Controversial Milwaukee Alderman McGee Opposes Amendment
Milwaukee - Alderman Mike McGee, who angered many in the city’s LGBT community a year ago, has come out to formally oppose the pending Wisconsin ballot measure that would ban civil unions and gay marriage. McGee was among the thirty Madison and Milwaukee African American leaders who signed statements opposing the proposed constitutional amendment, according to an October 4 press release issued by Fair Wisconsin.
  The Milwaukee group signed the following statement: “We the undersigned are opposed to the constitutional amendment that would write discrimination into the constitution by making domestic partnerships and civil unions permanently illegal in our state. If enacted this would be the first time that the Wisconsin Constitution has been used to limit people’s freedoms. It would establish a very dangerous precedent. As African American leaders who have participated in and benefited from the historic struggle for civil rights we are opposed to discrimination in any and all forms.”
  Among the elected leaders signing the statement besides McGee were former Secretary of State Vel Phillips, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, State Senators Lena Taylor and Spencer Coggs, Assembly Representatives Jason Fields, Leon Young, Tamara Grigsby, Robert Turner and Barbara Toles, Milwaukee County Supervisors James G. White, Willie Johnson Jr. and Elizabeth Coggs-Jones, and fellow alder Willie C. Wade. A dozen of the city’s  black religious figures also signed the document.
  The group of Madison African-American elected officials and community members opposing the ban included Dane County Supervisors Richard Brown and Sheila Stubbs, Madison Common Council Aldermen Brian Benford and Isadore Knox, Jr., and Madison School Board President Johnny Winston, Jr.
  McGee caused the blood pressure of many in Milwaukee to surge in 2005, but none more so that the city’s LGBT community. McGee’s initial volley at a February 10 rally in defense of Frank Jude Jr.’s October, 2004 beating by off-duty Milwaukee policemen equated the Fox Valley resident’s assailants as “hate mongers and KKK killers” but then McGee singled out one of the dozen attackers as “a straight-up sick faggot.”
  Subsequent response focused the city’s attention on the anti-gay slur. The Milwaukee LGBT Center, which sits in McGee’s district, later chimed in admonishment but it was Senator Tim Carpenter’s on-camera confrontation with McGee at another of the alder’s staged protests two weeks later that showed McGee up.
    “Why are you disrespectful? Why don’t you return phone calls?” Carpenter shouted.  “When will you apologize for using the term ‘faggot’ when referring to police officers? You’re an embarrassment.”
  McGee refused to acknowledge Carpenter, and instead ran off down the hall and into his office, trailed by Carpenter, TV cameras and reporters eager to capture the confrontation. Carpenter continued shouting to McGee after he went into his office “Why are you hiding?” The senator later explained that he had attempted to call McGee numerous times without success.
  McGee also caught the anger of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Common Council President Willie Hines not only for his anti-gay slurs but his use of derogatory terms for black women on the city’s talk radio.
  Later in the year, McGee was back on the city’s gaydar after two teenaged girls accused him of making anti-gay comments while showing a video of the February 23 confrontation during a bus trip the alder sponsored to the Millions More March in Washington, DC.