The Gutless Governor of Illinois

Five members of Governor Blagojevich's Hate Crime Commission have resigned in protest following Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitic Saviour's Day speech, and the governor has yet to resolve the situation. He had this to say in the Windy City Times, via Capitol Fax:

“What we need to do here is ask people to cool their passions, reduce their tempers and try to bring people together to find understanding and try to reach common ground,” the governor said in Bolingbrook.

Commission members were invited to the speech by fellow member and top Farrakhan deputy Sister Claudette Marie Muhammad, who has refused to disavow his remarks and claims that she herself is now a victim. See my previous posts here and here. Apparently some Jewish members did not attend the speech, but it is a matter of public record, even though some remarks have been removed from the NOI website subsequently.

However, Equality Illinois Political Director Rick Garcia did attend the speech. He told Windy City Times in the same article that the lecture was “vintage Farrakhan”—a mixed bag. Regarding Muhammad, he said that “ [ s ] o far, she has been nothing but the embodiment of what the committee should be about.”

Oh, just your garden variety anti-Semitism, it's the norm, no problem, we'll continue to ignore it.

However, in a move that reveals the developing schism in the LGBT community, the gay political organization known as Stonewall Democrats Illinois issued a press release March 8 calling for Muhammad’s removal. Organization President Rick Ingram said “ [ w ] hen you combine her ridicule of her critics with her refusal to repudiate Farrakhan’s speech, it leaves us no choice but to conclude that she is in agreement, and there is no room on the Commission for anyone who represents a position advocating hate.”

The Log Cabin Republicans earlier called for her removal. Link here.
While I do have reservations about making a distinction between hate crimes and crimes, as I don't know how you can read someone's mind, it is clear Farrakhan made anti-Semitic remarks. And clearly Claudette Marie Muhammad, as his Minister of Protocol, has not repudiated these remarks. And that is not a crime, nor is it a free speech issue. Sister Muhammad may espouse a great many hateful things on her own time, but she has no right to say or defend them as an official member of the governer's Hate Crime Commission.
And here's how New York's Mayor Bloomberg handled a related issue:

NEW YORK (AP) -- The city's top jail chaplain, an imam who has denounced "Zionists of the media" and referred to "terrorists" in the White House, is being allowed to keep his job, the mayor said Tuesday.

Umar Abdul-Jalil, who oversees a group of jail chaplains for the Department of Correction, had been on paid leave since The New York Post reported his remarks last week, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that he would not be fired.

The Republican mayor cited the First Amendment, saying the "great dangers that we are facing are not people saying things, it is our reaction in this country to when people say something that we don't like."

"We are forgetting what distinguishes America from every place else, and it's something that I have felt very strongly about and get more and more worried about with time," Bloomberg said.

The mayor said the chaplain would be suspended for two weeks without pay from the $76,000-a-year job because he did not follow policy and make it clear to his audience that he was not speaking on behalf of the city.

Apparently he was out of town at a "youth conference", not speaking to inmates in New York, and he did apologize. Presumably the city will be monitoring his in-prison remarks. And while this in not a Profile in Courage on the mayor's part, he at least did the minimum necessary. More on this from Michelle Malkin here. And here on a Nation of Islam child prodigy.

I repeat: Governor Blagojevich, you need to ask Sister Muhammad to repudiate the remarks or resign your commission. If she refuses, you need to state that regretfully, you no longer recognize her as a member of the commission.

UPDATE: Can't find it online (?!), but the print edition of the Tribune, Metro North Shore, has a story, "Democrats' flier omits Blagojevich" (the explanation is the Gov didn't contribute to the State Dems for it) and mentions the Brady campaign:

In Chicago, the campaign of one of Blagojevich's potential November opponents, Bill Brady, said that a Blagojevich campaign worker videotaped his news conference. A state senator from Bloomington, Brady has proposed legislation to force the governor's office to get General Assembly approval before appointing members to commissions that receive state funds. Brady tailored the proposal after Blagojevich refused to remove a member from a state commission on discrimination and hate crimes despite her ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The commission receives about $150,000 yearly in state funds. Following the news conference, Brady spokeswoman Laura Anne Miller said she asked the man who sat in the back of the room what organization he represented. He answered the Blagojevich campaign, she said. Though it's common for campaigns to spy on each other, that ususally doesn't happen between Democrats and Republicans until after the primary. The Blagojevich campaign did not return a phone call seeking comment. (UPDATE: Found story here.)