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Soon to be ex-Senator Craig is still in the news, this time for saying that just perhaps he is changing his mind about resigning. Just like he’s changing his mind about pleading guilty. And presumably he’s also changing his mind about having anonymous sex in public restrooms.

I don’t know who Senator Craig really is. Until last week I’d never heard of him. But, from watching his actions it looks like he’s a man that reacts from fear instead of someone who makes informed decisions. And it looks like this is a pattern as long as his public service.

• During the page scandal of the late 1980′s he released a preemptive press release saying he hadn’t done anything wrong. Funny thing is, nobody had accused him.
• When he’s arrested for soliciting sex, he pleads guilty probably hoping nobody would notice.
• When it all comes out and he is pressured, he resigns.
• He has voted against civil rights for gay people at every opportunity

It is arguable that every single one of those actions has been taken in fear. He probably regrets the first three and uses the fourth to bolster his denial about himself. Nothing feeds self-loathing like whipping those who are brave enough to publicly admit who they are in a hostile environment.

Honestly, I’d love to see him stay in office and run again. His reputation is so damaged that it means his opponent, who is likely to be more sympathetic to civil rights issues is likely to win. But, if I’m right about his motivations, he should resign. He isn’t doing anyone any good. Idaho deserves a senator who has the integrity to serve openly and honestly and who doesn’t live his life reinforcing the closet door.

My congress critter, Congressman Moran, was at the office where I work for about an hour today. At the end of his visit he took questions from us. I asked him about the chances of getting the hate crimes bill and the employment non-discrimination act through congress were. He didn’t seem optimistic because of a threatened veto by Bush.

Just one more reason that January 9, 2009 can’t get here fast enough.

Last night, before a national audience, six Democratic presidential candidates participated in a forum that was televised on Logo. It wasn’t a debate; the candidates were on the stage individually being questioned by a panel. They weren’t asked the same questions though there was a fair amount of overlap.

Two Democratic candidates didn’t participate because of scheduling conflicts.

Not one Republican candidate accepted the invitation to participate.

I don’t think this could have happened eight years ago. Not many candidates were willing to be seen as too friendly to LGBT issues and most of them tap danced around the issues. This year there were six on stage at a national gay event and at least one of the Democratic candidates who couldn’t participate is also on record as being very supportive (Senator Biden).

I came in expecting this to be a mostly content free show with softball questions lobbed up to candidates but it wasn’t. They asked good questions and mostly got real answers (by real I mean they didn’t sidestep the question and answer a different question).

Let’s start with the worst of the bunch from my perspective. Bill Richardson looked uncomfortable and floundered a bit. He seemed ill prepared and didn’t impress me. Even so, he’s generally a supportive politician. And he was the worst of the bunch.

Clinton and Obama both are strong supporters of the LGBT rights and really only miss on the marriage issue (both support civil unions). They are willing to settle for civil unions and their answers were a little too politically calculated for my taste.

Edwards is similar except he’s honest about not support marriage. He does support civil unions. I respected his honesty.

Kucinich isn’t as polished as the above candidates but he’s there 100%. He supports marriage rights. Same for Gravel, even though he hasn’t been active in politics for 26 years.

Speaking solely on LGBT issues, I’d rate them in this order:
1. Kucinich, Gravel
2. Edwards
3. Clinton, Obama
4. Richardson

Except for marriage, there isn’t a huge difference though Richardson didn’t come off as being strongly supportive while the others did. Frankly, any of the would be a thousand percent improvement over the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

HB1727 has an innocuous title: “School boards; policies concerning non-curriculum-related student organizations,’ but when you see what it says and who introduced it and take a look at some recent history, it is revealed for what it really is: an attempt to keep students from participating in Gay-Straight Alliances at school.

The text of the bill reads: “Requires that local school boards obtain express written permission from a parent or legal guardian before any student becomes a member of or attends the meeting of a non-curriculum-related student organization. The permission must clearly evidence that the parent or legal guardian has given informed consent as to the particular student organization.”

On the surface it doesn’t sound bad, but Delegate Lohr, the bill’s chief patron tried last year to prohibit GSA’s in Virginia with the HB1308. Thiat bill sought to “prohibit the use of school facilities by any student club or other student group that encourages or promotes sexual activity by unmarried minor students.” It also provided that the Attorney General’s Office would provide legal defense on behalf of the local school boards.

That bill passed the house but didn’t make it out of the senate. He promised to come back in 2007 with another attempt. And HB1727 is it.

Of course, GSA’s aren’t there to promote sexual activity of any sort. They are there to promote understanding between gay and straight students and to help students who may be questioning their own sexuality have a peer group where they can discuss their issues without fear of reprisals. Delegate Lohr’s intent with this bill is to make it difficult for student’s to participate in GSA’s on the theory that students will either be afraid to tell their parents or that parents will withhold permission. The fact that many students are afraid to tell their parents is one of the main reasons why GSA’s are needed in the first place.

This bill must not become law. Delegate Lohr’s bill would place an extra burden and cost on school systems that are already struggling to make ends meet. Now they have to print and store permission slips each year just because Delegate Lohr doesn’t want students to be able to discuss real issues affecting their own lives. Non-curricular after school activities enrich the lives of many students. Let’s not jeopardize them all just because of some homophobia on the part of Delegate Lohr. Please let your delegate and senator know that you don’t support this bill. You can find who your state senator and delegate are at: http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/main?openform.

Now that a week has gone by and I’ve been able to put the slightest bit of emotional distance between what sanity remains to me and Election Day, I thought I might relate some of the encounters I had with people at the polls. For the most part it was a positive experience. People in Reston are definitely supporters of diversity!

• Congressman Moran stopped by early in the morning and thanked me for working against the amendment. He has been a wonderful supporter of equality in Congress and it was great to hear in his voice just how much he meant it.
• One republican poll worker who had not yet voted seemed quite concerned about the possible side effects of the amendment (sadly he seemed only midly concerned about the intended effects) but after a fair amount of discussion it seemed he was likely to vote no.
• A trio of highschool girls who were also republican poll workers (and wow, did that hurt my head) were against the amendment as obviously awful except for one who said, “I think I voted yes by mistake.”
• The older woman who, when she saw what I was handing out, said she was definitely voting yes. When I asked if she read the whole thing, she said it didn’t matter because she knew how she was voting.
• The pair of women who walked up together and said, “Duh! Of course,” when I asked them to vote no.
• There was a man who asked for me to explain what a vote yes and a vote no meant. The language of the amendment was apparently too convoluted for him.
• There was an evangelical Christian republican poll worker who proved to me that you can’t argue with someone who accepts as an axiom that you are wrong. His response was that perhaps if I prayed more that God would set me straight (pun intended in my paraphrase).
• The democratic poll workers were all amazingly supprtive. They were often as vocal as I was in their opposition to the amendment.
• There were three constitutional amendments on the ballot. The republicans tooka formal position in their sample ballot only on one. I’ll give you one guess as to which one that was.
• The number of people who knew how they were going to vote on everything surprised me. These people didn’t want any party’s sample ballot though some of them would take my non-partisan literature.
• The number of people who only wanted a particular party’s sample ballot was kind of scary. I can’t imagine being so mindless that I would do what any political party wanted me to do without a fair amount of forethought.

I could probably continue on like this for longer than anyone would want to read. To say that it was an educational day would be an understatement. It was certainly an exhausting day. Spending about 11 hours on my feet handing out literature was definitely tiring. As I drifted off to sleep that night, I was still hearing, “Please vote ‘no’ on number 1″ in my head. I was afraid I would be hearing it for days whenever there was a quiet moment but fortunately it was just the one night. Even though I’m not sure my presence really influenced many undecided voters (based on comparing those precincts with other nearby precincts that didn’t have a coalition poll worker), it was interesting to see the process in action.