Lubbock state senator spews lies and hate

I have waited a full 24 hours before posting this. That is longer than usual but I wanted to see if my ire and my fire would cool after reading the remarks of the newly sworn in state senator from Lubbock and his fundamentalist clergy friend. My ire and fire remain, despite trying to “chill” more. So here goes:

An Open Letter to Sen. Charles Perry with copies to Sen. Kel Seliger and Rep. Four Price:

The Amarillo Globe-News and Lubbock Avalanche Journal reported on your remarks at your swearing in ceremony. Those remarks not only reflect an intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy, but your comments reflect a lack of integrity and appreciation for history. To assert that there is a moral equivalency between the Adolf Hitler Holocaust and abortion and same-sex marriage is so outrageous that words to you can barely be civil.

I may not be your constituent, but I have portfolio to address this issue because my parents lost family to the Holocaust. So listen up.

·I have a Jewish heritage but I am an Episcopalian, and the last time I looked, that makes me as Christian as you and your misguided little buddy from Rock City Church. And, while my denomination views abortion as unfortunate, our canon law clearly does not consider it murder — or anything else equivalent to the Holocaust. Even if it did, what our churches teach have nothing to do with our government. And neither should your church.

·As for same-sex marriage, the Episcopal Church does not condemn the love among or between people, seeing it as the love of Christ. You will just have to get over it inasmuch as the courts are going to rule against you position sooner rather than later. I love the admonition, which I give you — if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay married.

·Harping on the hot-button social issues as you did in your speech stuck me as a cynical play to the right-wing nutcases in the Avalanche Journal’s market area; it also makes you a stooge for the Koch Brothers, the Morris gang and corporatists who have incrementally stolen our republic from us. What gives my assertion here more credence is that one commenter in the Lubbock paper noted a representative of your office claimed the story took your remarks out of context. That is a typical politician’s lie and I call you on it.

As for my friends Kel Seliger and Four Price. I know we don’t agree on political positions, but I’ve not seen either of you stoop to the level of despicable behavior as this Perry has done (or the other Perry, for that matter). The appropriate thing to do to this Perry is to shun him. I hope you do so.