Mississippi

Mississippi Democrat To Become State’s First Openly Gay Lawmaker

Published

1 year ago

August 31, 2023

Mississippi Democrat To Become State’s First Openly Gay Lawmaker

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi will have its first-ever openly gay state legislator after a House candidate won his Democratic primary election runoff Tuesday.

Fabian Nelson, a 38-year-old realtor from Byram, prevailed over Roshunda Harris-Allen, an education professor at Tougaloo College and alderwoman in Byram.

The race to represent the House district in the south Jackson metro area was decided in a runoff after neither Nelson nor Allen received a majority vote in the Aug. 8 primary.

A local pastor finished a distant third and did not advance to the runoff.

Nelson’s victory comes on the heels of a historic wave of restrictions passed by Republican-controlled legislatures targeting the rights of transgender people.

LGBTQ+ advocates say they’ve seen a record number of measures aimed at their community in 2023. In February, Mississippi enacted a ban on gender-affirming hormones or surgery for anyone in the state younger than 18.

Republicans did not field a candidate for the general election, so Nelson will go on to represent the district. He will be sworn in before the next legislative session in January. His win marks the fulfillment of a goal he’s had since visiting the Capitol on an elementary school field trip and telling his teacher he’d sit on the House floor one day.

“I still think I’m in a dream. I’m still trying to process it and take it in,” Nelson said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s still shocking to me, I have to be honest.”

Nelson was endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest organization devoted to LGBTQ+ rights. In June, the organization declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S., pointing to the passage of bills it deems discriminatory.

“It sends a real message in a time when we are seeing attacks legislatively and through violence against the LGBTQ+ community that the majority of people reject that kind of animus,” Rob Hill, state director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Mississippi chapter, said in an interview after Nelson’s victory. “I think a lot of youth around the state who have felt like their leaders are rejecting them or targeting them won’t feel as lonely today.”

The Hinds County district includes Southwest Jackson and part of Byram, Salem and Terry. Nelson said he connected with voters by relying on his deep local ties. In office, he wants to increase health care access for low-income people by pushing for Medicaid expansion.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s great being first, but ultimately what won this campaign is the fact that I’m in touch with my community and the issues my community is facing,” Nelson said.

He also wants to be a voice against policies that harm marginalized communities, he said.

“At the end of the day, I put my suit on the same way every other person who walks in that statehouse does,” Nelson said. “I’m going to walk in there, and I’m going to be a sound voice as to why things like this can’t continue to go on in the state of Mississippi.”

In a statement, Annise Parker, president of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, said Mississippi is “one of the last two states to achieve the milestone of electing an out LGBTQ+ lawmaker. ”

“Voters in Mississippi should be proud of the history they’ve made but also proud to know they’ll be well-represented by Fabian,” Parker said.

One of the authors of Mississippi’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Republican Rep. Nick Bain from Corinth, was trailing Wednesday in a nail-biting primary runoff in north Mississippi. The race still had not been called Wednesday, but Bain trailed fellow Republican Brad Mattox, who owns a gun shop called Big Bang Trading Company.

In south Mississippi, Felix Gines, a Biloxi City Council member first elected as a Democrat, lost a Republican runoff to Zachary Grady, a former police officer.

Rodney Hall, a recent aide to GOP Congressman Trent Kelly and former Army veteran, won the Republican primary in a northeast Mississippi district and faces no opponent in November. He is set to become the first Black Republican elected to the state Legislature since the 1890s.

Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.

Source link

Related Topics:fabian nelson Featured Mississippi

Click to comment

Mississippi

Southeast Mississippi Christmas Parades 2024 | WKRG.com

Published

6 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Press Room

Southeast Mississippi Christmas Parades 2024 | WKRG.com

MISSISSIPPI (WKRG) — It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas on the Gulf Coast and that means Santa Claus will be heading to town for multiple parades around the area.

WKRG has compiled a list of Christmas parades coming to Southeast Mississippi.

Christmas on the Water — Biloxi

Dec. 7
6 p.m.
Begins at Biloxi Lighthouse and will go past the Golden Nugget

Lucedale Christmas Parade

Source link

Mississippi

‘A Magical Mississippi Christmas’ lights up the Mississippi Aquarium

Published

14 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Press Room

‘A Magical Mississippi Christmas’ lights up the Mississippi Aquarium

GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) – The Mississippi Aquarium in Gulfport is spreading holiday cheer with a new event, ‘’A Magical Mississippi Christmas.’

The aquarium held a preview Tuesday night.

‘A Magical Mississippi Christmas’ includes a special dolphin presentation, diving elves, and photos with Santa.

The event also includes “A Penguin’s Christmas Wish,” which is a projection map show that follows a penguin through Christmas adventures across Mississippi.

“It’s a really fun event and it’s the first time we really opened up the aquarium at night for the general public, so it’s a chance to come in and see what it’s like in the evening because it’s really spectacular and really beautiful,” said Kurt Allen, Mississippi Aquarium President and CEO.

‘A Magical Mississippi Christmas’ runs from November 29 to December 31.

It will not be open on December 11th, December 24th, and December 25th.

Tickets can be purchased online or at the gate.

The event is made possible by the city of Gulfport and Coca-Cola Bottling Company.

See a spelling or grammar error in this story? Report it to our team HERE.

Source link

Mississippi

Mississippi asks for execution date of man convicted in 1993 killing, lawyers plan to appeal case to SCOTUS

Published

21 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Press Room

Mississippi asks for execution date of man convicted in 1993 killing, lawyers plan to appeal case to SCOTUS

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, is seeking an execution date for a convicted killer who has been on death row for 30 years, but his lawyer argues that the request is premature since the man plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Charles Ray Crawford, 58, was sentenced to death in connection with the 1993 kidnapping and killing of 20-year-old community college student Kristy Ray, according to The Associated Press.

During his 1994 trial, jurors pointed to a past rape conviction as an aggravating circumstance when they issued Crawford’s sentence, but his attorneys said Monday that they are appealing that conviction to the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled against them last week.

Crawford was arrested the day after Ray was kidnapped from her parents’ home and stabbed to death in Tippah County. Crawford told officers he had blacked out and did not remember killing her.

TEXAS LAWMAKER PROPOSES BILL TO ABOLISH DEATH PENALTY IN LONE STAR STATE: ‘I THINK SENTIMENT IS CHANGING’

Mississippi death row inmate Charles Ray Crawford, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994 in the 1993 kidnapping and killing of a community college student, 20-year-old Kristy Ray. (Mississippi Department of Corrections via AP)

He was arrested just days before his scheduled trial on a charge of assaulting another woman by hitting her over the head with a hammer.

The trial for the assault charge was delayed several months before he was convicted. In a separate trial, Crawford was found guilty in the rape of a 17-year-old girl who was friends with the victim of the hammer attack. The victims were at the same place during the attacks.

Crawford said he also blacked out during those incidents and did not remember committing the hammer assault or the rape.

During the sentencing portion of Crawford’s capital murder trial in Ray’s death, jurors found the rape conviction to be an “aggravating circumstance” and gave him the death sentence, according to court records.

PRO-TRUMP PRISON WARDEN ASKS BIDEN TO COMMUTE ALL DEATH SENTENCES BEFORE LEAVING

During the sentencing portion of Crawford’s capital murder trial, jurors found his prior rape conviction to be an “aggravating circumstance” and gave him the death sentence. (iStock)

In his latest federal appeal of the rape case, Crawford claimed his previous lawyers provided unconstitutionally ineffective assistance for an insanity defense. He received a mental evaluation at the state hospital, but the trial judge repeatedly refused to allow a psychiatrist or other mental health professional outside the state’s expert to help in Crawford’s defense, court records show.

On Friday, a majority of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Crawford’s appeal.

But the dissenting judges wrote that he received an “inadequately prepared and presented insanity defense” and that “it took years for a qualified physician to conduct a full evaluation of Crawford.” The dissenting judges quoted Dr. Siddhartha Nadkarni, a neurologist who examined Crawford.

“Charles was laboring under such a defect of reason from his seizure disorder that he did not understand the nature and quality of his acts at the time of the crime,” Nadkarni wrote. “He is a severely brain-injured man (corroborated both by history and his neurological examination) who was essentially not present in any useful sense due to epileptic fits at the time of the crime.”

Photo shows the gurney of an execution chamber. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Crawford’s case has already been appealed multiple times using various arguments, which is common in death penalty cases.

Hours after the federal appeals court denied Crawford’s latest appeal, Fitch filed documents urging the state Supreme Court to set a date for Crawford’s execution by lethal injection, claiming that “he has exhausted all state and federal remedies.”

However, the attorneys representing Crawford in the Mississippi Office of Post-Conviction Counsel filed documents on Monday stating that they plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court’s ruling.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source link