Monday, May 04, 2015

'Ben Carson's Top 10 Anti-Gay Statements' & other Monday midday news briefs

Ben Carson (the anti-Obama - not a compliment) is in for 2016.

GOP Presidential Candidate Ben Carson's Top 10 Most Anti-Gay Comments - In celebration of Ben Carson's announcement that he is running for president . . . never mind. It's too depressing to go on. Just read the darn thing.  

One Of These Photos About Religious Freedom Is Nothing Like The Others - WONDERFUL! Sometimes points have to be made with a certain simplicity. 

Consultant's resignation shines light on city councilman's perceived 'betrayal' of Columbia's lgbt community - Repeating this morning's post to remind folks that it's not all about stuff going on in California, New York, D.C., or any of the big cities. Us lgbts in southern states are fighting the good fight, too. 

 James Dobson: Gay Marriage Signals 'The Fall Of Western Civilization' - The anti-gay right predicts that some form of lgbt equality will doom mankind part 1,001. 

 Supreme Court declines to hear new LGBT-related cases - One is good for us. The other? Not so good.

Consultant's resignation shines light on city councilman's perceived 'betrayal' of Columbia's lgbt community

 
Cameron Runyan (hoisting a bottle of champagne) during a 2008 lgbt political event (photo by Jonathan Sharpe/Free Times)


A consultant hired by the city of Columbia to help create a human rights ordinance and commission resigns after months of complaints by a group of pastors. However that is nothing compared to the story behind the controversy. It involves a councilman elected partly on the strength of the city's lgbt community and the betrayal they felt when he suddenly turned against them.

A controversy about including lgbts in a human rights ordinance in the city of Columbia, SC has led to the resignation of a consultant the city hired to help create the ordinance and a commission. According to an article in the April 29th edition of The State newspaper:

Growing tensions over a plan to protect gays from discrimination in the city of Columbia have led to the resignation of a consultant city leaders hired to help develop a human-rights ordinance. Christine Johnson, a lesbian and advocate of gay rights, said she quit because City Councilman Cameron Runyan had obstructed her efforts to help create the proposed ordinance. Johnson said in an April 10 resignation letter that Runyan helped set up meetings with church groups to discuss ending her city contract. Runyan made misleading statements to church leaders, as well as misleading comments on a Columbia radio program concerning the proposed city human-rights ordinance, she said in her letter to City Manager Teresa Wilson.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article19918173.html#storylink=cpy

 According to the article, the city of Columbia hired Johnson in December 2014 and her consulting was not to last more than six  months. However, the fact that she is openly gay led to months of complaints by a group of African-American pastors calling themselves the Christian Coalition. Bishop Eric Davis, a member of the group,  told The State  that the Christian Coalition doesn't want lgbts included in ordinance. The group even went so far as to have a February 26 meeting to discuss the "non-renewal" of Johnson's contract.

“Christine Johnson is not only a practicing lesbian, but she’s an advocate, an LGBT advocate,” Davis said. “So from a Christian perspective, our question was, ‘Is that built-in bias?’”
Davis said he believes homosexuality is a sin and said he has broad support from African-American churches representing 100,000 members.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article19918173.html#storylink=cpy

Runyan denies that he had anything to do with Johnson's resignation, but the incident is yet another chapter in the quiet but intense war between him and Columbia's lgbt community. However, this story isn't your conventional one about an anti-gay elected official attempting to run roughshod. It reads more like a soap opera with the elements of betrayal being heavy in the mix.