ethnic minority

Most of the UK minorities seem to be doing quite well enough in business without our help.

This sort of action entrenches the ghettoisation of the gay community.

It always strikes me that people are shocked to find out that most of the people who write for PinkNews.co.uk are straight

Like a straight person could not get their head round the issues, like I would not, as a journalist, be able to go to write for the Jewish Chronicle and easily pick up what their issues where and become attuned to it.

I think businesses should be encouraged to be gay-friendly, but ownership is a ridiculous model on which to judge whether or not a company will be the best to fulfil a contract.

"For me that speech yesterday showed more than ever that this man can be a great president," you said in your email.

I agree 100% and you know I do - that is why I published it in full, at one in the morning, having just read it.

But a news organisation exists to challenge the accepted wisdom and to stimulate debate.

Duane, who wrote the obama piece, is a black gay American - I felt his points were valid, if only because everyone deserves a say, if only for their view to be shot down, as is already happening on our comment pages.

The race speech is, in my opinion, one of the defining speeches we have seen this century, and is already being talked about in those terms on the BBC, who do not throw around accolades like that very often.

I agree with your comments about leadership and "qualifications"

Those that think leadership is about being experienced, go to Iraq and tell that to the 20 year old officers who lead our troops into danger every day.

Unfortunately, the sense I get is that the Hillary lady is going to work her black magic and snatch the nomination, back room style, before the convention - and then attempt to make obama take the VP slot.

But, in the unlikely story that is America, there is nothing false about hope! After all, JFK and Teddy Roosevelt made it to the White House by appealing to exactly the same values as Obama.

So there.

Barack and the Vice Presidency?

Barack Obama's campaign to win the Democratic nomination for President of the United States was given another boost when he won another state over the weekend.

Admittedly Wyoming is the least populous state in the union, but his comfortable margin of victory, 61% to 38%, has heartened his supporters after his rival Senator Hillary Clinton won three key states last week.

Senator Obama took seven of the twelve delegates Wyoming sends to the Democratic party nominating convention in August.

Both campaigns are looking to the remaining contests.

Mississippi Democrats will choose a candidate tomorrow, with Senator Obama expected to win comfortably.

The next major state to decide will then be Pennsylvania on April 22nd.

Many party activists, alarmed at the prospect of a bitter and acrimonious fight all the way to the convention, are pushing the candidates to compromise and come together on a President/Vice President ticket.

A Newsweek poll found 69% of Democrats are now in favour of a combined "Dream Team" ticket, though the poll did not specify which candidate would run as President.

The Republican party nomination has already been won by Senator John McCain.

Senator Obama has a lead over his rival in pledged delegates but neither candidate can now win outright without the support of the super-delegates.

The 795 super-delegates can vote for whoever they want.

All Democratic Congressmen, state Governors and former and current office holders, along with members of the Democratic National Committee, are super-delegates.

Yesterday former President Bill Clinton talked up the prospect of a Clinton/Obama ticket.

"He would win the urban areas and the upscale voters, and she wins the traditional rural areas that we lost when President Reagan was President," he said while campaigning in Mississippi yesterday.

"If you put those two things together, you'd have an almost unstoppable force."

Three times in the past week the Clinton camp has made it clear it would be willing to accept Senator Obama as a Vice Presidential candidate.

"You won't see me as a Vice Presidential candidate," was his response.

"I'm running for President. We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count."

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-7083.html

Obama accuser fails polygraph

Remember Larry Sinclair, who claimed that in 1999 in the back of a limo he took coke while Barack Obama smoked some crack?

He then gave Obama a blow job in a Chicago hotel room and performed a similar sex act at another location.

Or actually he didn't.

Whitehouse.com, had offered Sinclair the sum of $10,000 to take a polygraph plus another if $100,000 he passed.

He failed.

"On the first test, questions were administered about Sinclair’s claims that he and Obama had sex.


"The second test focused on Sinclair’s claims that he and Obama did drugs. Dr.Gelb found “deception was indicated” in both tests."


Shame - though that scandal is so last week - now it is all about Barack Hussein Omaba, the Muslim.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6964.html

When visiting his father's homeland of Kenya two years ago, Presidential candidate Barack Obama wore a traditional white turban and a wraparound white robe presented to him by elders.


In the febrile atmosphere of the 2008 primaries, that picture has been released, allegedly by staffers for his rival for the Democratic nomination for President, Senator Hillary Clinton.


Senator Obama's campaign manager was furious, and the claim and counter-claim over the issue brings the public scrapping between the only female and the only black candidate in the race for the White House to a new low.


Just days ago Senator Clinton was saying her opponent ought to be ashamed of himself over campaign leaflets about her plans for health care. Over the weekend she bitterly mocked his message of hope and change.


"I could just stand up here and say 'Let's just get everybody together, let's get unified,'" she told a rally in Rhode Island.


"The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.


"Maybe I've just lived a little long, but I have no illusions at how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear.


"Yesterday the team around her was accused of "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election" by Obama campaign manager David Plouffe over the photo incident.


Senator Clinton's team tried to spin the story to their advantage, but their protestations of innocence were not helped by the fact that two staffers had to resign in December after sending out emails claiming her 46-year-old opponent is a secret Muslim.


"If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed," Senator Clinton's campaign manager Maggie Williams said.


She did not comment on how the photo came to be distributed.


"Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.


"This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry."


The two contenders for the Democratic party nomination will debate tonight for probably the last time in this campaign.


The increasingly strident attacks by Senator Clinton are a symptom of her steady loss of support among her core support groups.


Meanwhile Senator Obama continues to gain ground in the key primaries of Ohio and Texas, which will be held on March 4th.Senator Obama has won the last eleven contests in a row and now has more pledged delegates at the nominating convention than his opponent.


In Ohio Senator Clinton, 60, has seen her lead reduced from 21% to 11%. The national polls are even worse for her campaign.


A New York Times/CBS News Poll published today also found that Senator Obama's appeal is broadening. Nationally, 54% of Democratic primary voters saying they wanted to see him nominated, while 38% want Senator Clinton.


See full results of the NYT/CBS poll here.


"I think if we lose in Texas and Ohio, Mrs. Clinton will have to make her decision as to whether she moves forward or not," senior Clinton aide Harold Ickes told the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

Nutter claims he had gay sex with Obama

And they took class A drugs together too!

So says one Larry Sinclair, an ugly, overweight, middle-aged, sartorially challenged drug abuser, whose wild and probably delusional claims have been given some worrying coverage in America.

To summarise Sinclair told equally deranged far right "news" service WorldNetDaily (A Free Press For A Free People) that in 1999 in the back of a limo he took coke while the then Illinois state Senator smoked some crack.

He then gave Obama a blow job in a Chicago hotel room and performed a similar sex act at another location.

"My motivation for making this public is my desire for a presidential candidate to be honest," he told WorldNetDaily.

"I didn't want the sex thing to come out. But I think it is important for the candidate to be honest about his drug use as late as 1999."

Sinclair has of course aired his "revelations" on that home of nutters, YouTube, see video at the bottom of this entry, and has got close to 400,000 hits.

Sinclair has filed a federal lawsuit against Obama in Minnesota district court. He is also suing campaign consultant David Axelrod and the Democratic National Committee, claiming slander, internet harassment, physical threats, and attempts to suppress his speech in violation of his First Amendment rights.

Respected politics website whitehouse.com, (which helpfully informs visitors that it is "not affiliated (with) or endorsed by the US government) has offered Sinclair $10,000 to take a lie detector test.

And do you know, he has accepted.

whitehouse.com must be pretty confident that he isn't the full shilling - they are offering him $100,000 if he passes the polygraph.

"We're going to meet him on Tuesday, February 26th at an undisclosed location in New York City," they said in a story posted on Monday.

"We've picked a polygraph expert, too: a renowned expert who has been involved in quite a few high-profile cases who we're not going to name until the results are not only in, but have been verified by a second renowned expert.

"Then, we'll post the results, the names of both polygraph experts, and other relevant information, along with video and pictures, here on whitehouse.com.

"Since the outcome of the test will be vital interest to the voting public, our findings will be made available before the presidential primaries in Texas and Ohio slated for March 4. That's all for now, but check back for updates. "

Obama has been candid about the fact that as a much younger man he dabbled in drugs. Who hasn't? Well two of the UK party leaders clearly have.

What should be worrying the good people at whitehouse.com is that a) delusional people often pass lie detector tests because they do actually believe what they are saying and b) cocaine addicts are about the most delusional people around, they lie even more than alcoholics and the coke makes them super-confident!

Meanwhile Obama beat the Hillary lady in the Wisconsin primary and the Hawaii caucus, giving him ten wins in a row.

Let's hope he can keep it up. As it were.

Texas is make or break for the Dems

As Hillary Clinton concentrates her campaign for the White House on the key Texas primary on March 4th, there is more evidence that the Democratic nomination may be slipping out of her grasp.

Polling data from the American Research Group will make for grim reading chez Clinton.

While the former First Lady leads Barack Obama among self-described Democrats in Texas 47% to 42%, Obama leads Clinton among self-described independents and Republicans 71% to 24%.

So the voters that the Democratic candidate will need to win in November vastly favour the 46-year-old Senator from Illinois.

A couple of factors in the laughably convoluted primary rules could also favour Obama - delegates in African-American districts will be over-represented among the 126 delegates Texas sends to the convention. Obama leads Clinton among African American voters in the state 76% to 17%.

While Hillary has been counting on pulling in the significant number of Hispanic voters, she only has a slight lead there, and it is the same story among white male voters and women.

O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!

Three for three for Barack Obama in the Patomac primaries. He took DC, Maryland and Virginia last night, and not by a small margin.

Meanwhile the Hillary lady flew off to Texas, the last really, really big state in the race, and talked up her campaign. She didn't mention that she has lost the last eight to Obama and his momentum.

"We're going to sweep across Texas in the next three weeks,” the former First Lady said.

"I'm tested, I'm ready, let's make it happen."

Yes, let's hope. Oh, sorry, hope is his thing.

Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina are also have significant amounts of delegates. Then there is the super-delegates. There are 796 of them, about 20% of the overall total.

They are Democrat Senators, Congressmen, members of the Democratic National Committee (397 of them - big committee) and 23 distinguished party leaders, and 76 others.

The way this race is going, it could be up to them who gets the party nomination.

At present she is estimated to have 62% of these superdelegates on her side.

In any case, the Clinton campaign are fighting every inch of the way, and cannot be helped by the fact that her deputy campaign manager is reported to have resigned, just days after her campaign manager departed.

She is racking up the attacks on her opponent, 14 years her junior.

Her tactic of focusing on the big states should make sense, but remember if Obama keeps winning all the rest of the small states she could be out before the end of the race - unless the superdelegates save her.

Obama wins a Grammy!

As the battle for the Democratic nomination continues to be the most closely-fought in decades, Senator Hillary Clinton has reordered her core team.

Her rival Senator Barack Obama won yesterday's Maine caucus by a wide margin, his fourth victory over the weekend.

The Former First Lady had been hoping to secure the state.

Last week she had to lend her campaign $5m (£2.56m) of her own money after it suffered "cash flow problems."

Senator Clinton has replaced Patti Solis Doyle, who led campaign since the start, with aide Maggie Williams.

She reportedly met with former candidate John Edwards, who has yet to come out in support of either remaining candidate.

The removal of her original campaign manager is intended to send a signal to donors and supporters that she is responding to Senator Obama's increasing momentum in the race.

At last night's Grammy awards Senator Obama won the spoken word award for his reading of his best-selling book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

All eyes are now on the so-called Beltway Primary, when Washington DC and surrounding states vote for a Democratic candidate for President.

Speaking to supporters in Virginia yesterday, Senator Obama damned his opponent with faint praise:

"She's a smart person, she's a capable person, she would be a vast improvement over the incumbent.

"What is also true is, I think it's very hard for Senator Clinton to break out of the politics of the last 15 years.

"Keep in mind, we had Bill Clinton as President when, in 94, we lost the House, we lost the Senate, we lost Governorships, we lost state houses. And so, regardless of what policies they wanted to promote, they didn't have a working majority to bring change about."

Senator Clinton still retains a tiny lead over Senator Obama in the number of delegates pledged to her and the support of John Edwards could be key ahead of the remaining primaries and caucuses.

She is trying to portray herself as the experienced candidate who can take on the likely Republican nominee John McCain.

Speaking to a rally in Virginia yesterday she said:

"Who can go the distance? I want you to think about this.

"If Senator McCain is the nominee for the Republicans, as it appears he will be, you know that they will do everything in their power to make this election about national security, about homeland security, and that is exactly what will happen. I look forward to making it clear that I have big differences with my friend Senator McCain."

Senator Obama beat two former US President's at last night's Grammy awards, both Democrats.

Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were nominated for best spoken word album alongside Maya Angelou and Alan Alda.

The title, The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream,refers to Senator Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention:

"In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

"I'm not talking about blind optimism here, the almost wilful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it.

"No, I'm talking about something more substantial.

"It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

"Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope."

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/politics/2005-6815.html

The Christian Right have no love for McCain

He may be a war hero who invented oven chips, but it seems that Senator John McCain is not getting any love from the conservatives, Christians, and Christian conservatives in his own party.

This key section of the Republican party ushered George "born again" Bush into the White House twice in a row, but the results from the weekend primaries show that they still want former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee to do the Lord's work from the Oval Office.

The Huckster, ably supported by leading intellectual Chuck Norris, took Kansas by two to one (a winner takes all state, boosting his delegate total) and Louisiana. Washington state is too damn close to call.

"If you look at where our votes are coming from, it's clearly from the conservatives," Huckabee said after this latest string of wins, neatly echoing what I just said. "I think that makes sense. I am the most conservative candidate left standing."

What does this mean for McCain? Well, as we can see, the conservatives are flocking to Huckabee, though in the long run they will end up voting Republican on election day - or not at all.

What Bush, or more correctly Karl Rove, was masterful at was energising Christian voters and using their established community networks to get out the vote.

With a candidate they mistrust, such as McCain, they are likely to stay home altogether.

If he has any sense, the front runner will recruit Huckabee as his VP running mate, and hope that the smooth-talking Southern preacher can get out the vote to beat Hillary/Barack on November 4th.

Obama has the big Mo

It's all about momentum, and it looks once again as if 46-year Barack Obama has it.

He scored a series of stunning victories last night over his only rival for the Democratic nomination for President, that Hillary Clinton.

The most significant prize was Washington state, which sends 97 delegates of various sorts to the nomination convention later this year.

Obama not only won that state by a wide margin, as much as two to one, but also took Nebraska, the delegate-rich state of Louisiana and the votes of Democrats in the US colony on the Virgin Islands.

The Clinton campaign are confident they will win today's Maine primary, which is nice for them.

They of all people should know about momentum - after all, in 1992 it propelled Bill into the Oval Office.


The most heatening aspect of the Obama win in Washington is the excitement the candidate generates, especially among groups disenchanted with politics, such as young people.


As he continues to hoover up votes and delegates, the Clinton campaign must be worried.

They have nothing with which to capture the public imagination, beyond sensible trouser suits and the dubious promise of Bill Clinton back in the White House.


To give you just one example of the Obama's appeal, yesterday he addressed a rally of 20,000 supporters in Seattle.

The doors opened at 6am and had to close at 11am and thousands were turned away, all eager to see live the man who has inspired them so much.

The general impression from the caucuses up and down the state is of twice as many people as expected turning up, and all of them supporting Obama's candidacy.


It is called momentum, and Obama has it. Clinton supporters point to the upcoming contests. The so-called Beltway Primary on Tuesday, when DC, Virginia and Maryland choose.


Then Wisconsin the week after that - by that stage, hopefully, the Barack bandwagon will be a juggernaut.


March 4th is the day to watch. Texas and Ohio, both heavily populated and therefore delegate rich, will choose their Democratic candidate.

If Barack Obama can continue to ride the wave of popularity, he can clinch the nomination from under Senator Clinton's nose.

With Mitt Romney out of the race and Mike Huckabee looking increasingly likely to be pitching to do the Lord's work from the Vice President's office, John McCain is almost certain to be the Republican candidate.

A 71-year old WASP, a Washington veteran, a man of intergrity certainly, but will Americans really pick him over the hope of Obama or even the sensibly-dressed female candidate?

It seems that history will be made in 2008, and it will be the Democrats who make it.

Hillary - experience? What experience?

Hillary Clinton is keen to tell voters that she has experience - most of it as First Lady.

But it is a matter of fact that in the White House she did little except wifely duties, after being comprehensively shot down when she tried to reform health care.

She did not have access to the most sensitive documents, and so her experience is as great as that of Laura Bush or Bess Truman.

Either she is saying that she had a major impact on Bill Clinton, and therefore Americans will in effect be voting for a second co-Presidency, or she should stand on her own record.

Before the White House she never held public office - so her experience, given that she has denied that her husband will be a prominent voice in her administration, will amount to her inauspicious time in the Senate.

So which one is it?

Barack and Clinton both soar on Super Tuesday

With the results from yesterday's primaries and caucuses in nearly half of the United States counted, it appears that the Republicans have chosen their candidate for President while the Democrats are still unable to choose between a woman and a black man.

Senator John McCain, the 71-year-old war hero and former Vietnam prisoner of war, took nine of the 21 states voting in the Republican contests.

The big surprise of the night was former Governor of Arkansas Mike Hucakee.

He won his home state and Tennessee, West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia. His brand of fundamentalist Christianity clearly appealed to Southern Republicans wary of McCain's perceived liberalism, and his campaign has received a significant boost.

Meanwhile Mitt Romney, who has spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money on his bid for the White House, took seven states: Massachusetts, where he was Governor from 2003 to 2007, Alaska, Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana and Colorado.

Many of the contests in Republican races are winner takes all, which explains why Senator McCain won 511 delegates last night while Governor Huckabee took 147 and Governor Romney 176.

The delegates gather at the party conventions at the end of the summer to formally nominate their candidates for President. The election is held on November 4th.

"While I've never minded the role of the underdog, and have relished as much as anyone come from behind wins, I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican party front-runner for the nomination," Senator McCain told supporters.

Just six months ago his campaign was viewed as a minor distraction from the rise of Romney.

However, despite poor results Governor Romney pledged to keep fighting and has no intention of dropping out of the race, while Governor Huckabee can hardly contain his glee at sweeping the South.

In the Democratic races, which took place in 21 states, American Samoa and among expatriate party members, the candidates are apportioned delegates based on how many votes they won.

This makes second place important in the overall race.

The results were close. Senator Hillary Clinton won eight states, including many with large populations and therefore a high number of delegates, among them the biggest of them all, California. It is thought that Hispanic support was vital to her victory there - 70% of them voted for her.

She also won in her home state of New York, New Jersey and Arkansas, where she was First Lady for 12 years.

Her rival for the Democratic nomination, 46-year-old Barack Obama, won his home state of Illinois and 12 others, among them some mid-Western states such as Kansas, Missouri and Minnesota.

These states, while they may not carry with them a large number of delegates, indicate that Mr Obama continues to appeal to white voters.

Despite taking 13 states to Senator Clinton's eight, she won more delegates, because of the populations of the state where she took the lead.

AP reports that Senator Obama won 562 delegates to Senator Clinton's 582. Overall she has 845 delegates to her opponent's 765. The winner requires at least 2,025.

42% of the total delegates to the Democratic convention were apportioned yesterday.

Senator Obama's momentum seems hard to stop.

"There is one thing on this February night that we do not need the final results to know," he told supporters last night.

"Our time has come. Our time has come, our movement is real and change is coming to America."

Meanwhile Senator Clinton, at all times emphasising her experience as a White House spouse and member of the Senate, said:

"Tonight in record numbers you voted not just to make history, but to remake America.

"I look forward to continuing our campaign and our debate, about how to leave this country better off for the next generation, because that is the work of my life."

All eyes are now on phase four of the Democratic race. On Saturday Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state and the US Virgin Islands will hold their primaries and caucuses, followed by Maine the next day.

Next Tuesday is the so-called Beltway primary, when the states surrounding Washington DC, such as Maryland and Virginia, and DC itself, go to the polls.

In March, April, May and June Washington DC, a further 14 states and two territories will choose until on June 3rd Montana and South Dakota will hold their primaries. The key races will be in the populous states of Ohio and Texas.

While many commentators expect the race to have a winner atfer those two key primaries, the closeness of the candidates makes it possible it could be up to Democrats in Montana and South Dakota who runs for President.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6769.html

Super duper Tuesday!

So here we are - American Democrats and Republicans are going to the polls - its pretty clear that John McCain is going to wrap up the Republican nomination.

Great news. As I have said before, I just do not think America will vote for a 71-year-old.

So tonight will be most interesting to see if a woman or a black man will take the lead in the Democratic race.

Barack Obama has a knack of getting out the vote, particularly young people. In a few hours will will find out how many of the 20-odd states will back him.

His team are playing down any chance of a stunning victory, but the BBC reports that privately his inner circle are happy with his surge in numbers.

"The more the voters see of him, the more they like him," said one reporter. They have seen plenty of Hillary Clinton.

Exciting stuff.

Bush shows love to gay Congressman

I wrote this story today. It made me smile.

It was a moment of affection between two politicians, and in normal circumstances it would pass unnoticed.

But when one is the only out gay man in Congress and the other a President who has revelled in his hostility to gay marriage, their closeness raises eyebrows.

After his final State of the Union address to both Houses of Congress on Monday, President George W Bush greeted Congressman Barney Frank with a shoulder and head touch, as the two shared a personal moment.

Fox News commentator Brit Hume felt moved to point it out, without saying the word 'gay':

"Hold on a second, what we just saw there was an interesting moment, a moment of friendship and almost affection between the President and none other than Barney Frank.

"Who I think it's fair to say is one of the most liberal Members of Congress, also one of the smartest guys up there, but, uh..."

His co-host Nina Easton was quick to point out that Congressman Frank has co-operated closely with the White House as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

It later emerged that Frank had encountered the President before his speech.

On the phone to his boyfriend while waiting the Speaker's Lobby, Frank was approached by the President, who leaned in and said "tell him I said hello."

The affectionate exchange captured by the cameras after the President's speech was in fact the Congressman saying:

"Mr. President, by the way, the person I was talking to when you said to say hello was my boyfriend."

"Well. I hope you said how open-minded I am," was Bush's response.

"I considered telling [the President] I wouldn't marry him," Frank told the Boston Globe, "but then I thought, 'Nah.'"

President Bush has tried to introduce an amendment to the US Constitution banning same-sex marriage, while Mr Frank's home state of Massachusetts is the only one in the US to have legalised it.

Congressman Frank has represented the 4th District of Massachusetts since 1981, and is one of two out gay people in the House of Representatives.

Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Congresswoman, is the only lesbian in the House.

An outsider in Congress Frank, a Harvard-educated lawyer, has a sharp tongue and is consistently voted one of the funniest members of the House.

He came out in 1987, and his political opponents have tried to smear and unseat him on many occasions.

Many opponents thought he was politically dead after a rent boy scandal in 1990.

Attempts to expel him failed - the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him instead.

The people of his district stuck with him through the scandal - he won re-election in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote. In 2006 he ran unopposed.

In 1998, he founded the National Stonewall Democrats, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Democratic pressure group.

He has been a vocal and articulate defender of LGBT rights. Speaking out against the Federal Marriage Act, which would have amended the US Constitution to ban gay marriage, he said:

"We're told "don't take things personally", but I take this personally. I take it personally when people decide to take political batting practice with my life."

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6713.html

John Edwards will be missed

A significant day in the US Presidential nomination circus, as John Edwards withdraws from the Democrat race and Rudy Giuliani looking almost certain to pull out of the Republican one.

This leaves four contenders left - talk of Ralph Nader running again on an independent anti-corporatist ticket has excited no-one.

It is sad to see two candidates I could have felt quite comfortable seeing sworn in as President leave the field.

Giuliani has always been a friend to gay people, and as he took hits for it in Republican circles I respected him for not trying to tack Right.

He was an outstanding Mayor of New York, before, during and after September 11th, and his support for limited abortion marked him out as a man of principle.

I am more saddened by the news that John Edwards has given up on his White House dream so early in the race.

Initially I was unimpressed with him, taking him for a Tom Cruise clone with a strange voice. However, the more I saw him in action the more I came to form the highest opinion of his stance on poverty.

It is immoral and disgusting that millions of Americans, many of them children, live in poverty. I hope that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were sincere when they said they would continue his work in office.

I think he would make an excellent Vice Presidential candidate, especially for Obama, and I also hope he comes out in favour of the Illinois Senator.

During the televised debate on Martin Luther King day earlier this month, Edwards certainly appeared to have more in common with Obama than Clinton and they made an effective team against her.

As for whether or not it helps Hillary or Barack on Super Tuesday next week, I don't really know enough to comment, except to say I hope that the progressives who were all for Edwards will recognise that Barack Obama is the candidate of change.

As for the Republicans, it seems increasingly likely that they will choose John McCain as their candidate. "Mad" Mitt Romney is disturbingly popular, but only with Republicans, and not even with all of them, on account of the Mormon thing.

McCain is a good candidate - for the 1988 election. At 71, he is by far the oldest candidate and was already 35, the age required to run for President, when the boy Barack was born.

He is a war hero, a fiscal conservative and a former prisoner of war. I have the highest respect for him - he is exactly the sort of figure that should be in the Senate.

I suspect that is where he will remain.

Caroline Kennedy comes out for Obama

Here is the opinion piece Caroline, the only living child of former US President John F Kennedy, wrote for today's New York Times:

A President Like My Father.

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences. However, the candidates’ goals are similar. They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual.

Senator Obama has demonstrated these qualities throughout his more than two decades of public service, not just in the United States Senate but in Illinois, where he helped turn around struggling communities, taught constitutional law and was an elected state official for eight years.

And Senator Obama is showing the same qualities today. He has built a movement that is changing the face of politics in this country, and he has demonstrated a special gift for inspiring young people — known for a willingness to volunteer, but an aversion to politics — to become engaged in the political process.

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged.

As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Obama has to be the next President

We always knew the race to the White House in 2008 would be exciting. With no incumbent President or Vice President in contention, the field in both parties is wide open.

I have always been a huge fan of Barack Obama, and I was heartened to read the opinion piece written by President Kennedy's only daughter Caroline in the New York Times today. It seems she agrees with me that he is a once-in-a-generation figure, a man who can bring hope and effect profound change in America and by extension the world.

Of course, my good mood is also because yesterday in South Carolina the wheels came off the Clinton bandwagon. For all the carping about blacks voting for Obama, his 2 to 1 victory over Hillary was a victory for the sort of campaign that the young African-American has chosen to run.

For the past week, Bill Clinton, like the 90s relic he is, has been indulging in attack dog-campaigning. He implied that Obama was untrustworthy.

He bitched about his lack of Washington experience, ironic coming from a man who arrived at the White House with half of the cast of the Beverly Hillbillies, and whose political knowledge extended no further than the backwater state he had been born in.

He compared him to Jesse Jackson in the 1984 and 88 primaries (subtext: he can win all the black votes he wants, only Hillary can take whites).

Bill squandered vast amounts of his political capital in his nasty campaigning - and it failed. It turned the voters off, and many in his own party are furious with him for adopting campaign tactics more associated with the Bush White House.

Meanwhile the most Presidential looking person in the race continues to be Obama. I suspect that many voters know he is up against Bill and Hillary in this election, and I think it can only work to his advantage.

People like the underdog and Americans, for all your negative opinions about them, do believe in their future, do think their country can be better, and do like to give hope a chance.

After all, the people who should know that most are the Clintons.

As we move towards Super Tuesday, it is Bill and Hillary who increasing look like the establishment couple, and Barack and Michelle who most resemble America in the 21st century.