Gay In Augusta

from the Southern Voice

Keisha Waites fell short of her history-making aspirations when she lost her race for state House District 61 to Ralph Long III in the Aug. 5 primary runoff.

Waites, who would have been the first openly gay African-American woman elected to a state legislature in the country, garnered 986 votes to Long’s 1,357 votes. The seat was left open when Rep. Bob Holmes (D-Atlanta) announced his retirement earlier this year.

One day openly gay polital candidates will run in the CSRA. Hey – it can happen. It will happen.

How long do you think we’ll have to wait to see that become a reality? Sorry if I got you excited for a second, but I think it’s absolutely amazing that Keisha Waites can make that a reality in our state – in our capital.  Southern voice has a great article about this courageous candidate running for House District 61. I hope she will win the runoff tomorrow and run to take this seat in November.

The recent murder at a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville was truly shocking to me. Truly shocking, but not surprising. After all, I do occasionally force myself to watch Bill O’ or another drone who spits out hateful, horrible untruths that I honestly think no none could take seriously. Unfortunately, some of their listeners not only believe what they say, but believe they should act on it. In a letter found in his car, the shooter described his hatred for gays and liberals and how he believed all liberals should be killed for ruining the country. Where did he get those insane ideas from? O’Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Robertson, and Savage are on the short list.

In case you have any doubts, here’s the best exposé of right wing hate speech I’ve found to date.