By John Latimer
johnlatimer@ldnews.com @johnmlatimer on Twitter
Jim Rodkey, chairman of the Lebanon 9-12 Project, address a meeting of the group at All About You Catering in August. (FILE)
A local tea party group is in the center of a political controversy involving a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice and the state Republican Party.
According to an article published Tuesday at PoliticsPA.com, the Lebanon 9-12 Project sent information to its members with a photo of Justice Correale Stevens, identifying him as the "Pa. gay marriage ruling judge."
Stevens is calling foul for being identified with the decision to legalize same-sex marriage because it was made by a federal judge and not the state Supreme Court. He contacted Lebanon 9-12 Project chairman Jim Rodkey who immediately issued a correction. But the story doesn't stop there.
The incident occurred during the past several days and began with Rodkey receiving an anonymous letter on Friday showing a grainy black and white photo of Stevens speaking in June at a law forum in Wilkes-Barre. The photo, which appeared in a Times Leader article, is beneath the headline "Pa. gay marriage ruling judge speaks to law group." Above the photo is another headline, not included in the newspaper's article, stating: "Certainly not the 'qualifications' I want in a judge."
Rodkey said he went to the Internet to confirm the photo's authenticity and saw a summary of the Times Leader article that seemed to confirm Stevens was the judge referred to in the headline. But he made a mistake, he said, by not reading the full article.
Had he, Rodkey would have seen that the headline refers to federal District Judge John E. Jones III, who made the same-sex marriage ruling and who also appeared at the legal forum.
Instead, Rodkey said he took the mistaken information and included it in an email blast to about 80 people on the Lebanon 9-12 mailing list. It wasn't long before he was contacted by local Republican Party leaders, and eventually Stevens, who informed him that the ruling was made a federal judge, he said.
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Lebanon 9-12 Project email riles Supreme Court Judge Correale Stevens