Playing A Tolerant Tune For The DNC
James said he voted to approve the resolution because it didn’t specifically reference him or his actions. Ultimately, he said, the resolution was “immaterial and, as others have said, matters not at all.”
“All it says is that everybody should be nice to each other and give everybody a hug, and that’s fine,” James said. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
As long, apparently, as it’s not homosexuals doing the hugging.
James let loose his latest round of inflammatory rhetoric last week after Commissioners Chairman Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat, tried to send a letter to local congressmen thanking them for supporting the repeal of a Pentagon policy prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military. But instead of taking the letter directly to her colleagues on the board, Roberts initially tried to run it through the county manager’s office before consulting with other commissioners.
When the rest of the board learned of the letter, the backlash was immediate with most commissioners chastising Roberts for trying to go behind their backs and, in some cases, respectfully disagreeing with the decision to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. James took it a step further, saying that he believed “homosexuals are sexual predators.”
During Tuesday night’s meeting several speakers, including a handful from MeckPAC, a group that lobbies for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, accused James of practicing and promoting everything from hate speech, hate crimes and slander, to discrimination, ignorance and bigotry. James even drew criticism from other Republican commissioners, who denounced his inflammatory language.
“Although I will fight to the end for all of our, collectively, right to free speech as protected and delineated in the Constitution,” said Commissioner Karen Bentley, “the comments made by Commissioner James are beyond reproach and out of line with my Republican Party and my Christian faith.”
James, though, wasn’t the only one to come under fire Tuesday night. Roberts was repeatedly scolded for attempting to send a letter that ostensibly reflected the board’s opinion without first consulting her colleagues, creating a partisan, politically-motivated controversy that distracted from the board’s more serious business at hand. You know, like dealing with a multi-million-dollar budget deficit and a countywide unemployment rate that hovers above 10 percent.
“Commissioner James does not speak for me. It seems to me that his most recent comments paint with too broad of a brush,” said Republican Commissioner Neil Cooksey.
“Likewise, Chairman Roberts does not speak for me,” he said. “This whole episode was prompted by an effort, I believe, by Chairman Roberts to speak on behalf of this board on an issue that really the county has no business weighing in on and the chairman has no business weighing in on without going back to the rest of the members of the board and getting their opinions.”
In doing so, Cooksey said, Roberts likely violated the county board’s code of ethics. Roberts denied any wrong-doing or unsavory intent, claiming that the initial impulse to send the letter was in the spirit of bipartisanship, meant to thank Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican, for crossing party lines and supporting repeal of DADT.
“I in no way and by no means asked to write a letter from my perspective that was speaking for the whole board,” Roberts said. “It was all from the ‘I’ perspective; anyone who read the e-mail would know that. I absolutely adhered to the code of ethics. I absolutely am not speaking on behalf of the board unless we explicitly voted upon it.”
Bentley wasn’t buying that explanation, and a careful reading of the series of e-mails that triggered the controversy echoes her skepticism.
“The initial perception of the intent of Commissioner Roberts reaching out to our federal delegation implied that this would be from the entire board,” Bentley said. “Whether that was the true intent or the perceived intent, that is what instigated where we are tonight.”
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