Lois Pope: Why I Am No Longer Hosting My Charity's Event at Mar-a-Lago
In the 241 years since America’s founding, millions of citizens of all religions, races, creeds, color, genders and sexual orientation have died — and millions more have been disabled — fighting to protect these values and freedoms.
Indeed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are some four million living disabled American veterans and many more who have died. I have spent the last three decades spearheading several national initiatives, including a permanent memorial in Washington, D.C., and a national day of honor, paying tribute to these courageous men and woman who have sacrificed limbs and organs, who have been horribly burned or made blind and deaf, and who have suffered from the ravages of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and traumatic brain injury.
Knowing of these potential consequences, these American heroes took an oath to defend our democracy at all costs. They swore they would die for us and for the ideals that we enjoy and cherish.
Their sacrifices are being tarnished by those who seek to undermine and even obliterate its founding principles. The hatred, vitriol and Anti-Semitic and racist views being spewed by the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville have planned and executed rallies in other cities. They use the Internet and other means of communication to disseminate their abhorrent beliefs. They are repugnant and repulsive and antithetical to everything that this country stands for.
Anyone, including the President, who would demonstrate even a modicum of support for them by insisting that there are “very fine people” among them is not deserving of patronage in any form, from any person or foundation. When you march wearing the very same swastikas and shouting the very same mantras championed by Hitler, you are not a “fine” person by any definition.
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