Monday, April 30, 2012

Wait A Sec ..... THIS Is Tennessee, Too


Brian Moran, a Knoxville, Tennessee police officer wasn't working last Tuesday, so he decided to attend a City council meeting, where there was going to be a debate over adding ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity in hiring city employees.
And Moran came armed with passages from Leviticus.
Oh, no, not Those passages. Moran, who was brought up in the Baptist Church, says, “I’m here for human rights. I’ve been doing my research. And if somebody’d brought up Leviticus, I was going to hit them with these.”
He flashed a list of Bible verses enumerating human acts that are sanctioned—burning a bull on an outdoor altar as a sacrifice, selling a daughter into slavery, owning slaves as long as they’re not from neighboring states.
“But I didn’t need to do it,” he said.
And he didn't need to do it, because the Knoxville City Council voted unanimously, and without discussion, to approve that ordinance to prohibit discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity in hiring.
This means, and i quote from the article, "that the legislative body of this scruffy little burg on the reddest end of the state the punditocracy has dubbed 'Talibanessee' is halfway to adopting an anti-discrimination ordinance."
All that's left is for it to pass on second reading tomorrow.
And, as often happens, Paul Berney, one of the most active supporters of the non-discrimination ordinance is a first cousin to state Senator Stacey "Don't Say Gay" Campfield, who is notorious for his gay-bashing proposals, and his inane ramblings on the origin of AIDS: "[S]ome guy screwing a monkey."
Cousins. One smart, one Stacey Campfield.
Berney isn't sure if Campfield knows how hard he's worked for this new anti-discrimination policy and, frankly, doesn't care much: "I don’t know [what he’ll say]. My family’s Catholic, and like Stacey I have a lot of love and respect for the church … What I was taught was that the church looks at sex not between a husband and a wife as a sin. Masturbation is a sin; sex outside marriage is a sin. If we’re going to deny people privileges and rights based on homosexuality, maybe we ought to look at all that other stuff, if we’re going to legislate morality. Bottom line, I don’t think it’s for the government to decide. As a taxpayer, I want the most qualified person doing the job, period. I don’t care what they do on their own time.”
Wow. Maybe Stacey Campfield ought to spend a little more time with his relatives, and little less time worried about The Gays. He might actually learn something useful.
Way to go, Knoxville. Way to tell the rest of Tennessee that you won't play that game.

7 comments:

  1. I've been there! (event at the University of Tennessee)

    What I want to hear is someone to EXPLAIN exactly why it is okay to follow one sentence out of Leviticus and not the whole damn thing - which is really, really, really violent and odd and horrible.

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  2. If I were wearing a hat, I would take it off in their honor. But it's still Tennessee, and I not holding my breath.

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  3. i noticed once that the same folks most likely to tell you that you are going to hell for _____ (insert 'sin' here) because of what the bible (particularly the old testament) says are the people most likely to be at red lobster on any given day after church wearing polyester and making gluttons out of themselves during all you can eat shrimpfest. gotta love the selective nature of religion in general.

    xxalainaxx

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  4. Wow, what a mensch...

    Good for us, Good for him!

    But I still can't see myself going to his family reunion picnic.

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  5. Thanks so much for posting this. I've lived in Nashville for the past 5 years, but I was born & raised in good ol' Knoxville, TN. I am happy to hear this about the very conservative (often brutally so) east end of the state. Now if only someone could convince Nashville to adopt such anti-discrimination policies. I was among a group of students at Belmont University who protested & rallied to get sexuality included in the non-discrimination policy at the school, and we were hoping to see it be adopted by the Metro Government... but unfortunately the bill wasn't passed. Doesn't make sense to me.

    I've enjoyed your commentary on the matter. :-) Thanks for sharing!

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  6. Nashville DID pass a nondiscrimination policy but a discriminatory statewide ordinance quickly replaced it ... as I'm sure it will in Knoxville.

    I'm still embarassed for Tennessee.

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  7. My home state is trying

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Say anything, but keep it civil .......