A manipulated image of President Obama in a sexually-revealing pose, wearing skin-tight lace up body suit and matching green boots, sitting on a field with a bucket of fried chicken between his legs reveals the level of anti-gay hate coming out of North Carolina from opponents of same-sex marriage.
The image, originally included in a post titled, “Obama Goes Pro Gay Marriage to Get NC on Election Day,” was featured on a Tea Party website called The John Locke Foundation. “The John Locke Foundation employs research, journalism, and outreach programs to transform government through competition, innovation, personal freedom, and personal responsibility,” according to their website. “JLF seeks a better balance between the public sector and private institutions of family, faith, community, and enterprise.”
Art Pope, co-founder of The John Locke Foundation, is a North Carolina businessman who heavily supports the Tea Party via the Koch Brother’s group, Americans for Prosperity.
“Out of no where, President Obama suddenly feels the need to declare his objection to North Carolina’s pending vote to ban on gay marriage,” Tara Servatius, author of the post begins. She claims Obama’s opposition to a hotly-debated amendment to the North Carolina constitution that would ban same-sex marriage is Obama merely “pandering” to LGBT voters, as Chris Kromm at the Art Pope Exposed blog wrote, and who captured the image before it was removed from the site, presumably after attacks in the media.
Kromm notes “Servatius, a former right-wing radio commentator for Charlotte’s WBT AM, is a regular contributor to the Meck Deck. (UPDATE: Servatius also runs the MeckDeck Twitter account, and authors a good share of their posts.),” and adds:
Given her prominent role at Meck Deck, how involved was Servatius in the decision to post the Obama image, and keep it up for two days? Last year, a Charlotte blogger noted that Servatius was a speaker at an event for the neo-Confederate group the League of the South.
The NAACP of North Carolina is non-too-pleased either, Kromm notes:
Rev. William Barber of the NC NAACP has issued a statement:
REV. BARBER STATEMENT – We at the NCNAACP have learned of the disgusting picture of our President on the John Locke Foundation blog and website. What we have seen so far has both racist and homophobic overtones, both of which are contrary to the fundamentals of our democracy. It’s outrageous and it shows the kind of racialized, mean-spirited and divisive political attitudes that still exist in the South. On Thursday we will demand to know who authorized and developed such a racist and bigoted portrayal to be placed on the site of an organization that seeks to have so much influence into the shaping of public policy in NC. Whoever did it is completely over the line. It is reckless and dangerous. And should not only be an afront to the black community, the civil rights community, the LBGT community, but every North Carolinian.
Hat tip: Towleroad