DuAnne Sonneville of Orchard Lake holds up a sign "It's NOT OK to talk that way!" as Troy High School students, residents and other protest mayor Janice Daniels at Troy City Hall.
TROY, MI – Troy, Michigan’s newly elected mayor on Friday said she won’t apologize for a Facebook status update she wrote five months ago referring to gay people as “queers” saying she was speaking for herself when she wrote it and she has a First Amendment right to use the language she wants.
The Detroit News reports that on June 25, the same day New York voted to legalize gay marriage, Janice Daniels posted an update on her wall, “I think I’m going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there.”
Even though the update was written in June, last Friday more than 205 people shared it on their own Facebook pages, many referring to Daniels as homophobic and bigoted.
One gay rights group, Equality Michigan, called on Daniels, a tea party activist who was elected mayor of this suburban city 20 miles north of Detroit in November, to apologize.
Daniels said she wouldn’t apologize. She said she wasn’t even thinking about running for mayor of Troy at the time she wrote the update.