I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
As president of the Log Cabin Republican club of Michigan, Noel Siksai has some harsh words for the Republican presidential nominees. He said 25 percent of the gay community votes Republican, translating to 2-3 percent of the overall Republican primary votes in Michigan. And he said the gay vote is being ignored by top candidates.
“Well, what’s happening is the candidates are all trying to not alienate the most far right part of the base, which will hurt them in the general (election) by being unpalatable to the electorate as a whole, mainly the independents they need to win the general,” Siksai said.
The IBM consultant from the Detroit area said none of the candidates he is aware of is openly courting the gay vote in Michigan, something he said he was “disappointed” by. He said, “The party is in flux right now, and everyone’s covering their backs.”
Expanding, Siksai said, “It’s looking like the Christian right, which I call the theocratic right, is making serious attempts to control the party, as evidenced by the response to the Huckabee campaign.”
That move towards the “theocratic right” as he calls them, has Siksai concerned about the future of the party.
Continued -“If Huckabee becomes the nominee, it’ll have a major impact on the party becoming a permanent minority party,” he said. “Huckabee is the theocrats’ fair-haired boy, Mitt is a flip-flopper and McCain has back-pedaled on some of his earlier friendliness towards LCR.”
Despite these grim assessments of the leading candidates, Siksai said he expects his membership will turn out, even though no one candidate “stirs up much excitement.” “Our membership by and large are more committed to the democratic process and vote more often than the LGBT community at large.”
He expects the votes from LCR will fall to either McCain or Guiliani. “My guess based on the candidates’ histories is that it’ll probably split between McCain and Giuliani.”
And like many political pundits, Siksai said Michigan is a must win for McCain, Huckabee and Romney — although each for very different reasons. “McCain for a repeat of 2000 (when the party organization was lined up behind Bush, and the primary was won by McCain anyway), Romney to win his former home state and Huckabee to be taken seriously as a candidate.”
Siksai said if Romney comes in anything but first, he is out of the contest, and same with Huckabee. If McCain comes out anywhere but first, he will be weakened but able to continue the race. For more information on Log Cabin Republicans of Michigan visit them here www.lcr-mi.org. For more on the National Log Cabin Club, visit them at www.logcabin.org.
Cross-posted on Pridesource.com, the website for Between the Lines newspaper.
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