Archive for: October 2, 2006

Redeem the Vote is a Montgomery-based Christian organization that has decided to distribute voter guides for the 2006 elections as an alternative to Christian Action Alabama’s voter guides. Christian Action Alabama, which recently split from the Christian Coalition of Alabama, distributes a voter guide based on a questionairre on such hot button topics as gay rights, taxes, and gambling.

Dr. Randy Brinson, Redeem the Vote’s founder, says his questionairre to the candidates will focus on matters of faith.

Redeem the Vote’s questionnaire asks candidates about where they go to church, their favorite Bible verse, how they will publicly acknowledge their faith, and what role their faith will pay in formulating public policy.

The chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party, Joe Turnham, is asking Democratic candidates to participate. His Republican counterpart, Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh calls the organization a “Democratic propoganda machine” and is suggesting that Republicans boycott the questionairre. John Giles of Christian Action Alabama said the group is the “face card of the Alabama Education Association and the Trial Lawyers.”

Let’s see which group is really partisan here. In 2004, the group was praised by Republicans and Giles for registering 100,000 Christian voters nationwide (many of which probably voted Republican). Then the group backed a bill in the Alabama legislature, sponsored by Democrats, to offer a Bible literacy class in public schools. The bill drew strong criticism from Giles and the Republicans. They say they disapproved because the textbook required in the bill didn’t require the approval of the State Board of Education, whose members usually approve textbooks (but it’s really because it wasn’t their idea). Suddenly Republicans and Giles didn’t want to be friends with Redeem the Vote anymore. Brinson also worked with the AEA to develop booklets addressing how teachers should approach religion in the classroom. That didn’t build the friendship with Giles or the Republicans either since the AEA tends to give more money to Democrats.

So which group is part of a party propoganda machine? Christian Action Alabama, whose existence just happens to favor the Republican Party 100% of the time? Or Redeem the Vote, who has helped and hurt both parties at one time or another in the last 3 years?

• Alabama Moderate Links to this post with Tidbits from Elsewhere - 10/3/06 

In a new poll that was just released recently (9/28), Gov. Riley is sitting on a comfortable 16% lead. Below is the results of the poll:

This is obviously great news for the Governor and re-enforces my point I made a few days back that the major democrats in the state have moved their backings to Lt. Governor candidate Jim Folsom Jr. According to Danny, Folsom is ahead of Strange right now by around 4% (Folsom 43% - Strange 39%). Margin of error is only 3.5%, so we shall see how this race this goes. There is still 18% undecided in this race, so it is far from over.

Crossposted at Politics in Alabama.

Not likely. Joe Reed may be a punk, but he’s not stupid. The rumors started flying when Reed, the chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference, called a meeting in Prattville to discuss the group’s future with the Party. The ADC is the largest group of black Democrats in Alabama. The Montgomery Advertiser got their hands on a copy of a letter where Reed details the agenda of the meeting.

The meeting invitation, written by Reed, stated the event would be dedicated to determining the “quality and status” of the group’s relationship to the party and “whether it is in our best interest to continue to maintain our present relationship, given the current political climate.”

It also stated the group would decide what position to take regarding “Democratic candidates who, in our opinion, are not electable, or whose agenda is unacceptable or not compatible with our black agenda.”

Reed has already denied that the meeting was a sign of a rift in the relationship between the ADC and the Party. Another ADC leader, Jerome Gray, denied that this meeting had anything to do with his failed attempt to block Patricia Todd’s nomination as the Democratic nominee to represent House District 54. Todd is an openly gay, white candidate who beat the black Gaynell Hendricks in a majority black district. It was well-reported that Reed desperately wanted a black candidate to represent the district and he tried to overturn Todd’s undisputed election with a technicality. It didn’t work.

According to Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Smoot, who attended the meeting, the main focus of the gathering was to discuss ways to make sure black Democratic voters weren’t taken for granted by white candidates. So here’s how I read this — they talked about when they are going to be willing to endorse white candidates. Do they refuse to endorse Patricia Todd, whose only negative point (as far as the ADC is concerned) is that she is a white candidate in a majority-black district? The results of this will be interesting to see.

• Atlanta.voic.us links to this post with Alabama: Democrats in Give-up Mode 

Both Riley and the Grand Master of the Alabama Lodge, Frank Little, denied that the Freemasons were a racist organization.

“As the grand master, if I heard of any lodge that denied a man membership because of his race they wouldn’t be a lodge for long.”

I completely believe him. Although Russ and Dee are calling Bob Riley a racist because of his affiliation with the Lodge, I think that is way out of line. However, there is still the 1876 resolution that bars black members. There is still the fact that the Grand Lodge of Alabama is exclusively white has not a single black member. There is still the fact that the Grand Lodge of Alabama refuses to recognize Prince Hall Masons, the black freemasons who were formed under an English charter in the 1700s.

The article says that this topic has been discussed by Russ and Dee and “internet blogs,” which I assume means us here at BTL. I hope they don’t mean to imply that I subscribe the Russ and Dee’s feelings on this matter. I’ve tried to defend Riley in my posts about this and in the comments.

Here’s why I think this is important even if I don’t think it means Riley is a bigot. Masonry in Alabama is a very segregated institution. I don’t think the current leadership subscribes to this bigotry, and I suspect the segregation has more to do with historical associations than current ideology. I am disappointed, however, when the governor of Alabama and the Grand Master of the lodge give a deer in the headlights stare and say, “There’s no problem. We wouldn’t deny a black person membership if they applied.” Come on…

A resolution was passed by the Grand Lodge of Alabama in 1876 that both rejected black members and refused to recognize lodges that accepted black masons. I don’t believe that resolution would still be enforced, but why hasn’t it been officially repealed? Why does the Grand Lodge of Alabama continue to refuse to recognize Prince Hall Masons? By not officially recognizing Prince Hall Masons, they are essentially saying they are not welcome in their lodges as a Brother Mason would be if he were visiting. Why does the governor refuse to address the fact that there are no black Masons and why are there no black masons in the Grand Lodge? Am I supposed to believe that it’s just a coincidence that there is not a single black Mason affiliated with the Grand Lodge of Alabama out of the 32,000 members?

There is a problem here or am I just nuts? All I want for starters is for someone — Bob Riley or an officer of the Grand Lodge — to recognize that something is a little off when there is not a single black mason recognized by the Grand Lodge of Alabama with 32,000 members. I just did some math. If you randomly selected 32,000 Alabamians, the chances that none of them would be black (based on a 26.4% black population) would be so low that I can represent it as 0%. It would be a decimal with 4,257 zeros. For those familiar with scientific notation, it would be 1.23 x 10^-4257%. I worked out the math and showed the long-form here. It’s just not possible. You are much more likely to be struck by lightning 1,000 times.

Yeah, I know. I know. No one is claiming it is random. It has its historic and traditional reasons for being segregated. But why is there not a single black Mason? Something is wrong because it’s just not very likely, even if you account for the racism throughout history. And even if you can ignore that, how can you ignore the continued “official” policy of the Grand Lodge refusing to recognize the Prince Hall Masons as legitimate members of freemasonry? Bob Riley and the officers of the Grand Lodge can easily explain this away and make me happy. But don’t play dumb with me.