An e-mail from the Former Chair of the Indiana Democratic Party
Last week I commented here on an IndyStar article about the Indiana Democratic Party, and how some Democratic candidates took money from the gay rights organization the Indiana Stonewall Democrats, and then sent out mailings that were anti-gay in nature. I included a quote from the article by Kipper V. Tew, the chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party (who resigned Nov 16th), and I reacted negatively to that quote.
Last night I received an e-mail from Kip Tew regarding my post, which was very gracious considering what I said about him, and umm… his horse. 🙂 Here is the e-mail he sent:
I was out last week and did not see any press, but I checked this week and noticed that you told me to fuck off because of comments that were attributed to me.
If you will indulge me the opportunity to respond in my defense I would like to say the following.
The quote, as people like to say, was taken out of context. Let me tell you how I feel. I was trying to insure that we had a Democratic Majority in the Indiana House of Representatives. Why? Because with a Democratic Majority Speaker Bauer could continue to bottle up the attempts by the Republicans to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, as he did in the 2004 session. Not everyone in his caucus agrees with him. However, as long as he was speaker, we could keep that from happening. It is my belief that if that happens it will stop the progress for Gay equality for many years. The point of my quote was not that I was unwilling to stand up for a principle, but that I was willing to help elect someone who is not as forward thinking about this issue in order to not go backwards. I am sorry that we did not win this year. I think we will suffer setbacks because of it. I hate that. I hope that soon the American people will change their opinion about these issues. I think it is happening but it is a slower process than either you or I would like. But we must continue to fight for what we think is right and continue to argue with the other side. And occasionally we have to retreat a little to move forward. The civil rights struggle took over 100 years from the end of slavery until the civil rights and voting rights act were passed. Then it has taken two generations to effect real change after the laws were changed. The Gay rights struggle won’t take that long but the struggle will be hard and folks like you need to continue to hold politicians’ feet to the fire. Thank you for giving a damn!