GOP official stands by his 'filthy' homosexuals post on Facebook

A former state representative who serves on the Republican National Committee continues to fight off calls for his resignation after he posted a controversial article on his Facebook page that denounced “filthy” homosexuals.

Dave Agema, who was one of the most conservative members of the state House, particularly on social issues, posted on FB an article entitled "Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuals." The article, supposedly written by a medical doctor, depicts gays as sexually promiscuous and claims that they are to blame for "half the murders in large cities."

In response to the controversial post, 21 Republicans publicly called for Agema's resignation from the RNC, and the list is growing. They released a statement written by Dennis Lennox, a Grand Traverse County Republican precinct delegate.

“This isn’t about what we believe either politically or as women and men of faith,” the group said. “This is about common decency and realizing that you cannot win an election by insulting a wide swath of the electorate whose votes our Republican Party needs to once again form a national majority.”

Agema made a statement of his own, blaming the growing controversy on “liberal Republicans” and asserting that the Dr. Frank Joseph article was “worth sharing” at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing same-sex marriage issues.

Slate’s Dave Weigel on Wednesday first reported that Agema, a West Michigan Republican who was term-limited at the end of 2012, had posted a commentary that claims “homosexual sexual encounters occur while drunk, high on drugs, or in an orgy setting,” and that “50 percent of suicides can be attributed to homosexuals.”

The RNC has remained largely mute about the furor.

In a statement sent to Time magazine earlier today, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said: “The party’s position on traditional marriage is clear but as I have been saying, all human beings deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.” he said. Priebus stopped short of directly condemning Agema.

Michigan GOP chairman Bobby Schostak was a bit firmer, according to Time, but he did not repudiate the FB post or call for Agema to step aside. “Our party remains in support of traditional marriage but that should never be allowed nor confused with any form of hate or discrimination toward anyone,” Schostak said in yet another statement. “Any statement or message in contrast undermines our party’s platform and our common-sense conservative message.”

Lennox, a Republican activist and a columnist for the Mount Pleasant Morning Sun, blasted the RNC for the tepid response to Agema’s actions.

“It’s clear that Republicans need to learn a lesson in the wake of Todd Aiken, Sharron Angle, and other candidates who have said deplorable things like this,” he said. “They spit in the face of voters whose support we need if we’re going to win the White House again.”

Detroit EFM's resiliency rises above the rest

Kevyn Orr

When you meet someone and engage in a conversation, even if it only lasts 20 or 30 minutes, you often derive a sense of their degree of empathy, their work ethic, their personal drive – they’re all exposed in a few brief moments.

We can make a reasonable judgment without being judgmental.

There are certain intangibles within all of us, forged by our path through life. And we all exude a certain something that demonstrates how we deal with adversity, how much perseverance lies within us. Call it inner strength. Or, as a colleague of mine encapsulated it: resilience.

Jennette Smith, a former Macomb Daily reporter who rose to the top editor post at Crain’s Detroit Business, despite facing adversity, has written a wonderful column about Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s Emergency Financial Manager.

Many of the usual suspects in the city, the status quo liberal Democrats with a chip on their shoulder, have stuck to the script and refuse to give Orr any room to maneuver, any opportunity to prove himself.

But Smith, during a relatively brief interview with the EFM among Crain’s staffers, saw Orr in a different light, relying upon a different measure of the man.

Here’s an excerpt from Smith’s column:

“A Jones Day Washington, D.C., lawyer is not going to uproot his life unless he actually wants to help Detroit. He wants to be the hero. There is something terribly scary, and terribly appealing, about going after that ‘stretch’ assignment or job that gives you a chance to make a difference, and to learn a few things.

Orr has endured the deaths of a girlfriend, his two brothers and his father.Despite those personal tragedies, he demonstrated a resiliency and rose to become a premier attorney at a prime law firm.

Jennette Smith

“I know a little bit about that, albeit on a different scale. I've been through the death of a parent when I was in college, a divorce and the interesting challenges of being a single parent to three young kids. You reach a point where you have to decide if you're going to be the person who sinks or the person who swims.

“Orr has decided to jump into the deep end of the pool. Actually — scratch that — he's gone deep-sea diving.”

Read the entire column here.

Simon says: Dems should have seen budget mess coming

One of the most gracious politicians I have ever encountered was the late Sen. Paul Simon, who served in Congress for 20 years and made a bid for the presidency in 1988, but has since faded from public memory.

The Illinois Democrat, known for his trademark bow ties, came to Macomb County during the ’88 presidential primaries and invited me to ride along as he traveled the campaign trail. Along the way, he granted me a long interview, patiently answering my questions on a wide array of topics.

At one point he said he was thirsty and told the staffer driving the car to make an unscheduled stop. We pulled into a Burger King and Simon headed inside to buy a beverage. He said he’d get me a pop too. So, there he was: A veteran senator who was running for president was at a Burger King counter buying me a Coke.

I was reminded of that whimsical moment this morning while reading a fine piece by Major Garrett about "the ghost of Paul Simon" and his warnings long ago that Democrats were making a historic error by failing to address the growing federal debt.

Garrett, formerly of Fox News, now a writer for National Journal, was recalling how Simon was a former journalist and a former professor. But in the Senate he had the personality of a clergyman.

Garrett wrote:

“Simon the cleric was, within his party, an apostate. He routinely cosponsored a balanced-budget amendment. Doing so infuriated party leaders and President Clinton, whose war room had to badger Senate Democrats to engineer defeat of the amendment in 1995 by one vote — persuading six who voted for it a year and a day before to vote “no.” 

“Before that vote, Simon said increasing federal deficits and debt loads threatened future spending not just on entitlements, but everything else. “If we do not act, interest payouts will spiral upward until they consume not only Social Security, but also health care, education, and transportation,” he said. In his own whimsical reformation of President Kennedy’s tax-cutting-leads-to-economic-growth mantra of the early 1960s, Simon warned in the mid-1990s that “a rising tide of red ink sinks all boats.””

Referring to sequestration, Garrett wrote that nearly all of those cuts came in discretionary spending programs that Democrats cherish.  “Just as Simon warned.”

“Ironically, Simon predicted the dilemma Obama, another Illinois Democrat, has faced. He also warned if actions were not taken in the 1980s and 1990s, even liberal Democrats in future years would have to cut government in ways they opposed.”

Secretary of State Johnson says voting fraud an honest ‘mistake’

In case you missed it …

Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, in a recent television interview, conceded that Michigan voter fraud is not widespread and that many people who fraudulently cast a ballot mistakenly believe they are eligible to vote.

"I don't believe it is widespread," Johnson said on Friday’s “Off The Record” broadcast by WKAR Public Television.

Republicans have complained about voter fraud for years and Johnson told the Off the Record panel that there are plenty of reports out there suggesting that fraud is still an issue, according to the MIRS newsletter. The difficulty is putting a number on it.
Johnson, a Republican first elected in 2010, said federal officials have told the Secretary of State’s Office that 20 Michigan cities have more registered voters than people.

But she also believes that many non-citizens in the state may be voting "by mistake" because they innocently signed up to vote when they applied for a driver license.
Under the so-called Motor Voter Law, the federal government requires the state’s SOS branch offices to offer voter registration to their customers. Michigan had its own version of a Motor Voter law long before the federal mandate.

Johnson explained that many people are confused by the offer and think they should register to vote even when they are not citizens.