05/19/10
From CNS News
FEMA Photographer Asked Church Volunteers Not to Wear
Religious T-Shirts in Video on Tornado Aftermath
By Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press
Jackson, Miss. (AP) - The top officer for FEMA said one of the agency's
videographers was "absolutely wrong" to ask Mississippi church volunteers not to
wear religious T-shirts for a video about tornado cleanup.
Angelia Lott and Pamela Wedgeworth, who are sisters, told The Associated Press
that the FEMA worker videotaping the cleanup on Saturday in the small town of
Ebenezer asked them to do on-camera interviews but requested that they change
out of their T-shirts because of a Salvation Army logo.
"He said, 'We would like to ask you to change your shirt because we don't want
anything faith-based,'" Lott said Tuesday.
Lott said she asked him why he didn't want to feature faith groups.
"All he said was, 'We've done that hundreds of times,'" Lott said.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said in a
statement issued Monday that the man's actions "in no way reflect FEMA's
policies or priorities."
"The photographer in question was absolutely wrong," Fugate said.
Lott and Wedgeworth attend a small rural church in Smith County. They
volunteered through a ministry of Crossgates Baptist Church in Brandon.
Wedgeworth said of the photographer's request: "It kind of hurt my feelings. I
think I made the comment, 'I think that's the reason we're all here, is by
faith.'"
* * * * *
It's fairly safe to piss-off tea-partiers and
veterans and republicans and right-wing extremists, but you've got to be really
daring to go around pissing-off God. This FEMA camera-man will now spend the
rest of his short and miserable life in a state of paranoia, with the hairs
standing up on the back of his neck, waiting for the lightning bolt that is
going to turn him into a crispy critter.
