In an interview with The Charlotte Observer newspaper, James told reporter April Bethea:
"People are entitled to their opinion, and that includes me," James said Thursday. "I don't expect people to (always) agree with me. It's a political discussion and I wouldn't have raised it on my own, but Jennifer (Roberts) decided to wade in on it."
In the email James wrote:
"Homosexuals are sexual predators. Allowing homosexuals to serve in the US military with the endorsement of the Mecklenburg County Commission ignores a host of serious problems related to maintaining US military readiness and effectiveness not the least of which is the current Democrat plan to allow homosexuals (male and female) to share showers with those they are attracted to."
Earlier in this week, Commission Board Chairperson Roberts, had circulated an e-mail to her fellow commissioners asking that the county board formally thank the state's congressional delegation for voting to repeal the Pentagon's "Don't Ask-Don't Tell'" policy. James, who has a history of making homophobic remarks responded with the sexual predator e-mail, which drew national headlines on LGBTQ, Conservative, and liberal blogs, as well as the Huffington Post website, plus cable news channels.
The Observer also reports:
A petition calling on county commissioners to censure James had drawn more than 1,000 signatures on change.org, a national website for social change. Michael Jones, the Boston-based editor of the gay rights section of change.org, said the organization would keep its petition up until commissioners take some sort of action against James' remarks. He said James has a "legacy" of making dehumanizing or anti-gay comments and people want him held accountable.Roberts told reporters yesterday that she hasn't talked to fellow commissioners about what action, if any, the board could or should take take.
"The challenge is everyone recognizes that it's inappropriate language," Roberts said. "This is a repeat performance and I just don't know if it helps or hurts the end goal by making any kind of formal statement."In a separate statement yesterday, James also said that he has contacted local law enforcement agencies to deal appropriately with the threats he's received as a result of the publicity.
In a related item, the Charlotte Observer's editors ran this notice after today's article:
Editor's note: Comments have been disabled because of repeated violations of site policies. Please refrain from profanity, obscenity, spam, name-calling or attacking others for their views.
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1 comments:
The problem, besides a Freedom of Speech law that allows lies to be told as if they are truth, is that this idiot is extrapolating enormously. I am sure that there are SOME predatory gay men out there. I am sure that there are SOME predatory non-gay men out there. His error, probably deliberate is extrapolating those few gay predators into becoming all gay men.
It would be just as ludicrous (or logical) to claim that non-gays are all predators, but of course THAT is not what he will do, since he is catering to his own misguided agenda.
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