It only took a few hours for the Indianapolis Star to get a story online commenting on the irony of State Sen. Mike Delph (R)
tweeting a photo of a rainbow taken outside his Carmel home the same day as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a lower court ruling throwing out Indiana's Defense of Marriage Law, but it took the Star five days to muster the courage to write a brief story about Lucas Oil co-founder Charlotte Lucas' Facebook rant against minorities. Here's what Star publisher Karen Ferguson
gave Bill McCleery permission to write about Lucas.
A controversial Facebook post about “minorities running our country” has drawn international attention to the co-founder of Lucas Oil, whose name graces the Indianapolis Colts stadium.
News outlets as far away as Europe have published stories of Charlotte Lucas’ post from last Thursday.
Lucas, who co-owns Lucas Oil with her husband Forrest, posted:
“I'm sick and tired of minorities running our country! As far as I'm concerned, I don't think that atheists (minority), muslims (minority) n (sic) or any other minority group has the right to tell the majority of the people in the United States what they can and cannot do here. Is everyone so scared that they can't fight back for what is right or wrong with this country?”
The Lucases maintain an Indianapolis residence among several other homes.
Stories about the post have appeared in such prominent venues as the U.K. Daily Mail and the New York Daily Post.
Charlotte Lucas later deleted and apologized for the post — though she indicated the mistake was the clumsiness with which she expressed herself rather than the essence of the belief she tried to get across.
“I apologize to everyone for the insensitive comments posted on my Facebook account,” she said, as recounted in the Daily Mail. “My comments did not reflect my personal views about any individual or minority group, only my frustration that our government system sometimes seems out of balance.”
She further explained: “We live in a great country, but the agenda for our elected officials is too often dictated by special interest groups.”
Let me guess that Ferguson's Gannett-owned newspaper won't be writing any editorials demanding the Lucas name be stripped from Lucas Oil Stadium.
This opinion will be unpopular: I see Lucas' point with regard to protecting the Western way of life from extremists. They didn't do that in Rotterham (UK), and look where that got them.
ReplyDeleteWell, when I think of how some politicians are raked over the coals by the media after their words are taken out of context, it seems she is being cut a lot of slack here by the local news media. I'm still not sure what exactly she was trying to communicate.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't the NFL have a new no-tolerance policy for these types of discriminatory statements. Does it only apply to players, coaches and owners, or do stadium namesakes make the cut?
ReplyDelete“We live in a great country, but the agenda for our elected officials is too often dictated by special interest groups.” -Charlotte Luca
ReplyDeleteI would agree with this statement. Our elected officials have been dictated to and are embedded with Crony-Capitalism. A great example is the Lucas Oil Stadium. Our Elected officials at the City and State Level saw fit to divert millions of tax dollars to build a stadium for the Mega-Billionaire Owner of the Colts.
The Star article is typical on Charlotte's comments. The article by Bill McCleery is just all cut and paste journalism - nothing original.
I suppose the next Star Article will be about all the donations Lucas makes to charities.
The Star knows whose feathers not to ruffle.
ReplyDelete