North Carolina governor’s latest moves alienate Latino and LGBT communities

By Arturo Garcia/Raw Story

Members of both the LGBT and Latino communities in North Carolina were taken aback by recent decisions by Gov. Pat McCrory’s (R) that are seemingly hostile to them.

McClatchy Newspapers reported on Friday that McCrory shuttered the state office for Latino affairs, saying through a spokesperson that his administration would rely on an advisory council to handle issues related to the state’s Latino population.

“We are committed to serving the needs of all of North Carolina’s citizens,” spokesperson Thomas Stith said. “We don’t segment our constituents by race or cultural background any more than we separate them by age or gender.”

McCrory shuttering the office comes on the heels of his recent attempt to brand drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants with a pink stripe and the phrase “NO LEGAL STATUS,” which immigration advocates took as a sign McCrory wanted to perpetuate a stigma against immigrants, even those participating in the government’s Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals program, which grants qualified immigrants two-year work visas.

Latino advocates pointed out that McCrory closed the office at a time when the Republican party has expressed more interest in reaching out to Latino communities.

“To close the office of Hispanic affairs only goes to confirm what many people suspect in our state,” said Jess George, executive director of the Charlotte-based Latin American Coalition.“Which is that, despite movement with the Republican Party at the national level towards more bipartisan solutions around comprehensive immigration reform, North Carolina conservatives don’t seem to have gotten the same memo.”

According to The Huffington Post, McCrory also nominated attorney A. L. “Buddy” Collins, who has a record of opposing legislation that would protect LGBT students from bullying, to the state board of education. Collins is currently a member of the board of education for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County.

“Buddy Collins has always been a retrograde voice, inimical to the interests of youth, on the school board,” said Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

In February 2002, Collins opposed efforts by GLSEN to have sexual orientation be covered under the county board’s non-discrimination policy.

“I think it has everything to do with whether people who are gay and lesbian have some sort of special right that everybody else doesn’t,” Collins said at the time. “This request could have been made by people with overweight children or kids with glasses or any other thing that children pick on other children for.”

In an April 2002 column for the Winston-Salem Journal, the Post reported, Collins also accused GLSEN of using public schools “as a place to seek acceptance of its sexual practices” and of using public workshops to expose children to “dangerous homosexual sex acts.”

Collins must still be approved by the state’s Republican-dominated General Assembly.

Dick Morris Says He Is Working On An RNC Ad Aimed At Latinos

JOE STRUPP/Media Matters For America

Dick Morris is working with Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus on a new television advertisement that will include Preibus seeking to attract Latino voters, Morris revealed during an appearance in New York City Thursday.

Speaking at the Poli Conference, a political consulting event for Latin American campaign professionals, Morris said the ad will feature Priebus reaching out to "those Latin Americans who've come to the United States to help us build our country, to help harvest our food, to help make our economy work and [Priebus'] message is 'welcome, we need you, you're making our country younger, more prosperous, harder working and we need you for the future.'"

According to Morris, the ad will make use of "that concept of reflecting back to people their own value and their own worth. In the advertisement he [Priebus] says, 'we honor our ancestors who took covered wagons to settle the west and brave the Indians, but you are the new pioneers, you are the new people in America doing that.' And I think that is a very, very interesting thing to do in a campaign."

Republican Party Spokesman Ryan Mahoney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ad. Asked about when it might run or where, Morris declined to offer more details.

Morris' work with the Republican National Committee is noteworthy given the implosion of Morris' stature and credibility following the 2012 election and his now infamous prediction of a "landslide" victory for Republican Mitt Romney. After the election Morris was effectively banned from appearing on Fox News, where he worked as an on-air contributor until the network declined to renew his contract in early February. Morris also brings with him a host of ethics problems -- Morris' group Super PAC for America reportedly spent significant amounts of money renting Morris' own email list in the months before the election, allowing him to simply pocket money raised by the group.

In response to another question, from Media Matters, about the negative impact on Latino voters from conservative media who oppose immigration reform, Morris agreed it hurts the party.

"I think that many of them do and they do hurt, but I think that they are increasingly having to backtrack because they see the changes in their own constituency," Morris said of conservative media voices. "So what they're saying now is, not 'I'm against immigration reform,' they're saying 'I'm for it. I just want a higher wall.' You know, at the border. And Latinos in the U.S. don't really care how high the wall is, they just want the people who are here not to be deported."

He also noted that he sees a major Republican shift on the issue that is affecting the conservative media.

"There has been a total transformation in the Republican Party in the United States since the Obama re-election," he said. "The Republicans, including me, were confident that Romney would win and then we did not win, we looked at the demographics of the electorate with new eyes."

He said many Republicans wrongly assumed voter turnout among Latinos and other minorities would not be as high as it was.

"In the last three months, I've never seen a change in any political party in the United States as dramatic as the change in the Republican Party away from immigration toward immigration reform," Morris said. "And even among the conservative right-wing base, they believe in immigration reform. I believe immigration reform is going to pass in the United States."

Morris made the comments after an hour-long talk about political consulting and campaigns in foreign countries, during which he stressed the overriding importance of polling in elections: "You have got to make sure through your polling that the message is going to work."

He also told the audience that negative campaigning may be on the way out: "It is working less and less because people have seen more and more of it. You have to be very careful in the way that you use it. There is always a dynamic in the election that negative advertising relates to."

New Right-Wing Billboard Campaign: ‘The Most Dangerous Place For A Latino Is In The Womb’

By Tanya Somanader

The tidal wave of right-wing politicians elected in 2010 sparked an unbridled anti-choice campaign that has unleashed nearly 1,000 increasingly radical anti-abortion bills across the country. Following a “conceived in rape” tour that aims end a sexual assault victim’s right to choose, a burgeoning billboard campaign seeks to blame minority women for high abortion rates. Across the country, groups like Lifehave have set up billboards in minority neighborhoods claiming, “Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted.”

Now the movement is branching out. The right-wing advocacy group Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles launched a new billboard campaign this week in Los Angeles directed at abortion providers in Latino communities. Insisting that “Latinos are being targeted by organizations that promote abortion like Planned Parenthood,” Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles is putting up billboards stating, “El lugar mas peligroso para un Latino es el vientre de su madre,” or, “The most dangerous place for a Latino is in the womb”:

 

The billboard campaign was launched this week in part to “kick off” the “Unidos por la Vida” (United for Life) event being held at the Los Angeles Sports Arena this Sunday, which will feature anti-Planned Parenthood activist Lila Rose and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R). Unidos por la Vida benefits the anti-choice Latino group Manto de Guadalupe, which was founded by actor Eduardo Verastegui in December 2005 with the mission of “promoting adoption.” Verastegui — who starred in the anti-choice movie Bella — announced plans in January “to build the largest pro-life clinic in the U.S. to be located in Los Angeles.” According to anti-choice activists Jill Stanek, proceeds from Unidos por la Vida will go to build that clinic.

The irony here is that by targeting organizations like Planned Parenthood, these right-wing groups are exacerbating the root causes behind the higher abortion rates in minority communities. Inadequate health insurance, substandard health care, ineffective use of contraceptives, and poor sex education often leave abortion as the only resort choice for women, particularly those in low-income areas. Planned Parenthood, however, provides these very health services needed that help prevent abortion as a last resort.

And so many minority organizations are joining together to condemn the campaign. The National Latina Institution for Reproductive Health slammed it as “nothing more than political ploys designed to stigmatize Latina women and communities of color” and urged the swift removal of the billboards. Decrying “the anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-worker reality” Americans face today, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ) said, “These ads create a place for hate mongers to hide behind.”

Despite conservatives’ claims, 70 percent of Arizona’s Latinos oppose new anti-immigrant law.

By Andrea Nill

Over the past few weeks, right-wing proponents of Arizona’s draconian immigration law inexplicably claimed that the majority of Latinos in Arizona support the new anti-immigrant law. Some examples:

Marco Rubio: Polling has shown that Americans of Hispanic descent in Arizona support this bill just as strongly as the general population does.

J.D. Hayworth: Interestingly, a majority of Hispanics agree that this law should be enforced here in Arizona.

Bill O’Reilly: I’m not buying the fact that Hispanic-Americans en masse are against the law.

Watch a compilation of their remarks:

This morning, the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper , La Opinion, reported that 70 percent of Arizona Latinos “strongly oppose” SB-1070 and 11 percent “somewhat oppose” it. The study, conducted by Arizona State University, showed that only 12 percent of Arizona’s Latinos strongly support the law. Opposition to the law also isn’t limited to recent Latino immigrants who are potentially unable to vote. Approximately 82-67 percent of second, third, and fourth generation Latinos oppose SB-1070: