In Senate race, family values campaign tested by real life
DAVID ROYSE
Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Randall Terry doesn't run away from "family values issues" in his state Senate race.
Among the conservative Christian's pledges are preserving traditional marriage and opposing gay adoptions. He has touted efforts to stop abortions. His campaign mailers sum up the value he puts on family: they show a picture with his wife, a daughter and three grinning young sons taken before a fourth was born this summer.
But Terry's adopted son Jamiel says the picture is missing two people: he and his sister Tila, also adopted. Both have been estranged from Terry since Jamiel came out as a gay man and Tila had a child out of wedlock.
Jamiel Terry said the self-image that his father is crafting and the campaign message about strong families ignores part of his own family history. He said voters have a right to know about that.
"He is very big on image," Jamiel Terry said. "In a large way Tila and I mess up that image."
Randall Terry is the founder of Operation Rescue, the anti-choice, anti-abortion group. He's especially noted for running off at the mouth about sexual choice, and homosexuality.
I'm not wild about passing judgment upon the way other families live their lives, but when someone puts his own family out there as a textbook example of the way it should be done, they're making themselves subject to scrutiny, don't you think?
Where does casting children out fall in the "family values" spectrum?
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