Tag: Tucker

Follow up on Tucker’s letter to Rep. Sally Kern

Because I was moved by the letter I described here, I have been seeking to verify the authorship (between grading papers, of course).

It is thus far a frustrating pursuit. I can’t find full names of Tucker or his Aunt Elizabeth. In response to the interest in the Tucker letter, someone posting as Elizabeth left this message on March 14, on the KWTV – News 9 forum:

Alex wrote: Hi Elizabeth, I hoping that you follow this forum and will check on this. I’m trying to contact you (and Tucker) in the hopes of getting permission to print his letter in other forums. If you do read this, would you please get in touch with the following site, http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do… .

Thanks.

I don’t check here often but was told of the interest Tucker’s letter has caused. I want to say first that I did not make that post saying Tucker was reading the letter on the Ellen Degeneris show. I don’t know who did that.

Tucker is not seeking national acclaim, he simply wants Sally Kern to know that she is very insensitive to real victims of terrorism and how her words have resulted in the abuse of gay students.

I did gain Tucker’s permission to print his letter and sent copies of it to various media outlets and everyone may do so.

The sole purpose though is for Kern to see the letter and I am quite sure that has happened by now. But she has not responded to Tucker’s emails or made any comment about it at all.

Tucker called McVeigh a Christian extremist in the letter. McVeigh may’ve or may’ve not beein into God, it depended on who asked him whenever. There are times he claims to be with the Christian identity movement and there are other times he claimed to be agnostic. The point in this is calling Islam dangerous is wrong. Most Muslims are peaceful. Most Christians are peaceful. I hear all the time that Muslims hate Jews…well so do the KKK, Aryans, and lots of other Christians too.

Sally Kern insensitively made remarks about gays being worse than terrorists in a city that next month will remember the 13th anniversary of a terrorist bombing in OKC. Kern came to Oklahoma a year after that bombing. The ones of us who were affected by that terror event are offended by her remarks.

Kern is a cold, cold woman. That stone hard heart certainly won’t get her anywhere close to Heaven.

The original post on the News9 forum provided the following context for the letter in a comment dated March 11, 2008                

Today my nephew attempted to deliver a letter to Sally Kern but was stopped by a highway patrol man. With his permission I am distributing the letter to all news stations and thought I would include it here.

Maybe we can all stand to learn a listen from this smart, loving, young man. He more than most has reason to hate. He lost his mother, my sister, in the Murrah Building bombing.

Elizabeth

My efforts to verify this letter have been unsuccessful. I spoke to representatives of three state based gay advocacy groups, none of whom had been able to verify the identity of the author. I then sought to investigate the claim of Elizabeth that on March 11th, “my nephew [Tucker] attempted to deliver a letter to Sally Kern but was stopped by a highway patrol man.”

To do so, I contacted Oklahoma Highway Patrol Information Officer, Trooper Betsy Randolph, who spoke with the Lieutenant on duty at Rep. Kern’s office on March 11. The officer was on duty inside Rep. Kerns office and said he did not stop anyone from delivering a letter to the Representative. According to Trooper Randolph, the office conducted business-as-usual that day with no one on duty remembering any effort by a young person to deliver a letter. The patrolman was there due to reports of threats but did not prevent anyone from delivering a letter. Furthermore, additional security was on the scene from March 10-12, but Trooper Randolph could find no evidence that would verify this story. “It sounds like a false story to me. We can find no evidence that anyone was prevented from giving Rep. Kerns a letter,” she stated.

I asked Trooper Randolph if a constituent might have prevented from entering the area surrounding Rep. Kern’s office and she said this would happen only if there was a disturbance. However, there is no record of this.

If this is a fictitious letter, that would be unfortunate, as the fraud would distract from the issues it raised. I do think the report from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol requires Elizabeth and Tucker to come forward if this letter is to be viewed as credible.

“Tucker letter” to Sally Kern ignites bloggers

Check out this letter ostensibly from a young man named Tucker to OK state Rep. Sally Kern . Rep. Kern recently has been the subject of much controversy over her statements to a Republican group where she said gays have shorter life spans, could be responsible for the demise of our society if homosexuality was accepted and are a worse threat to the nation than terrorism. I have refrained from getting into the whole thing but I do think Rep. Kern needs help with facts, tact and her sense of perspective. The terrorism remarks are especially offensive on so many levels, but were repeated on a taped program for the Concerned Women for America. I wrote her late last week with no response, which I suspect is a common experience for many who have written. Today, a large protest took place at the state capitol.

This story may continue to have legs for awhile, in part since Rep. Kerns has not moved away from her remarks and since her curious reasoning hits so close to home for those who have no connection to homosexuality but do to terrorism. I cannot help but think of the current book, unChristian and the clear finding that young people believe the conservative church is anti-gay. The Kern controversy provides an exclamation point to this finding.

In the midst of the protests and defensive rebuttals, the Tucker letter has emerged. The letter is making the rounds on the blogs but has not been verified as authentic. You wouldn’t know that by reading blogs however. You can also read the letter here at Citizen Crain, who also has what appears to be the most up-to-date information on the matter. My contribution today is this – according to Equality Florida PR rep, Brian Winfield, the letter still has not been verified, although he has been told that Ellen DeGeneres has been in touch with him to appear on her show.

Whether true or not, I am interested in the issues the letter raises. We can use this post to discuss the Kern controversy as a whole. I am interested to hear from a variety of perspective on this and I suspect some social conservatives will take exception to my critical stance.