Lisa Turner Is Our Hero Of The Week

Most days around these parts we tend to shy away from heavier political and social matters (The Advocate has everything you need to satisfy those departments) in favor of bringing you the ridiculous and frothy pop culture happenings you've come to depend on us for, but once in a while a news item comes along and we can't help but post about it.

Recently, Lisa Turner, a resident of El Paso, TX, who is described by Newspaper Tree El Paso as a "frequent critic" of the City Council, was planning to speak at a meeting about the city budget but instead railed against a group of preachers and citizens who had shown up to berate the Council for deciding to grant domestic partner benefits (for more about that decision head here).

As the video shows, Turner was emotional but eloquent and refused to be bullied by the crowd (who taunted her and laughed as she spoke) saying, "the Bible says if you work on the Sabbath, you're to be stoned in public. I don't see a public stoning place. We don't stone anybody in public. It says you're allowed to have slaves as long as they're not of our nation. We don't do that any more." Her five minute speech also cited the murder of Matthew Shepard, the burning of witches, the treatment of African-Americans, and the instability of heterosexual marriage before ending by saying, "this Satan patrol in here is preaching one thing and that's hate. They have to have somebody to look down on. And if they don't have somebody to look down on they feel inferior."

We thank you, Lisa, for your brave and passionate words -- especially in the face of such vocal and vitriolic opponents. We still have a long way to go in our fight for basic Civil Rights and without people like you standing up to the outrageously unashamedly hateful, we're doomed.

Previously > Chelsea Handler's shout out to GLAAD