John Hood, president of the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation,
said he had the image was removed from the group's Meck Deck blog on
Wednesday after a reader brought it to his attention. Tara Servatius,
the writer who posted the illustration, ended her association with the
blog Thursday morning before Hood had a chance to ask her to leave, he
said.
``I'm embarrassed and angry today,'' Hood said in a statement.
``The illustration associated with this blog entry was offensive and
utterly inappropriate for our blog or for anyone else's.''
On his Facebook page, Hood wrote, ``She is no longer a
contributor to our site,'' referring to Servatius. ``I would have made
that decision for her, but she beat me to the punch by ending her
role.''
The image, which was no longer available on the Meck Deck site
but could still be seen on a blog post by WRAL-TV reporter Laura Leslie,
is a small and low-resolution depiction of the president's head crudely
pasted onto a body clad in high-heeled boots and other garments
suggestive of fetish wear. Between his spread legs is a bucket of
Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The image accompanied a post by Servatius titled ``Obama Goes Pro
Gay Marriage to Get NC on Election Day,'' in which she argued that the
president had electoral strategy in mind when he criticized the proposed
amendment to North Carolina's constitution that would ban same-sex
marriage.
``I am genuinely sorry my inclusion of the photo has caused
controversy for the John Locke Foundation,'' Servatius wrote Thursday in
an email in response to a question from The Associated Press. ``If it
has offended anyone, I sincerely apologize. It was meant to illustrate
Obama's southern political strategy, nothing more. An honest reading of
the piece itself shows there is nothing offensive in it.''
Servatius found the image when searching online for an
illustration of the president in drag, she said, to underscore her point
about the strategy of appealing to young voters on the issue of gay
marriage. She said she didn't think of the picture's racial
implications.
``I simply don't think in those terms. Unfortunately some people
do,'' she wrote. ``To me, fried chicken is simply a Southern cuisine.''
The John Locke Foundation, founded in 1990, does research and
advocacy work on mostly state-level policy issues, with a special focus
on topics like taxation, government spending and education.
The president of the state NAACP chapter called the image racist
and homophobic, and said Thursday he plans to seek more answers about
it.
``It is reckless and dangerous,'' the Rev. William Barber said.
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