Most of the following never happened

Jim Graham, former member of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) board, has been removed from his position for discriminatory, anti-Catholic remarks he made last week.

The decision to remove him was made by his state's governor, because of comments made by Graham in reference to Robert Smith, another board member, in which he described Smith's Roman Catholic beliefs as "hateful and mean-spirited, rendering him unfit to serve the public."

Graham insisted “The comments I make in public outside of my [Metro board job] I’m entitled to make.” Moreover, he stated that his personal beliefs “have absolutely nothing to do with running trains and buses and have not affected my actions or decisions on this board."

Graham, "an openly gay elected official," appeared regularly as a panelist on a local cable talk show. As the Washington Post reported, during a recent show the topic of religion and federalism came up, and Graham at one point said of Robert Smith, “That’s fine, that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean that government should proffer a special place of entitlement within the laws of the United States for persons with religious opinions I disagree with.”

Later, Graham acknowledged the comment and reiterated it. "Catholic beliefs, in my view, are deviant,” he said. The reaction to these politically incorrect opinions was swift and certain.

The governor issued a statement that “Jim Graham’s comments were highly inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. They are in direct conflict to my administration’s commitment to inclusiveness, tolerance, and opportunity.” Graham was quick to compliment the governor: “The governor appreciated the seriousness of this problem.” And Dan Tangherlini, Metro’s interim general manager, sent an e-mail to his 10,000 employees “to reaffirm to all…employees that discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated.”

Most of that actually did not take place. Something mirroring it did, however. The part that is accurate is that Robert Smith was accused by more than one person of deviant thinking for his Catholic beliefs. Guess who really was removed from the Board, and why? Guess--and then wonder whatever happened to the Frist Amendment. See the true original article, Maryland's Thought Police, by G. Tracy Mehan III.

Posted: Mon - July 10, 2006 at 01:31 PM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

Most of the following never happened

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson