Photo courtesy City of Cayce.
Letter to the editor
The recent accusations of racist comments by a volunteer for the City of Cayce were not handled properly. The proposal by the Council Chairman of the City of Cayce to force Marion Hutson to resign from a voluntary position that he has served in for 25 years was a blatant attempt to violate Mr. Hutson’s First Amendment right to free speech.
This matter should have been discussed in an executive session of the City Council where confidentiality could have been assured instead of an open session in front of the press. Mayor Elsie Partin posting the details on her Facebook Page made public a personnel issue that should have remained confidential.
Now the City Council of Cayce has voted to investigate to see how widespread these views are among City Of Cayce employees. Perhaps the thought police should reflect upon the fact that race relations were not harmed by Mr. Hutson’s personal views in a private conversation, but rather the harm came when two politicians made things worse by grandstanding to the press .
Don Gordon is a retired businessman and author of the book Snowball’s Chance. He lives in Lexington S.C.
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I know Marion. He’s not a bigot. Like others of us associated with the Cayce Historical Museum, Marion did however see the biased political correctness in certain areas, particularly in regards to how certain city council members want to take over how the Cayce Museum is run. In particular regarding certain factual historical exhibits and information given within to be highly regulated or simply banning of such from the museum and public scope. What he said privately was taken out of context and the local leftist media ran rampant with it and tried to make an example of him. Whether factual or not, the Cayce mayor is said by some Cayce residents to be a closet Democrat and Liberal. Likewise the City Manager has been pegged by those in the know as a “power hungry,” controlling liberal. Thus, possibly explaining certain future goals and current activities around Cayce itself and the museum, as well as their outlook toward the Cayce Museum Commissioners. Marion, as pointed out in the article, formerly being one of those.
This is how history gets REMOVED from across the South, especially, and even across America. Screams are heard of some “racist” remark or statement and it becomes an excuse and rallying point to remove monuments, to rename streets, to defund police departments, to change school curricula, to create special “diversity training” committees, and personnel in government and military, to destroy political, celebrity and leaders’ careers, and on and on and on. Who among us has NEVER said a “faux pas”–or some comment that is taken out of context. If you took Jesus’ comment on the cross “My God. Why have you forsaken me?” and applied it across the entire writings and books about Jesus, would ANY of us recognize him for the man and God He was? NO. I agree with the previous commenter as well as the Editorial writer entirely. Someone stop this nonsense now!