Last night the newly elected Troy, MI Tea Party Mayor Janice Daniels was held to the fire as City Council members rose up and against her over her recently discovered homophobic and bigoted Facebook posting that she made two days after smae sex marriage was passed in New York which read: “I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there.”
80 people lined up to speak, and Daniels was urged to quit numerous times at Monday evening’s 5 1/2-hour Troy City Council meeting. She steadfastly refuses
The Detroit Free Press and The Troy Patch:
Said Councilman Jim Campbell: “You were wrong, and you know you were wrong. You embarrassed the city. We’ve lost business in the city in the last few days because of your statements. We’ve got the whole country laughing at us.”
Added Dane Slater: “I’m gonna be the first to let you know that you are not the victim here. You sent me a memo apologizing but it gave me the sense that you think you’re the victim here, and you are not the victim. The city is the victim.”
Troy resident Cynthia Wilshire said she’s lived in the city for 55 years and that “I’ve never been so ashamed and embarassed and angry as I was Saturday morning when I got up in the morning to turn on the news and to hear … what you said.
“Shame on you. Shame on you. And to all of you council people? You are to represent all of us, with your best behavior. This was not good behavior. Your personal opinions should not be the basis of your decisions. You are behaving like Congress.”
“This is very serious, because if it isn’t the gay people, it’s going to be the Polish, or the Jewish, or the Muslim,” Toby Gosselin said during public comment. “Your hatred and your prejudice is intolerable, and it needs to go.”
The day before Monday, Daniels met with some of the protesters and apologized. “I explained to them that this is a perfect opportunity for all of us to learn how important it is to choose our words carefully. I’m human, I made a mistake, but I feel I did the right thing — I admitted my mistake, I apologized,” she said.
Daniels’ apology was accepted until she said that queer “is just a word,” said Zach Kilgore, 17, also a senior at Troy High School.
“That shows she just does not understand. We had a pretty calm conversation and then it erupted into people screaming at her and calling her ‘bully,’ ” said Kilgore, who said he organized the protest.
Thank you to the students and residents of Troy, MI for coming out of the closet themseleves and standing up and fighting for your gay coworkers, neighbors, friends and family members.
Now kick that homophobic teabagging bigot to the curb!