Progressive takes the offensive.Jerry Klein is a former talk radio host and a local columnist. Now he also heads the Progressive Alliance in Charlotte, North Carolina “Charlotte” redirects here. For other uses, see Charlotte (disambiguation). Charlotte is the largest city in the state of North Carolina and the 20th largest city in the United States. . He started the group in response to the 1997 furor furor /fu·ror/ (fu´ror) fury; rage. furor epilep´ticus an attack of intense anger occurring in epilepsy. in Charlotte over production of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is an award winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries of the same name and an opera by Peter Eötvös. . Citizens protested the county -funded performance because the play has some homosexual characters. Local prosecutors threatened to cancel opening night by bringing the theater and the production company up on obscenity obscenity, in law, anything that tends to corrupt public morals by its indecency. The moral concepts that the term connotes vary from time to time and from place to place. In the United States, the word obscenity is a technical legal term. In the 1950s the U.S. charges. Shortly afterwards, the Mecklenburg County Mecklenburg County is the name of two counties in the United States:
tr.v. de·fund·ed, de·fund·ing, de·funds To stop the flow of funds to: "Some days, they wake up with a burning desire to defund the Public Broadcasting System and the National Endowment for the the local arts and science councils. Until a few years ago, says Klein, "Charlotte had a reputation as a progressive stronghold--it was not a conservative bastion." He wants to return the town to its more liberal roots. The Progressive Alliance is conducting voter-registration and get-out-the-vote drives. It is printing and distributing guides to educate citizens about candidates' records and positions on issues. It is making speakers available to talk radio stations and news channels in order to ensure liberal and leftwing voices are part of the debate. And it is conducting a series of Monday night dialogues on topics ranging from religion to politics to culture. Klein hosts the discussions, which are available on the Internet at www.gocarolinas.com. The Progressive Alliance also engages in activism. Members of the group held a silent protest in the county commission chamber this past March to commemorate the first anniversary of the arts-funding vote. And the alliance protested independent counsel Kenneth Starr's recent visit to Charlotte to speak at a meeting of the American Bar Association American Bar Association (ABA), voluntary organization of lawyers admitted to the bar of any state. Founded (1878) largely through the efforts of the Connecticut Bar Association, it is devoted to improving the administration of justice, seeking uniformity of law . Even Republican county commissioner Tom Bush appreciates the Progressive Alliance. "They are certainly not a welcome intrusion," says Bush, "but they are probably a necessary intrusion." Klein believes that by making liberals more visible, the Progressive Alliance may help transform politics. "We have been on the defensive for too long on a whole host of issues, from economic justice to civil rights to tolerance of individual differences," he says. For more information, visit the Progressive Alliance's web site at www.progressivealliance. org. |
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