A pastor who condemned a LGBTQ+ Pride proclamation two weeks earlier heard back Monday night from the gay Lady Lake commissioner whom he has criticized.
Commissioner Treva Roberts, a Villager, read a lengthy statement critical of Pastor Paul Harsh who had taken to the podium July 21 to blast the LGBTQ+ lifestyle as an “abomination.” While the First Baptist Church of Lady Lake pastor had a contingent from his congregation with him two weeks earlier, his flock had dwindled down to two members at Monday’s commission meeting. (He later noted that his church is putting on Vacation Bible School this week which requires “all hands on deck.” Therefore, church members are having a busy week and did not miss the commission meeting due to a lack of interest in the topic.)
In contrast, several people, both gay and straight, from Lady Lake and The Villages, were at Monday’s meeting. They stood up to praise Lady Lake as a warm and inclusive community. They said they were proud of the commission’s Pride proclamation.
Roberts, who had remained silent two weeks earlier, had the first chance at the microphone.
“Mr. Harsh has called me out by name, publicly, and so I speak today so that you understand that my silence up to this point is NOT agreement with your statements or opinions. It is not guilt nor is it shame. I am exactly who God made me to be,” said Roberts.
“Mr. Harsh, you have professed to love everyone, but you have demonstrated you do not. Even at the last commission meeting, you greeted all four male commission members and skipped me, not even glancing in my direction. My silence to this point has been the reverence for the rule of law … anyone’s right to speak in our public forum. I will defend that right to the death. I served in the U.S. Army from 1982 until 2001. I was willing to put my life on the line to defend the American way of life and secure our freedom,” Roberts said.
The audience, which included former Mayor Ruth Kussard, cheered her remarks.
When he finally took his turn at the podium, the pastor defended his pronouncement from two weeks ago and said he has expressed his views, “legally, ethically, clearly and as kindly as I can.”
Harsh’s three minutes at the podium, a time limit established in the operational rules of the commission, evaporated quickly as he raised a “point of order” and quibbled with Mayor Ed Freeman. The mayor, who had warned at the outset of the meeting that decorum would be enforced by law enforcement if necessary, was lenient with the time limit and let the pastor speak a bit longer. Yet, the pastor scarcely got through a quarter of his prepared statement.
Harsh provided a copy of his prepared remarks to Villages-News.com. In those remarks he had planned to suggest that Roberts has “some sort of hidden agenda.”
He accused her of making an end run around the Florida Sunshine law by asking the town manager to poll her fellow commission members about the possibility of removing him from the list of pastors who regularly open commission meetings with a prayer. Harsh has performed that duty for the Lady Lake Commission for many years.
In his unspoken prepared remarks, the pastor had planned to call on the commission to take action against Roberts.
“If she has any shame, she ought to accept the error of her actions, and resign, and if she refused to do so, that this (commission), in order to cleanse the tarnish she has brought upon it and to re-establish their historic integrity and ethical standards, hold her accountable by publicly censuring her for this unethical action which may also be illegal as we will discover in the days ahead,” according to to the written remarks that Harsh had planned to read.