TODAY’S CREATIVE LOVING PROFILE
The Weekly Scalawag
Last week, in explaining why his daughter was facing such tough re-election opposition, the 75-year-old state representative (for now, at least) spelled out for TV cameras: "J-E-W-S."
Wow, deja vu. Just six years ago, Cynthia McKinney was forced to boot her dad off her campaign after he called her opponent, John Mitnick, a "racist Jew." What earned Mitnick such antipathy? Simply alleging that the congresswoman had close ties to Louis Farrakhan -- the same Farrakhan she brought to town last week in a desperate bid to win over voters.
But Jews aren't the only group McKinney the elder holds in contempt. In the mid-'80s, he floated bills to require AIDS sufferers to register with local authorities, and to legalize sodomy -- but only for straight couples.
In 1994, he was fined by a federal court for threatening U.S. Rep. Gary Franks (R-Conn.). After the black congressman testified that Cynthia McKinney's district was improperly drawn, her father followed him from the courtroom to his car, called him a "Judas for the white man" and other slurs, and challenged him to fight.
Despite his age, Billy McKinney, a former Atlanta police officer, isn't shy about physical confrontation -- especially with women. In 1993, a gay-rights activist filed charges that he hit her in the mouth in Atlanta City Hall; in 2000, a DeKalb elections official accused him of grabbing her by the lapel when she came to find out why the McKinneys were inside a polling place stumping for last-second votes with a bullhorn.
Billy McKinney always has shown poor taste in friends, defending the scandal-plagued state Sen. Hildred Shumake, divisive Atlanta Councilwoman Sherry Dorsey and her husband, sheriff-turned-murderer Sidney Dorsey.
No one can accuse Billy McKinney of being a conformist. In 2000, he cast the sole vote against a House ethics bill, grousing: "I'm sick of this ethics stuff. I think we've got enough ethics."
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