Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Protestors repeat call for Gale to resign
NORRISTOWN » About two dozen Montgomery County residents, during a small rally and at a public meeting on Thursday, continued to call for the resignation of Commissioner Joseph C. Gale, denouncing comments he made about the Black Lives Matter Movement.
“Joe Must Go!” demonstrators chanted as they marched from Bridgeport to the courthouse in Norristown shortly before a meeting of the county commissioners got under way.
The demonstrators carried signs that read “No One is Born Racist, It is Taught,” “Black and Brown Lives Matter” and “We are all human.” The group was led by Mark Jones, of Bridgeport, representing Black People Revolutionizing Montco and United Men of Color.
“I want Joe Gale to resign. We’ll be here every commissioners’ meeting until we feel like things are moving in the direction that we need them to move,” Jones said.
During the rally, speakers asked the attendees to contact their state legislators to urge them to support a resolution introduced last month by state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-17th Dist., calling for a special committee to investigate whether Gale’s statements violate the law, ethics rules, or policies under the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Gale, of Plymouth, the lone Republican on the three-member commissioners’ board, has refused to step down and has said he will not be “bullied” for exercising his First Amendment rights.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Jones said about Gale’s refusal to step down. “He’s supposed to represent his constituents. I will be here every two weeks. The crowd is smaller today but we will continue to come until we see tangible evidence of change. We can no longer stand for racism. Nobody should be able to be a commissioner of Montgomery County and be a racist.”
In a June 1 statement entitled “Riots & Looting In Philadelphia,” issued on letterhead bearing the seal of Montgomery County and under Gale’s official title as commissioner, Gale compared the Black Lives Matter group to “far-left radical enemy combatants.”
“In fact, nearly every major city across the nation was ravaged by looting, violence and arson. The perpetrators of this urban domestic terror are radical left-wing hate groups like Black Lives Matter,” Gale wrote.
“This organization, in particular, screams racism not to expose bigotry and injustice, but to justify the lawless destruction of our cities and surrounding communities. Their objective is to unleash chaos and mayhem without consequence by falsely claiming they, in fact, are the victims,” Gale continued.
Gale has not backed off from his position and in subsequent statements accused the Black Lives Matter movement of not acknowledging what he says is a racial disparity in abortion.
“If the Black Lives Matter movement was really concerned about black lives mattering, those protesting me would instead be at Planned Parenthood protesting the slaughter of black children in the womb,” Gale has said, claiming more than 200 Black babies are “murdered in abortion mills across America” every day and that more than 60 million preborn babies of all races have been aborted since 1973.
“What is truly institutional and systemic racism is the disproportionate number of innocent, unborn black lives snuffed out by the atrocity of abortion,” Gale has said.
During Thursday’s commissioners meeting, Jones was joined by four county residents who addressed the board and called for Gale to resign.
“We will hold him to account one way or another,” one man from Plymouth stated, suggesting Gale used his words to “push hate against his own constituents.”
An Upper Merion woman said Gale’s words “smelled of racism” and she urged Gale to resign and “look inside and challenge those beliefs.”
“You don’t represent me. You do not represent the family and friends that I have in this county,” another woman emotionally addressed Gale.
It wasn’t the first time that county residents gathered to call for Gale’s resignation.
Two weeks ago, members of the clergy held a rally at the courthouse, seeking racial justice and blasting Gale for his comments about the Black Lives Matter movement and protests in Philadelphia in the wake of the death of a handcuffed African-American man, George Floyd, while in the custody of Minneapolis Police.
In June, members of PA Women Rise held a rally at the courthouse and urged demonstrators to contact their legislators to support legislative action to establish an investigative committee to have Gale removed.
While several groups have sought Gale’s ouster, another group, about a dozen members of the ProLife Coalition of Pennsylvania, gathered last month to show support for Gale and his bringing attention to what they said was the Black Lives Matter organization’s “hypocrisy of saying that Black lives matter when they support killing Black lives in the womb.” Supporters maintained Gale’s criticism of Black Lives Matters is accurate because of its support for Planned Parenthood.
Gale’s fellow county commissioners, Dr. Valerie Arkoosh and Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr., the Democratic majority on the board, previously denounced Gale’s remarks and stressed that Gale’s statement did not reflect the sentiments or opinions of the majority of the commissioners or of county government.
Arkoosh and Lawrence censured Gale for his comments during a June commissioners’ meeting.