N.J. Governor McGreevey To Resign
Announces he is a Gay American and has had a homosexual affair with a staffer




TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - In a stunning declaration, Gov. James E. McGreevey announced his resignation Thursday and acknowledged that he had an extramarital affair with another man. "My truth is that I am a gay American," he said.

"Shamefully, I engaged in adult consensual affairs with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony," the married father of two said. "It was wrong, it was foolish, it was inexecusable."
The Democrat said his resignation would be effective Nov. 15.

McGreevey said he would step down because his secret - both his sexuality and his affair - leaves the governor's office vulnerable.

Bush Says Abolishing the IRS and Implementing a National Sales Tax Is Worth Considering


NICEVILLE, Fla. (Reuters) - President Bush said on Tuesday that abolishing the U.S. income tax system and replacing it with a national sales tax was an idea worth considering.

"It's an interesting idea," Bush told an "Ask President Bush" campaign forum here. "You know, I'm not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it's the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously."

Republican economists who speak regularly to the White House have said that the Bush campaign has been mulling the idea of an overhaul of the tax code as part of an agenda for a second term should Bush win reelection.

New Movie, "Annapolis" will be filmed in Philadelphia

Goodbye Maryland, hello Pennsylvania.The producers of the movie "Annapolis" bailed out of Baltimore and set up shop in Philadelphia.

The movie's setting is the U.S. Naval Academy. It stars James Franco of "Spider-Man" and Jordana Brewster of "The Fast and the Furious."

Shooting starts in early October. Girard College and the Naval Yard are among locations high on the list of film scouts.

Officials say Pennsylvania tax incentives for movie production, signed into law just three weeks ago, lured the 28 (m) million film to Philadelphia after the Navy declined filmmakers permission to shoot at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. The producers had initially planned to split filming time between Baltimore and Annapolis.

Homophobic Singer Drops Gay-Bashing Songs After Philadelphia Gays Threaten To Demonstrate

(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Jamaican singer Beenie Man, faced with a threatened demonstration over a weekend concert in Philadelphia agreed to drop two songs gay activists called homophobic.

Beenie Man, whose real name is Anthony Davis, will appear in 33 cities from now until November 8. The tour includes New York City, Chicago, Miami, Cincinnati, Atlanta, and a return trip to Philadelphia.

The Electric Factory had been under intense pressure by the Pennsylvania Lesbian and Gay Task Force to cancel the concert.

Beenie Man's hit tune, Bad Man Chi Chi Man (Bad Man, Queer Man), instructs listeners to kill gays: "If yuh nuh chi chi (queer) man wave yuh right hand and (NO!!!)/If yuh nuh lesbian wave yuh right hand and (NO!!!)Some bwoy will go a jail fi kill man tun bad man chi chi man!!!./Tell mi, sumfest it should a be a showdown/Yuh seem to run off a stage like a clown (Kill Dem DJ!!!)".

In Jamaican slang, "batty man" and "chi chi man" are the equivalent of "poof" and "faggot."
Gay activists threatened to protest in front of the Electric Factory, but when the singer's management promised that he would not sing the homophobic songs the group agreed not to picket and the show went on.

"This show almost got stopped," Beenie Man told the audience.

"[Gays] got our music wrong," he said. "If you have sex with a man, that's your own business. We don't fight against lifestyles. We just don't want anyone to molest our kids."

The Pennsylvania Lesbian and Gay Task Force is working to block Beenie Man's October return to Philadelphia unless he specifically denounces lyrics in his songs that activists say encourage violence against homosexuals.

Protests are planned in other cities on the Beenie Man concert tour. Last Thursday, in an effort to head off the controversy, his record label, Virgin, issued what it called an "apology" on behalf of the singer.

"It has come to my attention that certain lyrics and recordings I have made in the past may have caused distress and outrage among people whose identities and lifestyles are different from my own.

"While my lyrics are very personal, I do not write them with the intent of purposefully hurting or maligning others, and I offer my sincerest apologies to those who might have been offended, threatened or hurt by my songs."

But, the following day, Beenie Man's personal manager denied that the apology came from his client. Clyde McKenzie, head of public relations for Beenie Man's management company Shocking Vibes, told Radio Jamaica that the statement was "not an apology", that it was initiated by Virgin Records not by Beenie Man, and that Beenie Man reserved his right to continue criticizing "the homosexual lifestyle", of which he did not approve.

In June, Jamaica's most notable gay civil rights leader was brutally murdered in his home.