Sam Hall (right) and husband, William BurleyKessler, Tennant Tout 'Sexual Orientation' In Rights Speech
By Mannix Porterfield
Feb 21, 2011
CHARLESTON — Two Democratic rivals for governor lent support Monday to legislation outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation, illustrating their cause with an ex-coal miner claiming he was harassed over his homosexual lifestyle.
Sam Hall told chanting supporters outside the Senate chamber he was victimized by verbal abuse, physical threats, vandalism and harassing messages spray-painted on his belongings at two Massey Energy mines in Kanawha County.
“I have endured some of the most difficult circumstances at my former job,” Hall said at a news conference.
“The more hatred we let happen now is the more hatred we will have to endue in our future and that is just not acceptable.”
Afterward, he refused to identify the mines, saying his complaints are in litigation against Massey and his attorney wasn’t there with him.
Immediately, Kevin McCoy, president of the West Virginia Family Foundation, said some lawmakers were putting a seal of approval on an abomination contrary to God’s laws and that his Christian group would seek their defeat in the next election.
Acting Senate President Jeffrey Kessler, D-Marshall, blasted discrimination against homosexuals in an emotion-charged speech before chanting members of West Virginia Fairness.
“It is time to recognize clearly, once and for all in West Virginia, that all men and all women are created equal,” he said.
“These are individuals who are who they are. They have no more ability to change their orientation than they do the color of their skin. They have no more ability to change their orientation than they do to change the color of their eyes.”
Kessler held up a copy of the Constitution and said it applies to all.
“It is high time in this state that no one can be denied the right to work or where they live based upon their gender, their age, the color of their skin, the god they love or the person they love,” he said.
Kessler quoted Jesus’ much-quoted response to the Pharisees and scribes when asked about the greatest commandment.
The first, he said, is to love God with all one’s heart and mind, and the second is to love one’s neighbor as oneself, the senator said.
“That second commandment, that Golden Rule, means nothing more than reaching out and treating people with dignity, fairness and respect, and even when, and more importantly because, when they’re different,” he said.
“That’s the strength of that Golden Rule as well.”
Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, took a shot at Christian groups opposed to expanding the Human Rights Act to embrace homosexuality.
She said the Bible has been used to justify slavery, control over women by their husbands, even to the point of beating them, and discrimination.
Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, who is on the May 14 primary ballot with Kessler, didn’t attend as planned, but sent a statement read to Hall’s supporters.
“Discrimination is bad for our economy and bad for our community,” she said.
“We can no longer afford to have biases of the past dictate our future. It is time for a new approach. It’s time for West Virginia to move forward.”
McCoy was incensed over the support of SB226 and HB2045, given the opposition by Kessler and Fleischauer the past few years a Christian-led effort to let voters decide if the Constitution should be amended to define marriage as a union of “one man and one woman.”
Kessler and Fleischauer displayed “the audacity to stand before people today and basically use the word of God as a tool to promote an abomination,” McCoy said.
“These people have no sense of morality,” he continued. “They are morally bankrupt. The only way to deal with it is to get them voted out of office. And that’s what we plan on doing. We’re going after them.”
McCoy warned that passage of the bill would sound the death knell for the traditional family by letting homosexual activists “force their decadent and destructive lifestyle on all West Virginians.”
“The clear agenda behind these bills is to legitimize homosexual behavior and cross-dressing in West Virginia as normal, acceptable behavior and worthy of being singled out for special recognition as an inborn trait, despite the Bible’s clear condemnation of this chosen behavior as sinful and wrong,” he added.
By Mannix Porterfield
Feb 21, 2011
CHARLESTON — Two Democratic rivals for governor lent support Monday to legislation outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation, illustrating their cause with an ex-coal miner claiming he was harassed over his homosexual lifestyle.
Sam Hall told chanting supporters outside the Senate chamber he was victimized by verbal abuse, physical threats, vandalism and harassing messages spray-painted on his belongings at two Massey Energy mines in Kanawha County.
“I have endured some of the most difficult circumstances at my former job,” Hall said at a news conference.
“The more hatred we let happen now is the more hatred we will have to endue in our future and that is just not acceptable.”
Afterward, he refused to identify the mines, saying his complaints are in litigation against Massey and his attorney wasn’t there with him.
Immediately, Kevin McCoy, president of the West Virginia Family Foundation, said some lawmakers were putting a seal of approval on an abomination contrary to God’s laws and that his Christian group would seek their defeat in the next election.
Acting Senate President Jeffrey Kessler, D-Marshall, blasted discrimination against homosexuals in an emotion-charged speech before chanting members of West Virginia Fairness.
“It is time to recognize clearly, once and for all in West Virginia, that all men and all women are created equal,” he said.
“These are individuals who are who they are. They have no more ability to change their orientation than they do the color of their skin. They have no more ability to change their orientation than they do to change the color of their eyes.”
Kessler held up a copy of the Constitution and said it applies to all.
“It is high time in this state that no one can be denied the right to work or where they live based upon their gender, their age, the color of their skin, the god they love or the person they love,” he said.
Kessler quoted Jesus’ much-quoted response to the Pharisees and scribes when asked about the greatest commandment.
The first, he said, is to love God with all one’s heart and mind, and the second is to love one’s neighbor as oneself, the senator said.
“That second commandment, that Golden Rule, means nothing more than reaching out and treating people with dignity, fairness and respect, and even when, and more importantly because, when they’re different,” he said.
“That’s the strength of that Golden Rule as well.”
Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, took a shot at Christian groups opposed to expanding the Human Rights Act to embrace homosexuality.
She said the Bible has been used to justify slavery, control over women by their husbands, even to the point of beating them, and discrimination.
Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, who is on the May 14 primary ballot with Kessler, didn’t attend as planned, but sent a statement read to Hall’s supporters.
“Discrimination is bad for our economy and bad for our community,” she said.
“We can no longer afford to have biases of the past dictate our future. It is time for a new approach. It’s time for West Virginia to move forward.”
McCoy was incensed over the support of SB226 and HB2045, given the opposition by Kessler and Fleischauer the past few years a Christian-led effort to let voters decide if the Constitution should be amended to define marriage as a union of “one man and one woman.”
Kessler and Fleischauer displayed “the audacity to stand before people today and basically use the word of God as a tool to promote an abomination,” McCoy said.
“These people have no sense of morality,” he continued. “They are morally bankrupt. The only way to deal with it is to get them voted out of office. And that’s what we plan on doing. We’re going after them.”
McCoy warned that passage of the bill would sound the death knell for the traditional family by letting homosexual activists “force their decadent and destructive lifestyle on all West Virginians.”
“The clear agenda behind these bills is to legitimize homosexual behavior and cross-dressing in West Virginia as normal, acceptable behavior and worthy of being singled out for special recognition as an inborn trait, despite the Bible’s clear condemnation of this chosen behavior as sinful and wrong,” he added.
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"Fear Eats the Soul"
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