Orange County GOP Central Committee member Marilyn Davenport, who has come under fire for sending out an email depicting President Barack Obama's face on the body of a baby chimpanzee, announced at a news conference just moments ago that she will not resign.
"I humbly receive your rebuke," Davenport said, and again apologized for sending the email.
Republican leaders' calls for her resignation.
"I am getting comments from my constituents saying 'please do not resign,' and out of respect for my constituents, I will remain in office," Davenport said at the news conference outside her Fullerton home.
Davenport read the written apology she issued earlier this week, and went on to say she did not intend to offend anyone by forwarding the email. She noted, however, that she didn't send the email to some people who she thought she might be offended.
"I felt they might just not like it too well and might be a little offended about it so I didn't step on that feeling of theirs,'' she said.
"Those who would be offended would be those who perhaps would be of another race or in some cases that aren't black or brown or any other, some of my own race would be offended,'' she said.
"To the president, I would say absolutely it was inappropriate. It was inappropriate, and as I say, I would not do that again. As I said before, it struck me as just political satire. It's been around, I guess it's been around many times, but it was an unwise thing, a very unwise thing.
"The email included a picture with Obama's face superimposed over a baby chimp's face with the caption, "Now you know why -- No birth certificate!'' Davenport said she felt it was just "political satire.''
"I thought that's all it was,'' she said.
Republican Party of Orange County Chairman Scott Baugh said Monday he immediately scolded Davenport for sending the email.
"I was shocked. I took offense to it and I immediately replied to her email that this is dripping with racism. Don't send email like this,'' Baugh told City News Service. "I was the first to ask her to resign and she's resisted that.''
Frank Barbaro, chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party, echoed the call for Davenport to resign.
"Ms. Davenport should do the right thing and resign her leadership position with the Republican Party to spare Orange County from further embarrassment and to send a message that she truly understands the harm she has caused and that the Republican Party does not support racism in any form,'' Barbaro said.
Republican leaders have called for her resignation. Davenport was concerned about safety, so the news conference was not announced to the public.
—City News Service
@South OC, I disagree with you slightly. I do not think that all Presidents deserve our respect. I can certainly understand if someone does not respect Obama or Bush or Clinton or whoever. Respect needs to be earned. Some haven't done that with some people. But the important thing here is not about respect, it is about racism.
I certainly have little respect for a president indulging in licentious behavior with an intern, even as he signs the DADT bill that prevents patriotic service-members the right to say that they exist and love someone. Likewise I have no respect for a president who considers torture of our own citizens (Padilla) as reasonable. Even less for senator who is try to invoke Woodrow Wilson's draconian decrees to indict and convict Assange. Sure, I respect the fact that they have been elected, and are working to do a job for all us, and that they deserve our support, but that's a far cry from being respectful. The lack of civility is caused because of a rapidly declining educated populace. AM radio serves as the gospel. Couple nuanced racism, and you have the perfect storm. I agree that you don't need to disrespect anyone you disagree with, but again, that does not translate into respecting someone just because he or she is a President. He or she has to do something respect-worthy. This is not to say that the President hasn't done exactly that with some acts.
Did anyone respect Ford after he was moved into the office, the first appointed President of the United States? The answer has always been "no". He did not earn the right to be there, but no one disrespected the office that he held. After the final count was completed in Florida and the numbers showed that Gore was the rightful winner of the State, and that Bush was appointed by the SCOTUS, it still was not acceptable to disrespect the office of the POTUS, even though the holder was illegitimate. In 2008 there was no question of who won at the ballot box. The POTUS was elected by the will of the people. All efforts to de-legitimize him (birthism) have been proven to be false. Those that perpetuate the falsehoods and various conspiracy theories to support birtherism are doing so for an agenda that has nothing to do with the POTUS, and as the image that accompanied the birther text which Davenport spread show, their reasons have more to do with the colour of the man than anything else. That over 70% of the GOP believe or consider that the POTUS is illegitimate speaks well of the well funded efforts of these racists to spread lies. We have to look no further than Paul's comments in this thread to see how the ill-informed are willing to do so.
Give it up. Paul is a "true believer". He gets his News from Faux and can spout the talking points. He is fueled by misinformation, well packaged, and in easy to remember sound bites. You see him and his ilk at T-party events (where you will also find Davenport and Grose) wrapped in the American flag and screaming that our secular country is a "Christian nation". Discussing facts, and debating ideas or addressing real concerns is not on the agenda. Demonizing those that think different from them, labeling them unAmerican, spouting Faux News talking points and Beckian conspiracy theories, they can do well (as we have seen here). But a real discussion of the issues that affect America today, that is a bit beyond the scope of their abilities and imagination. Their defense of the indefensible, coming to the aide of the Grose's and Davenports of this world when their leadership shows why they shouldn't be leaders. That they can do well.
What you see is a level of concern by those that can read, think and analyze. We see someone who is so wrapped up in her delusions that she has lost the ability to see clearly what reality is. We see someone who is poorly equipped to deal with reality, yet determined to become the leader of a country that has the greatest military arsenal in the world. A woman who has no ability to separate her mythology from facts, and believes in the strength of stupidity and faith, rather than scientific method and factual analysis. Ignorance is not a virtue. Ms. Palin is a towering inferno to the belief that it is. Where many on the left believe that we should be finding our best and brightest to lead, Palin and her ilk embrace the belief that faith should be the guiding light, not reason.
As for respect, since you are still hung up on what consenting adults do in their personal lives I guess it would be tough for you to respect anyone. How about Kennedy? Any respect for him? Teddy Roosevelt? Have you Read "The Imperial Cruise". It's not very flattering of good ole Teddy. Your position with regard to respect doesn't leave you with too many politicians left to respect. Like a president or not, the opposition party still needs to deal with that person. Once however respect becomes an issue, especially if it's over reasons tangential or unrelated to actual performance of the job then you lose the capacity to govern with that individual. From where I sit it is your hand up not the president.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/22/kansas.immigrant.representative/index.html?iref=allsearch
I wonder if you have ever laughed at something you thought was funny and forwarded it to one of your friends. Hmm, Our Presidents & Congressmen are caught with prostitutes and this is the treatment this woman gets? Hmm...
But regarding your claims, can you name the Presidents that were caught with prostitutes, and also what happened to them? Nearly all politicians who were caught with prostitutes did pay with their career. Are you suggesting that Ms. Davenport deserves no less? Or are you suggesting that since some may not have, she should get no censure, and life goes on? Because the latter is exactly what seems to be happening.
When Prince Harry wore a Nazi uniform, he didn't only "offend" Jews, he offended many who may have been actually anti-semites. The level of offense went beyond the group that one would consider to be offended. Racism is much the same way. Those that get offended are generally more than just the target group. I know individual Christians that would get offended by Piss Christ. I found the work mildly offensive and I'm not a Christian. But the intent of the artwork and how it was executed bother me much more as I feel it was pretty bad art. In much the same way I know that there are many Christians the get offended by displays of public same-gender affection. There are also many others that get offended by such displays of public affection. But, there are many who are as equally offended by ANY public displays of affection (same or mixed gender). I believe you are creating equalities where none exist.
Leaders have a responsibility when they accept positions of leadership to live to a higher standard in public. A double standard can not be held. An evangelical Christian can NOT use their faith to justify mandatory public prayer in State functions, unless they are willing to also allow the Wiccan or Satainist or Muslim or Hindi or Scientologist equal time (I am not saying that these five are the same, just that they are equally valid forms of faith) without offense. Personally I found Davenports use of the "faith" card as offensive as her original racist tendencies.
Hmm, what about atheists? The establishment clause is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", not "Congress shall make no law respecting establishment of a religion". It is a common mis-perception that as long as you do not promote just one religion, and are inclusive, it is OK. It is not. The state basically has to state out of religion altogether. Also, Hind"i" is a language. Hind"u" is a practitioner of Hinduism, the religion.
What too many people fail to do, and it is not restricted to folks like Devenport, is to appreciate that the world actually stretches beyond her insular cocoon that is filled with folks who see the world as they do. Consequently, she has no problem with the picture, and perhaps she shares it with a friend who is also an older republican, white Christian who is also OK with it. And that's her world; that's the extent of her universe and knowledge base. She is not just behind the orange curtain she is behind the older republican white Christian curtain and that makes her oblivious to the idea that others just might see the world differently than she does. Again, we all have the potential to be just as closed-minded and insensitive as Ms. Davenport. We also have the potential to develop empathy for others not like ourselves and to stop and think not just how we see the world but how others see the world.
As for the freedom of/from religion issue. I have a City Council that has "In God We Trust" on the wall behind them even though I fought to NOT post that on the wall (my argument is that it is a State endorsement of monotheism). There is no G-d in "government" and that was the way that the founding fathers wanted it (why use "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and "endowed by their Creator " in the DOI when G-d would have been shorter in both places? Because we are NOT a Christian nation (1)). (1) "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" - Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary : Submitted to the Senate by President John Adams, receiving ratification unanimously from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797 and signed by Adams, taking effect as the law of the land on June 10, 1797.
Here is part of it (I write these things over a week). "A number of you tend to start these meetings with a very non-secular prayer. You may not call it that, but only one organized religion uses “heavenly father”, the one that has the heavenly son, Christianity. Yet, more times than not that is how you start these meetings. In much the same way, only one major religion ends their prayers “in his name” again Christianity. I was willing to keep silent and walk from this peoples chamber until recently, in the last few months, there have been multiple incidents in local Orange County and LA County schools of children calling for mandatory prayer circles where they followed the lead set here and in other secular locations where they had Christian prayer in a secular forum. These children have been moved to blur the line between the secular and religious by watching their leaders do the same. If you do not respect that line, why should they? " But since all five of the City Council members are Christians, my guess is that this will fall on deaf ears.
You may want to throw in the question, referring to the wall plaque, to which God are you referring on that plaque? That and ask them if they are aware of the religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The current list of OC cities that have done this is: Brea, Buena Park, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, Seal Beach, Tustin, Villa Park, Westminster and Yorba Linda. The person behind it is: Jacquie Sullivan "Jacquie Sullivan's efforts date back to 2001. While working in her home/office and listening to the news on a Christian radio station, Jacquie heard about a small group on the East Coast that was protesting the words “In God We Trust” that were posted on a public building. She was offended that they were offended. She instantly felt a defiant determination to push back against those who seemed driven to remove God’s name from the public life of our country. “Fine," she said to herself, "if they are going to work to take our motto down, I am going work to put it up.”
http://www.religioustolerance.org/nat_mott.htm If not it's a good one. You are really fighting an uphill battle because the courts have taken the rather consistent, if illogical, position that so long as no specific religion is mentioned (the plaques don't actually mention a specific religion even though we all know to which religion they are referring), then they are perceived as generic and somehow, given the Christian fueled illogic under which they think, that's been deemed to be OK. To Christians who think this way they rationalize it as government isn't really promoting the establishment of a religion if they just mention "God" in a general sense (but we all know it's with a wink and smile). Never mind that even doing what they pass off as an innocuous act still creates a situation where government and religion become intertwined and never mind that it disenfranchises those who choose not to accept any religion as well as those whose religion involves multiple deities or some other worship structure. They don't understand that religious neutral really needs to be religious mute, and that our shared government must see us all as equals irrespective of whatever religion or non-religion we choose to accept.