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UPDATE – 2:25 PM ET: The Greensboro News & Record reports that Forrester has died at the age of 74. Reaction from NC GOP site:
“Jim was a dear friend who I respected and admired. He had a long and distinguished career serving the people of North Carolina. The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the North Carolina Republican Party are with Mary Frances and the Forrester family tonight.”
It’s tragic that the man didn’t leave this earth with a more compassionate view of humanity. Even in this terrible, emotional situation for Forrester’s family, his anti-gay wife, Mary Frances, made it publicly and politically clear with the “go out with his boots on and support the causes in which he believed to his last breath” comment that she was ensuring the public that there would be no deathbed conversion regarding the discrimination amendment or his views of the civil rights of LGBT North Carolinians.
I’m not sure why Mrs. Forrester felt the need to politicize her husband’s health decline and passing like this; it would certainly not be foremost on my mind in this kind of situation, but there you have it. It’s quite sad.
The primary sponsor in the NC Senate who pushed for years to get an amendment to discriminate against LGBT families in North Carolina on the ballot — and succeeded this year — is gravely ill. WRAL:
State Senator Jim Forrester, R-Gaston, is in intensive care this morning, according to his family. Reports from a local news site said the senator had suffered cranial bleeding and is on life support.
Reached at the Forrester home, the senator’s sister-in-law, Sally Beach, could not confirm those details. She could only say that he’s in ICU and that the family has been called in. “”They’re scattered all over the place – they’re trying to gather,” she said.
The 11-term senator, who called Asheville “a cesspool of sin” and has had his professional credentials challenged for misrepresentation (see Blend coverage), has been ill for some time, but he continued focusing on his efforts in the Senate in support of the marriage amendment, even going on the Mike Signorile Show to (poorly) explain his rationale for supporting adding discrimination into the Constitution.
There is notable additional information reported by News@Norman.Com (Lake Norman, NC’s newspaper; Forrester’s district includes Lake Norman):
“We all know how ill he has been, but he continued to work in the Senate. He told Mary Frances (his wife) that he wanted to go out with his boots on and support the causes in which he believed to his last breath,” the friend stated.
12 Comments
No doubt we’re considered “elitists” because we can recognize the irony in this whole situation.
To paraphrase a poster on Towleroad:
I’ll show him and his family as much respect as he has shown me and mine.
However, I’ll take the high road and refuse to stoop to his level of hate. But I offer no sympathy for him or the Evangelical haters killed in Uganda.
Amen. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and all that.
Karma is a bitch.
The Talibangelicals should be crying in joy. Forrester was “called home to Glory”, isn’t that the best thing that can happen to them?
At least, I think so.
So, the physician dies, celebrating to his last breath his long campaign promoting medical disinformation.
My heart goes out to the LGBT folks among his family and friends. How awful for anyone who is both grieving his loss and having to sit quietly through being demonized as the rightful target of his wrath.
If you believe in God or Goddess, you can bet that Forrester is being educated about his wrongful attitude as we speak.
All I have to say about this is that I will not speak ill of the dead. At least not while the wounds are fresh for the people who cared about him for some bizarre reason.
Jim Forrester’s Family is not responsible for His hurtful actions, but nor are they likely to oppose any of his harmful, hurtful positions. It is understandably difficult to withhold condemnation of this man.
Unfortunately, being “distinguished” is not always a positive. Sadly Mr. Forrester will lie permanently in the grave with as much real respect for denying respect to others as does Strom Thurmon.
North Carolinians will now have the opportunity to demonstrate who they really are by standing by antiquated policies, or by moving forward into the 21st Century.
I’m sure Mary Frances Forrester will take great comfort in the deferred-tax inherited assets, their mutual social security benefits, and her husband’s pension benefits she will receive as his LEGAL spouse. bee-yatch.
Yes Mike, and we are all paying for it.
I am a lifelong atheist, but things like this make me wonder if I might have been mistaken all these years.