Like Marty Duren, I have taken a couple of days off. Although I wrote prolifically over the weekend, I spent Monday and Tuesday with my family during their Spring Break – My wife’s a teacher, so they all got a break.

Unlike Marty, I didn’t tell you I was doing it. Sorry.

In fact, as is often the case, I am covered up today having been out of the office for a couple of days. I was not planning on posting anything substantive until tomorrow, but then I received word of a certain news story from the SB Texan.

Now, you may remember the Texan as the chosen news source of Dr. Hatley when he released the information that the motion to remove Wade Burleson would be rescinded. Of course, he then contacted Baptist Press to correct the story after some of the things that he said were reported in a way that was not comfortable for him.

In this article, Trustee Guidelines Not Intended To Stifle Debate, Texas Trustee Says, orientation Committee Chair, Mike Smith says that the policy change has been in the works for two years. The way the article is written, it leads us to believe that the specific section governing Trustee communication was a part of that two year process and that the Wade Burleson issue is completely coincidental.

I questioned that before, but now I want to share with you why I thought that specific section was a response to Wade.

In February, I sent a letter that I published as an Open Letter to each of the Trustees. The subject of that letter, of course, was my concern that there would be a limiting of Trustee communication, specifically a limiting of public dissent.

I received a few responses as a result of my letter. Four Trustees told me that this was not an issue. The first, and by far the most gracious, was Paul Chitwood, who is also the president of our state convention. He and I are still in communication over this matter and have a meeting upcoming. I will say that he has maintained a gracious attitude toward me and I am grateful.

The other three, Jerry Corbaley, Skeet Workman and Bill Hudgins all said that there was no such desire to limit public dissent.

I have struggled with how much to release of their communication. Jerry Corbaley said that he had no problem with me making his email public, but the other two did not mention it either way. I have considered posting just clips of their emails, but then thought I may be accused of not giving the full context of the quote. I did receive on letter that specifically asked me not to share their response and to keep it private. I have honored that, and will continue to do so, though it is telling that this Trustee considered this issue to be very real and was against it.

Since I received news that this policy limiting a Trustee’s ability to dissent publicly was enacted, I emailed a transcript of my communication to each of the Trustees who assured me that this was not the issue and asked them for further comment.

To this date, I have received communication from Paul Chitwood alone. I find this particularly interesting on the part of Jerry Corbaley, considering his words at the time and the continued words on his blog leading up to the meetings in Tampa that were promoting openness. Skeet Workman was also very emphatic, almost dismissive, so her silence to date is interesting to me.

Because I have not received any request from them to keep this communication private, and in light of the fact that I made clear the letter was an Open Letter, and therefore public, I will be posting the specific emails of Jerry Corbaley, Bill Hudgins and Skeet Workman, in full over the next day or two. Should they like to comment further, they can email me. Comments posted to the blog claiming to be them will be removed by me. I will post only comments I receive from their personal email accounts so that I can verify that it is them.

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