Words From a Wicked Woman

Maggie Williams

There’s trouble in Hillaryland. Two top officials have left Democratic hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in the last week amid a shake-up on the heels of eight straight primary season losses to challenger Sen. Barack Obama since Super Tuesday. On Sunday, campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle stepped down and was replaced by longtime Clinton loyalist and fixer Maggie Williams, and; Tuesday, NBC reported that deputy campaign manager Mike Henry was “stepping down to allow campaign manager Maggie Williams to build her own team.” But with Obama accumulating ever-more substantial victories, is this change in staff too little too late?

According to “Inside the Clinton Shake-up” on Atlantic.com, Solis Doyle was fired in favor of Williams, even though the latter has never run a campaign. During the Clinton White House, for some, Williams was the quiet, earnest aide to the president and chief of staff to Hillary; to others, she was the one donors called if they wanted access to the First Couple. However, to the Clintons, Williams was the faithful partisan who got her hands dirty so they didn’t have to. It was that last part of her job description that earned her a subpoena from the House Government Oversight Committee in 1997 to explain what access might have been purchased by suspect Clinton and Democratic Party fundraiser Jimmy Chung’s $366,000-plus contribution.

Although Williams was never indicted, Chung was. He pleaded guilty to election law violations in 1998, whereupon his attorney, Brian Sun, said, “Mr. Chung has reached an agreement with the government. Mr. Chung wants to put this matter behind him as quickly as possible. He and his family are looking forward to getting on with their lives.”

Chung was known to have physically handed over a large portion of his contribution–at least $50,000 according to CNN–to Williams in the White House, a site he visited on almost 50 occasions. One of these occasions had him watching as President Clinton taped his weekend address along with an interesting group of friends that included the head of the Chinese government’s oil monopoly.

Williams, described by one ally as the “queen of Hillaryland,” according to the Washington Post, “is said to have improved the mood and inspired confidence within the campaign and its donor base. “Hillaryland,” a term ironically coined by Solis Doyle while serving as Clinton’s scheduler when she was first lady, is the group of close female allies and confidants with which the candidate surrounds herself.

“They needed some kind of jolt at this point of time,” Nadadur Vardhan, a Los Angeles-based financial consultant and Clinton fundraiser, told the Washington Post. “At least in terms of perception, this makes people like me feel that they’re conscious of the fact that something drastic has to be done.”

In another drastic move, Clinton revealed last week that she’d loaned her campaign $5 million of her own money to keep it going. She further reports she’s raised double that much and more since making the announcement.

Obama’s victories must have been distressing enough for the Clinton campaign, but perhaps even more alarming was that Obama won voter groups in the Chesapeake Primary held February 12 previously considered Clinton strengths. For example, women voters were considered her inviolate constituency. However, according to CNN’s Virginia exit polls, Obama won 60% of the female vote overall while Clinton only won among white women, the single largest voting bloc. Even there, Clinton’s six-point margin among that group was less than usual.

Moreover, although voters over 45-years-old have tended to vote for Clinton in previous contests, according to the New York Times’ Virginia exit polls, Obama carried every age group in the state. The same is true for voters with incomes below $50,000 per year and those without college degrees–two groups that Clinton has consistently captured but that now appear to be in play.

Those trends continued in Maryland and Washington, D.C.

In an apparent move to stem the hemorrhage, it appears that Clinton’s message may be changing from “Ready on Day One” to “Solutions,” in reference to Obama’s clear talent for giving uplifting and inspiring speeches but a tendency seen by some to be less than specific in his plans for execution of policy. If so, the change may or may not come from Williams. According to the Atlantic.com article, the campaign’s resident Karl Rove-like figure remains Mark Penn, a pollster who has served as chief strategist and been responsible for her overall message.

It is too soon to determine whether either the staff shake-up or the new message are having any impact. What is known is that Obama is ahead by an average of only 4.3% in the latest Wisconsin primary polls according to RealClearPolitics.com. Oddly enough, even though she is competitive in that state, the Clinton campaign has all but abandoned it in favor of primaries in Texas and Ohio where her campaign feels (and numbers agree) she must win big on March 4 if she is to catch up to Obama’s delegate count.

Meanwhile, in Texas, Clinton has a 10.3% average lead in the latest polls according to RealClearPolitics.com. However, a poll conducted by the American Research Group (ARG) on February 13 and 14, and not included in the RealClearPolitics.com average, has Obama ahead of Clinton 48% to 42%. The numbers within the numbers are interesting, to say the least. USAElectionPolls.com quotes ARG:

Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama among self-described Democrats 47% to 42%. Obama leads Clinton among self-described independents and Republicans 24% to 71%. Obama leads among men 55% to 29% (47% of likely Democratic primary voters) and Clinton leads among women 54% to 42%. Clinton leads Obama among white voters 51% to 40% (53% of likely Democratic primary voters), Obama leads Clinton among African American voters 76% to 17% (22% of likely Democratic primary voters), and Clinton leads Obama among Latino voters 44% to 42%.

22% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary and 20% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Barack Obama in the primary. 30% of men say they would never vote for Clinton in the primary.

Clinton and Obama are virtually tied among Latino voters–said to be about 18% to 20% of all voters in 2002 and 2004 according to the William C. Velasquez Institute. This is in marked contrast to the belief that Latinos will not vote for a black candidate. It may be that Obama is continuing to attract Latino voters as he did in the Chesapeake Primary where he won that group in all three contests.

The statistic for independents and Republicans could prove very beneficial in the general election if Obama secures the Democratic nomination.

Ohio looks better for Clinton. In the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls, she leads Obama by 17.3%. That is an improvement for Obama, who was behind 42% to 19% in a poll conducted by the Columbus Dispatch between January 23 and 31 and reported by USAElectionPolls.com.

Perhaps the smaller margin between the two candidates is why, given the choice between Texas and Ohio, Clinton has chosen to focus most of her attention on the former, campaigning largely in the Rio Grande Valley. She’s sent daughter Chelsea to Ohio on a tour of universities around the state Wednesday and Thursday. The candidate herself dropped in Thursday and Friday.

Obama is in the midst of fighting to win the Wisconsin primary next Tuesday with appearances throughout that state. His home state, Hawaii, also holds its primary that day. He is, one imagines, expected to win.

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Technorati Tags: african-american, barack obama, blacks, campaign ‘08, democratic, election results, hillary clinton, politics, presidential campaign

Recording artist will.i.am and director Jesse Dylan, son of singer/icon Bob Dylan, got together with a group of musicians, actors and personalities over the course of two days to mold music written by the Black Eyed Peas founder to words from Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s New Hampshire “Yes We Can” speech into a song of hope, unity and inspiration. It is a video that sends chills down the spine of the jaded and brings tears to the eyes of cynics. Best of all, will.i.am, Dylan and friends did all of this unbidden. This video, and its making, is indicative of the inspiration Obama engenders.

Today is known throughout the country as “Super Tuesday.” Democrats, Republicans and Independents across 24 states will go to the polls to vote for the candidate they want to see as their party’s presidential nominee. The reasons any one person will cast their vote for a particular candidate are myriad, however, I would like to discuss a few of the reasons Barack Obama has inspired so many people and deserves your support.

Barack Obama can change the status quo

Washington is a mess. There’s no getting around it. Legislators are often unresponsive to their constituents’ desires, instead, preferring to grant the wishes of lobbyists and other big campaign donors; very little gets accomplished in Congress because of inter- and intra-party spats and rivalries; there is no unifying vision of where this country needs to go, and; even when there is unity of purpose and vision, there is someone in the White House determined to stand in the way. Today, when many people think of Washington, D.C., they think of a quagmire of lost hope.

Those who support Obama are tired of politics as usual and believe he brings a singular freshness. He is an African-American elected by a largely white, moderate to conservative majority in Illinois because he has a vision of what this country can be. He hasn’t been in and around Washington for decades adding to the morass on Capitol Hill, making it what it is. Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison captured the essence of Obama’s value to this country when she wrote in a letter to the senator, “[I]n addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.”

That wisdom was born, in part, because he is America–multiracial, multicultural and multiethnic–the beautiful quilt of this country’s lost amibition. As such, he brings a view that is more expansive and inclusive than we’ve seen before. It is a view that says we can be gracious and talk to those we don’t like (and who don’t like us) instead of pointing a gun at them first and that we must engage countries and people to bring about progress. According to Obama, “On challenges ranging from terrorism to disease, nuclear weapons to climate change, we cannot make progress unless we can draw on strong international support.” Yes we can.

Barack Obama can bring people together

Obama truly believes all people really are created equal and that blacks, browns, yellows and reds can work together to enable this country to reach its potential. In an election cycle that has been marred by racial code intended to inflame, it is time to see beyond the divisiveness of racial politics. That does not mean we should forget our heritage. Indeed, we must acknowledge and celebrate our different cultures, but not allow them to trap us into a mental, spiritual, intellectual OR gender ghetto that separates us from our common goals.

Much has been made of the notion that Latinos will not support Obama in California and the rest of the Southwest because there is a rivalry between blacks and browns. However, the people who have posited this theory forget the reality that Obama has been endorsed by the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, La Opinion, saying:

Senator Barack Obama represents fundamental change in a campaign in which ‘change’ has become a central theme. Obama’s approach to immigration and his inspiring vision are what the country need to break through the current feeling of political malaise.

. . .

It is this commitment to the immigration issue which drove Obama to condemn the malicious lies made during the immigration debate, to understand the need for driver’s licenses, and to defend the rights of undocumented students by co-authoring the DREAM Act. The senator has demonstrated character by maintaining his position despite the hostile political climate.

. . .

We need a leader today that can inspire and unite America again around its greatest possibilities. Barack Obama is the right leader for the time.

The senator’s hometown Spanish-language newspaper, La Hoy, also endorsed him. This is the first time the Chicago newspaper has endorsed any presidential candidate. “The son of an immigrant father and an American mother, Obama knows the challenges facing those deprived of privileges, when facing the uphill climb to success. . . . The Senator is capable of compromising with those who think differently, and has the strength to renew the hopes of those who have come to this country in search of a better life. . . . We, the Latinos, are a mostly young population, with great dreams and hunger for success. For that reason we consider that Barack Obama is the Democratic Party’s best option, to give back to the country a national unity that includes Hispanic talent.”

As La Hoy mentioned, Obama not only brings people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds together, but also those of different ideologies. It is, perhaps, one of his most defining qualities. As he noted in his South Carolina victory speech, “[Obama supporters] are Democrats from Des Moines and independents from Concord and, yes, some Republicans from rural Nevada.” In the very speech from which the above video was made, he emphasizes the diversity of his coalition but says the thing they all have in common is they are people who, “are tired of the division and distraction that has clouded Washington, who know that we can disagree without being disagreeable, who understand that, if we mobilize our voices to challenge the money and influence that stood in our way and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there is no problem we cannot solve, there is no destiny that we cannot fulfill.” We can be–we must be–a UNITED States of America. Yes we can.

Barack Obama can end the Iraq War

According to Antiwar.com, there have been 3945 U.S. casualties since the Iraq War began March 19, 2003; 3806 of those have come since President George W. Bush arrogantly and foolishly stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declared “Mission accomplished!” on May 1, 2003. In stark contrast to anyone else running for either party’s presidential nomination, Barack Obama has never supported the war.

At an anti-war rally held in Chicago on October 2, 2002, then-State Senator Barack Obama made the following remarks:

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east (sic), and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

I encourage reading entire speech here.

In the wee hours of October 11, 2002, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the other candidate for the Democratic party presidential nomination, in bold relief to Obama’s position, voted to send American troops into Iraq, thus beginning the Iraq War. Literally minutes prior to her vote authorizing the war, she voted against the Levin amendment to the authorization. The Levin amendment would have reigned the administration in and encouraged it to work with other nations before then coming back to Congress to ask for authorization. For a full discussion of the Levin amendment see my previous post “Obama Cordially Hangs Clinton on Iraq in Pre-Super Tuesday Debate.”

Obama has offered a plan to bring one or two brigades a month home from Iraq with full withdrawal completed within 16 months. Clinton will not commit to a timetable even though she says that she now favors ending the war.

Although Obama wants to end the Iraq War, he stated in the February 2, 2008 Los Angeles debate with Clinton, “I think it is important for us to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. . . . but I do think it is important for us to set a date. And the reason I think it is important is because if we are going to send a signal to the Iraqis that we are serious, and prompt the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds to actually come together and negotiate, they have to have clarity about how serious we are.” We must get out of Iraq as carefully as possible and as soon as possible. Yes We Can.

In Conclusion

For some candidates, this presidential campaign season began years ago. And, for some, it has ended too soon. I think we can all agree that parts of it have been extremely ugly, but there have also been times that have inspired hope where once there was none. Those latter times have, most often, been inspired by Barack Obama–a uniquely transformative agent of aspiration and change. He looks at this country and its people and sees what is possible with faith, belief in ourselves and a generous spirit. He rejects the politics of fear which turns into the politics of “mean.” As a result, people are valuable not because they are of a particular race, ethnicity, gender, income status or sexual orientation. They are valuable because they are human beings who deserve to be heard and counted.

Today is almost at an end. If you live in a Super Tuesday state and you have not voted yet, please do so. But, before you pull that lever or press a touchscreen or fill in a bubble, realize that today is a new day. It is a day when we have a chance to propose a man with the courage to dream, the belief that we can be better than we are and the audacity of hope. He did not sit in the Senate in Washington wringing his hands, wondering what he should do while we languished in malaise. Instead, on February 10, 2007, on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln once called on a divided nation to stand together, Sen. Barack Obama entered the race for president of the United States and asked us to stand together with him to change this country and the world. Some say that he should wait his turn, that he hasn’t paid his dues and that he doesn’t have the experience. They expect him to defer to others who, frankly, don’t have the vision or skills to be a unifying force to correct the mistakes made by the current administration. Instead, he saw that waiting would only allow the country to sink deeper into the abyss, making recovery that much harder. He understood what Martin Luther King, Jr. called in his “I Have A Dream” speech the “urgency of now.”

The reality is that the differences between Clinton and Obama are few. Nevertheless, they are significant. In my mind, perhaps the most astounding difference overall is that the latter can unite while the former has a disturbing tendency to divide and to do so in a profoundly ugly way. In this new day that is today, we need to put aside our racial, cultural, ethnic and gender politics in favor of moving this country forward in a healthy way that will restore our prestige throughout the world. It will take boldness, courage, imagination and brilliance. Barack Obama has those characteristics in abundance. He believes: Yes we can! ¡Sí se puede! I believe, with your vote today: Yes, we can win!

Technorati Tags: activism, african-american, barack obama, blacks, campaign ‘08, candidates, celebrities, democratic, entertainment, hillary clinton, iraq war, politics, presidential campaign

I suppose it had to happen at some point, but I kept telling myself that he could make it to the Democratic convention and then barter for a position in the Obama White House. Alas, it was not to be. John Edwards, that stalwart advocate for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, dropped out of the race Wednesday after winning only 62 of the 452 convention delegates awarded through January 29 and no primaries or caucuses. The party requires 2,025 to secure the nomination.

In the end, the numbers just weren’t there to win the nomination even if, by some miracle, Edwards had won all the delegates in all 24 February 5th primary states. For that matter, neither could his opponents, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They, however, had more of a headstart and momentum in their favor.

“He wanted to have a shot at being president,” said Joe Trippi, a senior adviser, in a New York Times article. “He wanted to have a chance to change people’s lives, not be a spoiler or a kingmaker and not play political games.”

That’s just the kind of guy Edwards is. He has a great deal of integrity. If he was in the race, he was in it to win and no one need worry about any ulterior motives. Edwards could be counted on to tell the straightforward truth. As he famously stated during the South Carolina Democratic debate, he represented the “grown-up” wing of the Democratic Party.

Although I subsequently decided to support Obama, it took me over a year to make up my mind. Until a few days ago, I leaned heavily toward Edwards because he most closely shared my values. I moved away from that support because, as much as I liked him (and I liked him a lot) Edwards did not inspire others the way Obama did. Obama shared the vast majority of Edwards’ values and managed to move people to action.

Be that as it may, I am very sorry to see John Edwards’ dream come to an end and wish him and his family well. It is my hope that the next Democratic administration realizes how lucky it would be to have him in its Cabinet. Now, it’s time to figure out how his 62 delegates and other supporters will re-align their allegiances. Let the bidding begin!

Those Wacky New Yorkers

John Edwards wasn’t the only potential presidential nominee to hang up his track shoes. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led Republican polls even before he announced his candidacy for the party’s nomination in February 2006, finally figured out that he had to actually work to get people to vote for him. For some inexplicable reason, Giuliani honestly believed that all he had to do was sit in Florida as primaries and caucuses went on in other parts of the country and wait. “Wait for what?” you ask. Wait for the media and voters to rediscover that he’s there and, in the latter case, cast their votes for him–something they didn’t do in droves last Tuesday when he garnered a third-place finish behind challengers John McCain and Mitt Romney. In the seven Republican pre-convention contests thus far, Giuliani has secured exactly one delegate out of the 208 awarded. The GOP requires 1,191 to secure the nomination. Perhaps he was really sitting in Florida and waiting for more of whatever illicit drug he’s so clearly imbibing and that’s why he couldn’t get off his butt to campaign. Giuliani has endorsed Sen. John McCain.

Apparently, Rudy was in the mood to share his drugs because Marcia Pappas, head of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), has got it into her head that Senator Ted Kennedy has “betrayed” women by endorsing Obama instead of Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Any partial quote of the chapter’s January 28 press release would not do her diatribe justice, so I will quote it in total:

Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, and the Family and Medical Leave Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). “They” are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). “They” are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future.

This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation- to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who “know what’s best for us.

There are plenty of very valid reasons not to support Clinton that have nothing to do with her being a woman. There are plenty of people of both sexes who don’t want to see a female president, but Ted Kennedy isn’t among them. There are at least an equal number of people who don’t want to see a black president. Let’s not fall into the trap of comparing -isms. To do so is often counter-productive and diminishes the hardships that all of us who are not straight, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, Judeo-Christian males face.

I am very pleased to say that cooler heads have prevailed at the national office of NOW. In a contrasting press release also released January 28, the group’s president, Kim Gandy stated:

The National Organization for Women has enormous respect and admiration for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D- Mass.). For decades Sen. Kennedy has been a friend of NOW, and a leader and fighter for women’s civil and reproductive rights, and his record shows that.

Though the National Organization for Women Political Action Committee has proudly endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for president, we respect Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement. We continue to encourage women everywhere to express their opinions and exercise their right to vote.

The Huffington Post has an interview with Pappas here.

Technorati Tags: african-american, barack obama, blacks, campaign ‘08, candidates, democratic, endorsement, hillary clinton, john edwards, nonprofits, now, politics, presidential campaign

Chicago is latest stop on 20-city tour of the U.S.Davis Mac-Iyalla remembers when being gay did not bar him from serving his church. Now in exile, the Nigerian minister embodies a growing debate among Anglicans worldwide.

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Exiled Nigerian gay activist Davis Mac-Iyalla has come to the United States in search of political, spiritual and financial support. Founder of the LGBT Anglican organization Changing Attitude Nigeria, he has faced persecution from both his government and his church–being forced to flee to a nearby country where he and others organize in the herculean fight for their rights against the very powerful Archbishop Peter J. Akinola, primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) and head homophobe in charge. It is because of pressure from Akinola that Mac-Iyalla and others active in his organization were arrested in 2005 by police in Abuja, the nation’s capitol, held for three days without food and water, beaten and tortured before finally being released. To this day, he suffers from the after effects of that violation of human rights, yet, he continues to speak, organize and advocate for his people–our people–in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is an LGBT hero.

TWW was in the audience when Mac-Iyalla’s speaking tour came to Cleveland, Ohio on May 23 where he spoke to an audience of about 50 people at Trinity Cathedral. The first thing I noticed was how happy and relieved Mac-Iyalla was to finally be able to bring his story out of Nigeria and into the hearts and minds of people who could have significant influence in putting a stop to the persecution LGBT face in his country. Although it was already illegal to marry a same-sex partner in Nigeria, the legislature, spurred on by Akinola, considered a measure this year that would have carried a five-year prison sentence for advocating for LGBT rights individually or as an organization; providing services for LGBT people, including AIDS/HIV education and prevention; having dinner with another LGBT person in a purely platonic environment; renting space to any LGBT person or organization, and other activities. The bill, called the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, narrowly escaped passage last March thanks, in no small part, to international pressure from governments and human rights organizations and then-upcoming elections in April. It is hoped that the April 21 poll results will bring about change in attitudes toward LGBT within the new government, however, Akinola and his minions in high office still loom large. Mac-Iyalla was forced to flee his homeland and seek refuge in neighboring Togo amid threats of kidnap, torture and death. It is this story he brings to the U.S. (For more background see Gay Anxiety in Nigeria and Time for a Hard New Push Against Nigerian Anti-Gay Bill.)

Mac-Iyalla began his Cleveland speech by saying that he had tried to refrain from speaking about Akinola because the man is an attention whore who doesn’t care whether what is said is negative or positive, only that his name is mentioned. However, he realized that in order to make Americans aware of the serious dangers of being LGBT in Nigeria, as well as to tell his own story, he had no choice but to also speak of the Nigerian primate who had once declared that there were no LGBT people in Nigeria, much less LGBT Anglicans. It was in response to this assertion that Changing Attitude Nigeria was formed and it was this challenge that led Akinola to turn his considerable powers not just on LGBT Anglicans within his province, but LGBT Nigerians as a whole.

Akinola may be better known in the U.S. for defying hundreds of years of Anglican tradition and poaching dioceses and individual churches within the Episcopal Church, USA (TEC) as they attempt to leave over full-inclusion of LGBT within the life and structure of the denomination, touching off a legal battle royal that threatens to go on for years to come. He is also the primary mover of a coalition of theoretically independent churches within the Anglican Communion called the “Global South” who have threatened to leave unless TEC stops ordaining LGBT bishops and performing same-sex unions. It is supposedly to offer pastoral care that Akinola has affiliated himself with the breakaway TEC dioceses and churches.

Make no mistake, Akinola is a powerful and dangerous man driven by a rabid hatred that is anything but Christian. Because Nigeria is the most populous province in the Communion, he has a built-in power base from which to conduct his heinous campaign against LGBT people throughout the world. I urge anyone who can to hear Mac-Iyalla speak and tell his story in his own words. I will be posting a more thorough article about his fight for freedom next week. In the meantime, I have included a list of cities and dates for the speaking tour. At Mac-Iyalla’s request, I have not included event times. Even here, it seems, he is not safe.

Davis Mac-Iyalla U.S. Tour

Technorati Tags: activism, africa, blacks, christianity, discrimination, episcopal church, gay, homophobia, homosexuality, lesbian, lgbt, nigeria, politics