Spokane7
42°
The president of the Big Sky Tea Party Association has been
removed from his position and 
booted from the party after coming
under fire for a post he made on his Facebook profile that implied
he condones violence against homosexuals. Tim Ravndal was removed as president of the local chapter Sunday
after the group’s board of directors learned of his volatile post
on the online social networking site, according to Roger Nummerdor,
the former president and a current board member of the group.
Nummerdor also said Ravndal is no longer welcome in the party/John Doran, Helena Independent Record. More here. (AP file photo for illustrative purposes)
Question: What do you make of the strong action taken by the Big Sky Tea Party after president Tim Ravndal seemed to condone violence against gays?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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Sisyphus on September 07 at 1:24 p.m.
Waaaaaaay frickin’ overdue. But I’m not one to castigate for finally doing the correct thing, regardless of how late it is. Good on them for making themselves presentable. A bunch more self policing and they might become downright respectable.
toadman on September 07 at 1:25 p.m.
Ability score: + 1 honor
Offsets ability score: - 200 charisma to - 199
Roll 20 sided die again.
;-)
scootermom on September 07 at 1:25 p.m.
Good for them.
The way to overcome the appearance of bigotry, is to quit tolerating bigots.
Bubblehead on September 07 at 1:36 p.m.
The guy strikes me as having an understanding of the Constitution about equal to the average Tea Partier, saying that givng rights to homosexuals would be “a violation of the constitution”. What a goober. (Kind of like the “the 16th Amendment doesn’t allow the government to tax wages” crowd.) And the statement from the board member seems to say he believes that the goober wasn’t referring to the Shepard murder. He seems like the kind who would readily buy some great bridge you might have for sale.
Sisyphus on September 07 at 1:45 p.m.
Yeah the self policing isn’t as promising as I’d hoped. Here’s some defensive comments from a state senate gubernatorial candidate demonstrating additional cluelessness:
No matter what you guys say, Tim is a great American and Patriot. He does have a right to say what he wants. I know that he didn’t mean it, but in the heat of his anger with the ACLU might not have realized what he was saying. The people who are in the TEA party movement are called names all of the time. Racist, extreimest….you name it. Tolerance needs to be done on both sides especially the homosexual side. There isn’t any tolerance for people who have a different opinion than yours. If we say yes to gay marriage where does it stop? The people who want to have more than one spouse will be next and that is against the law. The definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, are we now going to change the definition?
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“Tolerance needs to come from both sides especially the homosexual side”—LMAO. Given their many citations to the constitution, you’d think that their natural ally would be the ACLU.
thebobbob on September 07 at 3:10 p.m.
Joking around, calling for homosexuals to be tied up to a fence and beaten to death is pretty funny stuff, huh? Tim Ravndal doesn’t understand that 5-10% of all the men he ever met were/are gay. They may not “look” like they’re gay or “act” like they’re gay and he may not have known it but it’s the truth. It’s a fact of Biology. Ask any sheep rancher about “shy breeder” rams.
Why didn’t they just come out and say so??? Ask Tim.
lovetohateme on September 07 at 6:19 p.m.
“We continually make it known that we will not tolerate bigoted dialog, behavior or messages at our functions, our meetings or within our ranks. If a person demonstrates bigotry relative to race, sex, ethnicity, etc. they are not welcome in our organization. The Tea Party movement is about standing up for individual freedom for everyone.”
That’s what I like to hear from an American political organization. They were right to boot Ravndal for what he said.