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Law Grad to Gays: 'I Apologize'
Stephen Dunne, the law school grad who filed a federal lawsuit against Massachusetts bar administrators after failing the bar exam, is now apologizing to the gay community for his "misguided" action. Dunne's pro se complaint alleged that he failed the exam because he did not answer a question about homosexual marriage and parenting. He set up a Web site, ChristianLawsuit.com (now taken down), and sought to raise funds to hire a lawyer to represent him. In September, he withdrew the suit after a subsequent version of the Mass. exam omitted the gay marriage question.
Now, Dunne has sent an apologetic letter to the editor of the Boston-based gay newspaper Bay Windows and submitted to an interview with its associate editor Laura Kiritsy. In his letter, he wrote:
I am writing this letter to apologize to the gay community for having been an instrument of bigotry and prejudice. By filing a misguided federal lawsuit against the State of Massachusetts in respect to the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, I have regrettably perpetuated intolerance and animosity towards my fellow Americans. My religiously based discrimination of gay people was callous and diametrically opposed to America's core principles of freedom and equality.
In the accompanying Q&A, Dunne explains his new-found remorse by pulling out the "some of my best friends are gay" line, noting that he loves the arts, and invoking his own heritage of discrimination -- as an Irish-American. "It’s hard not to empathize with the demonization of Irish people and the demonization of gay people in America," Dunne remarks.
OK, then why did he file the suit in the first place? "It was a lashing out as a result of failing the bar exam," he says, adding, "In retrospect I should have been a lot more secular in my thinking processes and should have separated religion from the outset, from the law." Sounding unconvinced, Kiritsy follows up, "I have to say, when you filed the lawsuit and launched the website, you seemed pretty adamant. How do things change that quickly?" Dunne's answer: He's "come to evolve to a different mindset." Meanwhile, Dunne is gearing up to retake the exam. "I'm sure I'll pass," he says. Not asked was whether his change of heart had anything to do with his goal of gaining admission to the bar.
[Hat tip to Universal Hub.]
Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on January 10, 2008 at 11:58 AM | Permalink
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