On Sunday, May 13, 2012, Clay Aiken will be a guest on the prestigious news show, Face The Nation.

Face the Nation is one of the longest-running news programs in the history of television. It premiered on CBS in November of 1954.

The show airs Sunday mornings and is hosted by Bob Schieffer.  Bob is the CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent.

Face The Nation is broadcast from Washington D.C. and covers the latest news issues.  Guests on the show include government leaders, politicians, and international figures in the news. CBS News correspondents engage the guests in a lively roundtable discussion focusing on current topics.

On the up-coming show, Clay will be a part of a panel who will be looking at all the sides of the same-sex marriage debate. All the panel members have interesting and impressive bios.  The following is a few facts about of the participants.

Deval Laurdine Patrick

• He is the current Democratic Governor of Massachusetts. He first won election to the statewide office in November 2006 and took office on January 4, 2007. He is the first black governor in Massachusetts. He is currently the only African-American governor in the United States.
• Under his leadership, Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage.  His youngest daughter is gay.
• He spent a year working with the United Nations in Africa.
• Patrick received his J.D. from Harvard Law School
• He was an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Theodore B. Olson

• Olson is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a law firm in Washington D.C.
• Mr. Olson was Solicitor General of the United States during the period 2001-2004.  From 1981-1984 he was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice.
• He was selected by Time magazine in 2010 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world; Mr. Olson is one of the nation’s premier appellate and United States Supreme Court advocates.
• As Solicitor General, during the presidency of George W. Bush, Mr. Olson was the Government’s principal advocate in the United States Supreme Court, responsible for supervising and coordinating all appellate litigation of the United States, and a legal adviser to the President and the Attorney General.
• In July of 2010, Mr. Olson was appointed by President Obama to serve as a member of the ten-person Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Evan Wolfson

• Evan served in the Peace Corps in a village in Togo, West Africa.
• He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1983.
• Wolfson is the founder and President of Freedom to Marry, the campaign to win marriage nationwide.
• Evan served as marriage project director for Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, was co-counsel in the historic Hawaii marriage case, and participated in numerous gay rights and HIV/AIDS cases.
• In 2004, Evan was named one of the “Time 100,” Time magazine’s list of “the 100 most influential people in the world.”

Mark McKinnon

• McKinnon is an award-winning media producer and communications strategist who has served as principal media advisor for hundreds of corporate and political campaigns around the world. He has been awarded more than 30 Pollie and Telly awards, honoring the nation’s best political and public affairs advertising.
• He was appointed by President Bush to serve as a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent, autonomous entity responsible for all U.S. government- sponsored, non-military, international broadcasting. The nine-member board includes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
• McKinnon currently serves on the board of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and lectures at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
• McKinnon is a two-time Ironman finisher.

Tony Perkins

• Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian think tank.
• He served two terms as a Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.
• Perkins urged Congress to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment that defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman.
• In 2010, under Perkins’s leadership, the Family Research Council was classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

What an honor for Clay Aiken to be a part of this panel.  I am sure he will be an active participant in the conversation and surprise many people with his intelligence and knowledge.

Will you be watching the show on Sunday morning?