The Republican Party has lost its heart and soul. The party of Abraham Lincoln, founded in the mid-1850s as a political movement united against slavery, has morphed in the 21st century into the party of hate and the party of no.

The party that was primarily comprised of Northerners and rejected by pro-slavery white Southerners is now dominated by white Southerners. The party that was once embraced by freed slaves is now overwhelmingly void of people of color, including African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and immigrants.

NEW YORK – A former staff member for Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign has been accused of sexual propositioning and unwanted touching by two cadets at The Citadel, South Carolina’s public military university.

The two men who reported four separate allegations of sexual misconduct in 2010 and 2011 to campus police do not want to pursue the case, and no criminal charges were filed, according to Service Women’s Action Network, which monitors such incidents.

The accused is a recent graduate of The Citadel, the national civil rights organization said.

(Today marks the debut of Editor’s Notebook, an occasional commentary about the state of affairs in the LGBT community. )

Random thoughts!

Kudos to Lambda Legal for filing this week a federal lawsuit seeking marriage equality in Nevada, setting up future actions that could possibly expand marriage on a national level.

TOWSON, MARYLAND – In a speech at Towson University last night, Republican Presidential candidate Fred Karger issued a challenge to three of the other four remaining GOP candidates:

“Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich -- you should immediately disavow the National Organization for Marriage’s Pledge that each of you signed. We now have the proof that NOM is an unethical and deceitful operation,” Karger told the class on Presidential Politics.