Writer/producer/director/activist Del Shores, producer of Sordid Lives: The Series and Queer As Folk, has launched a petition to push the Tennessee Attorney General’s office to charge state senator Stacey Campfield with an ethics violation.
The alleged ethics violation stems from an exchange between Shores and Campfield last spring. Shores challenged Campfield to a debate over homosexuality and the Bible. Campfield agreed to a debate, but he said it could only be over his “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would ban discussion of homosexuality in elementary and middle schools. Campfield then requested a $1,000 retainer fee.
“I will happily debate you. I require a $1000.00 [sic] retainer fee and all expenses covered. You can do with the rest all you want,” Campfield wrote in a Facebook message to Shores.
Shores then contacted the Tennessee Attorney General’s office to file an ethics complaint against Campfield since he was requesting a fee to debate a bill that he authored while serving in the Tennessee Senate. Last August, Shores received an email from Victor Domen Jr., senior counsel for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, informing him that the complaint had been filed and a formal investigation was being launched.
According to Shores, Domen said on January 29th that the investigation is ongoing: “I’m still working on it. You know how slow and deliberate we can be.”
Now Shores is asking equality advocates to sign his petition urging the state attorney general’s office to make an official determination so the State Ethics Commission can move forward with filing an ethics violation.
Click here to see Shores’ petition.
