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Tuesday, June 02, 2009

County In Check



With the three page ordinance being reduced to a one paragraph resolution, you might be saying what are the supporters celebrating? This was just a temporary setback for the movement. They are already planning their next move.What it boils down to is Sydney Chism did a masterful job of skirting the issue for now. What he did was bought some time. He gave nine members of the commission a way to straddle the fence. Partisan politics is the order of the day on the county commission. Democrats are going to find a way to stick together no matter what. Another tidbit of information is all the Democratic members of the commission except the sponsor of the legislation Steve Mulroy are black. Unfortunately that played a part as well.


I still think Wyatt Bunker is right when he calls this the tip of the iceberg. Supporters of the legislation view anything except total dismissal as being in their favor. Somewhere along the line the only way to prove this is more than just ceremonial is to rule in a homosexual's behalf. Believe me it will be tested. This in a sense was a no win situation for commissioners. By saying anything one way or the other acknowledged there was a possibility of discrimination. Being on the offence is the only way you can score. Now the county is clearly playing defense. The GLBT community has the county in check.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/jun/01/County-commission-meeting-packed/

5 comments:

  1. Voting in support of it were Commissioners Mike Ritz, J.W. Gibson, Henri Brooks, James Harvey, Sidney Chism, Joe Ford, Matt Kuhn, Steve Mulroy and Deidre Malone.

    Voting against it were Republican Commissioners Joyce Avery, George Flinn, Mike Carpenter and Wyatt Bunker

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  2. Anonymous1:52 AM

    Former commissioner and civil rights activist Walter Bailey spoke in favor of the measure (in either form), as did Judge Russell Sugarmon, who is black.

    "If you're a Christian, you don't have the right to question God. I don't think people choose whatever they're born (to be). What's given to us is what we go with," he said after the vote.

    "There are too many talented (gay) people to dismiss them


    His son is gay.

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