Black History Celebration, Feb. 27, 2010
Task Force votes to send letters to Mayor Parris and Councilwoman Marquez
From the Antelope Valley Press, Tuesday, February 9, 2010:
By Charles F. Bostwick and Dennis Anderson
Valley Press Editors
LANCASTER – The Antelope Valley Human Relations Commission voted unanimously Monday night to send strong letters of condemnation to Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris and Councilwoman Sherry Marquez over their recent comments about the Christian and Muslim religions.
The vote followed a three-hour meeting attended by nearly 100 people of whom about 40 were regular members of the task force, formed in 1996 by the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale following a rash of racially-motivated assaults.
By the meeting’s start, most of the members of the commission had heart that Parris twho hours earlier had issued an apology that some, if not all,accepted as basically sincere. That was not the case for the terse two-word apology uttered by Marquez at a hastily called City Hall press conference.
At the meeting were Christians such as Bishop Henry Hearns, pastor of Living Stone Cathedral of Worship in Littlerock as well as Parris’s predecessor as Lancaster mayor; at least 20 members of the Antelope Valley Muslim community; at least a half-dozen supporters of Marquez from Lancaster Baptist Church, which she attends; Unitarian-Universalists; Wiccans; members of the organized gay community; Buddhists, and Jewish and Orthodox Jewish representatives. Also in attendance were Lancaster mayoral and city council candidates, and Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford.
“I accept the mayor’s apology. I do not accept her apology,” said Kamal Al-Khativ, exectuive director of the American Islamic Institute of the Antelope Valley in Palmdale. “I am disappointed with both individuals.”
Mayor Parris: ‘I sincerely apologize’
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REACHING OUT – Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris brought together leaders of faith in the Antelope Valley to clarify his position stated earlier about Lancaster being a Christian Community during a press conference Monday at City Hall.
RON SIDDLE/Valley Press
From the Antelope Valley Press, Tuesday, February 9, 2010:
By Charles F. Bostwick and Dennis Anderson
Valley Press Editors
LANCASTER – Mayor R. Rex Parris issued an unequivocal apology to groups of any and all faiths who he said might have felt excluded by his remarks 12 days earlier to Christian ministers about “growing a Christian community.”
“It was about a week and a half ago that I spoke to the Christian ministerial association and said I wanted to grow a Christian community,” he said during a City Hall news conference. “But in talking to my friends of 30 years, it was clear that a lot of people felt excluded.”
Parris spoke from the City Council chambers podium, accompanied by area representatives of the Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Muslim communities as well as fellow Christians and Councilwoman Sherry Marquez.
What Parris said he had intended was to express that Christians are a community who love their neighbors.
“I sincerely apologize to anyone who felt excluded,” the mayor said.