Gay-mocking e-mail sent by ‘someone at the County’

Support within county government for the County Commission’s Declaration of Tolerance, or whatever they wound up calling it, apparently isn’t unanimous. This morning, Commissioner Bill James — who raised the ire of many, including this writer, with his latest anti-gay rants — sent us an e-mail, which he says was sent to him by “someone at the County.”

The e-mail consists of an emblem for a supposedly new gay male Army company, the “Fighting 69th Sodomites,” shown below. The image was accompanied by text reading, in part, “Sources credit the creation of the 69th to House member Barney Frank, who has reportedly been working ‘very, very closely’ with gay Pentagon officials.” The emblem was created by a right-wing website, Scooter’s Report, which features visual jokes, many of which are incredibly racist depictions of First Lady Michelle Obama.

So — isn’t that great? Someone in county government has enough free time — and confidence that they can send anything at all over the county’s e-mail system — to pass around images mocking entire segments of the population. The way we see it, if someone wants to e-mail this kind of bigoted material on their own time from their own e-mail devices, that’s their right. But from a taxpayer-funded e-mail system? Nuh-uh. Hopefully, County Manager Harry “Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr.” Jones will get someone to look into it.

This article appears in Jan 4-10, 2011.