John Gambill and Barry Giles with Giles’ mother on vacation.
West Texas newspaper editor decided to edit out an LGBT loved one
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
When Barry Giles’ mother, Brenda Light, died on Feb. 14, the funeral home in Olton, Texas submitted the obituary to the Olton Enterprise, the town’s weekly newspaper. But while Ramage Funeral Directors sent the newspaper the full obituary, the newspaper’s editor redacted it.
The original obituary read, “Those left to cherish her memories include her son, Barry Giles, and his husband, John Gambill, of Dallas.” But the newspaper’s editor removed Gambill from the obit, which was printed at no charge, saying only that Light was survived by her son.
Giles and Gambill have been together 31 years. Gambill said when his mother-in-law’s husband died in 2010, she moved from Olton to Dallas and lived in Oak Cliff, about a mile from her son and son-in-law. Olton is about 50 miles northwest of Lubbock.
Gambill said he and his husband and mother-in-law traveled to Australia and New Zealand and sailed the Mediterranean together. In recent years, he said, his mother-in-law couldn’t bend down very well, so he’d run over to her house and scoop the litter box and plant flowers in the yard for her.
“We spent holidays together,” Gambill said. “We did what a family would do.”
Gambill is a funeral director and said one way to get fired quickly is to leave a loved one off of an obituary.
“That’s a big no-no,” he said.
So he called Phillip Hamilton, owner and editor of the Olton Enterprise, and asked if he had received the full obituary. Hamilton said yes.
“Why was my name cut out,” Gambill said he asked. Hamilton replied, “Because I wanted to cut it out.”
An article about Hamilton in the Southern Baptist Texan said he was raised at First Baptist Church in Dallas and, in addition to owning the newspaper, he is the preacher at Bethel Baptist Church in Plainview, about 25 miles east of Olton.
This is terrible. Family is family, some bigoted jerk can’t change that.
Whatever your opinion about someone, if you are not close family,you have no right to leave anyone out. In this case, the mother was ok with t he relationship, so he should have been included.
Good for you sir! More people need to live by the Bible and stand up for what’s right. That’s what’s wrong with the world today, taking God out of everything just because it offends some people or not standing up for what’s right! I say no more!! I’m done with trying to please everyone!! I will stand up for what’s right because in the end when we stand before the Lord and answer for our sins i don’t want to have to answer that i didn’t stand up for what’s right because i was worried about offending someone! Gods #1 ❤️
Never mind that there are countless Christian denominations who have embraced same-sex marriages. Never mind that there are countless Christian theologians who question the interpretation that homosexuality is a sin. Never mind the science that states that homosexuality is in our genes. You remind me of the Christians who used to believe it was OK to drown Down Syndromes kids in the bathtub because of the belief the were possessed by demons. You remind me of the Christians who used to say that slavery is sanctioned in the Bible. You remind me of the Christians who believed interracial marriage was a sin. Why do you think these interpretations of the Bible have evolved? If “God’s word“ was so immutable, then why are there so many denominations of Christianity? You would probably agree that if the obituary read that the mother’s son was married to a Muslim that it would be OK to edit her from the obituary because, as all Christians know, them Muslims are devil worshipers. Right?
Here’s what’s wrong with the world today: however rapidly we progress, we do not have the skills to accelerate evolution and this means the majority needs to suffer vermin like you until evolution makes you extinct. Fortunately you’re on the decline.
What a shame. Love is love regardless of the sex of the parties involved. This makes me very sad for the son in law, who appears to have been very close to his mother in law.