In this week’s Flyer, Bianca Phillips wrote about a piece of legislation proposed by state representative Stacey Campfield (R-Paleolithic) that would prevent public elementary and middle schools from allowing “any instruction or materials discussing sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.” (Yeah, we know, some real forward thinking going on there.)
When the Flyer posted the article online, we added what we thought was an obviously photo-shopped picture of Campfield holding a bumper sticker that read, “Confederate Values.” (It should be noted that we did not photo-shop the picture; it was taken from a humorous political blog.)
We post funny pictures to accompany articles now and then, you see. We’ve run pictures of Trent Lott in a Dashiki, Pau Gasol in drag, and Harold Ford with a big cowboy moustache, for example, when we thought those pictures complemented the tone of an article.
Well, darned if we didn’t tick ol’ Stacey off. He called the Flyer office today and demanded in a very deep and serious voice that we remove the picture. Campfield contended that since the article was “serious,” we shouldn’t run a satirical picture with it.
Well, that’s a matter of taste, not of law, but maybe he has a point. So here’s what we’re going to do: We’ll add a note below the offending picture acknowledging that it was photo-shopped. And we’ll also post the real picture (at right), which we think accurately reflects the seriousness of Mr. Campfield’s status as a legislator.
UPDATE: We have removed the photo at the request of the Knoxville News Sentinel.
You can see where we might get confused as to where “satire” ends and “serious” begins with this guy.
–Bruce VanWyngarden
