Category Archives: SC News/Commentary

Cops try to sanitize view during Bush visit

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Police Intimidation Threatens Peaceful Protest of Fund-raiser
Wade Fulmer, Columbia

On Friday, Nov. 2, activists had arrived by 10:30 on the sidewalk across the street from the entrance to the plantation on Garners Ferry Road where the Republican barbecue fund-raiser was being held. Participants ranged from college students to an 80-year-old WWII veteran, and were citizens or representatives of various peace groups. Activists and protesters were orderly, quiet, and held signs in protest of the Iraq War, to advocate for the care of our troops, and to insist that Bush-Graham politicians do not rush to still another war with Iran.  

At about 10:45, Columbia police suddenly demanded that all protesters were to move down the hill to the far end of Woodhill Mall, which would take us and signs out of the view of traffic and politicians entering the barbecue. Upon asking an officer why, he said that the order was given to officers this morning by their captain. As an organizer of the demonstration, I asked why was such an order given. I reminded officers that Columbia city police have agreed and cooperated with us for four years in the exercise of our right to assemble and protest as long as there is no disturbance or interference with traffic. I asked to speak to the officer in charge. He approached and spoke angrily that we must move. He then told me that I had 10 seconds to move to the bottom of the hill. 

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Exploitation all year long

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Today at a press event in Charleston, plastic surgeons masquerading as humanitarians announced the launch of a calendar featuring topless women in what they call a “bold visual approach to education about post-mastectomy options.”

Here’s their press release:

Women with Heriditary Predisposition for Breast Cancer Pose Topless in Unique Educational Calendar Launch

WHAT: Launch of a unique calendar of women who are members of FORCE (Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered), the nation’s largest community of women who carry a BRCA mutation or other high-risk factors for breast cancer. In the calendar, titled “Life is a Carnival,” 14 women whose faces are festively masked, pose topless in a bold visual approach to education about post-mastectomy options.

Meet some of these brave women, most of whom have the BRCA gene mutation, and learn about the options they chose; meet the founder of FORCE, which has 11,000 members and whose website gets 1.5 million hits/month; meet prominent reconstructive surgeons and a geneticist; and, obtain a free copy of calendar. 

This event provides an opportunity for editors, reporters, producers, on-air hosts and writers to, in an informal setting, meet the women, the founder and director of FORCE, and surgeons who perform microsurgical breast reconstruction. Refreshments, hors d’oeuvres. The event is open to the public, RSVP to 843-513-1010.

WHEN: Thursday, November 1, 5:30 – 7:30 PM

WHERE: The Historic Rice Mill Building, 17 Lockwood Drive -Charleston, S.C

WHO: Sue Friedman, DVM, Executive Director / Founder of FORCE / Calendar model (Born and raised in NY, lives in FL)

FORCE members and Women With BRCA gene (from South Carolina and, elsewhere), some of whom had mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

James E.Craigie, M and; Richard M. Kline Jr, MD of The Center for Natural Breast Reconstruction;  members of a breast reconstruction team in SC who use microsurgery to transfer live, soft tissue from the abdomen to shape a live breast mound; a procedure growing in popularity as an alternative to breast implants.

Steven Shapiro, M.S., D.M.D., M.D., medical geneticist who provides genetic counseling and testing for BRCA mutations.

Seeking justice for Sean

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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.

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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.

Barack brouhaha

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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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Creating Hell on Earth

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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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Tommy’s civics lesson

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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

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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.

**************

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.

The inevitability of sameness

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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

A for Attendance

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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.

claflin.jpg

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.

Joe Erwin, DeMinted Democrat

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Joe Erwin, former chair of the SC Democratic Party, is testing the waters for a run against Sen. Lindsey Graham. The waters Joe is testing are of the conservative Republicans who are mad at Lindsey for his earlier thoughtful position on immigration reform. You may already be over Joe for his failure to take a stand against the Republican 2006 GOTV ploy of using homophobia to motivate its base. I told Joe a year before the vote to include discrimination against gays in our state constitution that if he didn’t come out against the amendment, Democratic candidates would be afraid to, and that Dems were going to again let fear trump hope, and lose. He didn’t, and they did.

Or maybe you thought it was a bit off putting that the biggest client of Joe’s ad agency was the predatory lender Advance America at a time when the party platform called for closing them down. If you retained a shred of respect for Joe’s democratic principles, I’m afraid his posturing for a Senate race is going to disappoint you.

In an Oct. 3 interview with right-wing talk show host Michael Gallagher, Joe parroted the xenophobic refrain that Lindsey’s position amounted to “amnesty” for undocumented workers.

Joe led the state Democratic Party during the 2006 elections where Democrats picked up seats nearly everywhere but in SC. Joe’s failed “Republican Lite” strategy didn’t work then (or for the previous 20 years), so he is racheting up the conservative rhetoric to the point where he sounds like Jim DeMint.

Wrong way, Joe. You may lose as a genuine Democrat, but you sure as hell aren’t going to win as a jackass in an elephant suit.

Go to Mike Gallagher Talk Radio to hear Joe’s demented version of Harry Dent’s Southern Strategy.

Brett Bursey