The Northerner was the first to bring you news of the ordained minister and NKU faculty member who backed out of holding a same-sex marriage ceremony on campus after being concerned it might influence pending legislation that would prohibit universities from choosing for themselves whether or not to allow employees’ domestic partners to receive health benefits.
Other media outlets have now picked up the story, including the Kentucky Enquirer and Edge Boston, a Boston, Mass.-based media outlet geared towards the GLBT community.
The Northerner continues to look forward to bringing you breaking news first.
In response to the article “Minister Bails on Ceremony,” printed in Wednesday, March 5th’s edition of The Northerner, Sam Lapin, wrote the following response to the entire staff of The Northerner and others:
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article in this week’s paper
| Sam Lapin <LAPIN@nku.edu> | Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 11:34 AM | |
| To: Jesse Call <callj1@nku.edu>, Jesse Call <callj1@nku.edu>Cc: Kellie Geist <geistk1@nku.edu>, Joseph Szydlowski <szydlowskj1@nku.edu>, Jennifer Corbett <corbettj1@nku.edu>, Keith Wilson <wilsonkei@nku.edu>, Matthew Birkholtz <birkholtzm1@nku.edu>, Reed Sparks <sparksre@nku.edu>, Linda Lawrence <LAWRENCEL@nku.edu>, Emily Teaford <teaforde1@nku.edu>, Sarah Sinnott <sinnotts1@nku.edu>, Amanda Neace <neacea2@nku.edu>, Lacey ann Elam <elaml1@nku.edu>, Nancy Bhola <bholan@nku.edu>, Laura Dinwoodie <dinwoodiel1@nku.edu>, Jessica Duvall <duvallj1@nku.edu>, Andrew Pabon <pabona1@nku.edu>, Gayle Brown <browng@nku.edu> | ||
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NOTE: Documents and links mentioned in print edition are available in previous post (below this one.)
Originally, the work on Common Ground’s plan to hold a same-sex marriage ceremony on the Highland Heights campus was not on my list of assignments.
In fact, I recall the day Jenn Corbett, the news editor, faced quite a challenge after the first postponement of the event due to the severe winter weather that plagued campus on Feb. 12. It was set to be the main front-page story, complete with a fantastic photo and everything. But, then it didn’t happen, and it forced a complete revision of the plan for the news section on the day The Northerner went to print.
Just FYI, campus organizations, if you are going to have a newsworthy event, we’d prefer if it were (1) not canceled, and (2) not on Tuesday.
Moving on, after the event was postponed, I received the assignment to cover the rescheduled ceremony. It sounded like an exciting story in and of itself. I mean, it’s not everyday that somebody gets married in the UC lobby during the lunchtime rush, and I’m fairly certain it’s at least extremely infrequent that a same-sex marriage occurs there.
So, the photo editor and I headed to the event on Feb. 19. We stood, for a while, on the stairway, looking down on the informational booth they had set up. It was noon, when the ceremony was supposed to happen. It wasn’t happening. Having done some preliminary research, I knew generally what Sam Lapin, the ordained minister for the event, looked like. I didn’t see him there.
After a few minutes of what I’d like to call “NKU delay,” where you wait because nothing at NKU starts on time, I went down to investigate. Then, I learned that no marriages were going to take place because the minister had become “unavailable.” The first person I thought of was Jenn, who once again was anticipating this story being the main front page article. Trying to salvage something, I did a few interviews about the event that did occur.
I thought the story was dead, and that we would be waiting for another reschedule. Then, I caught wind of something more. That something, that the minister may have been intimidated into not participating, exploded into the story that was printed in this week’s edition.
At first, I hit nothing but dead ends. I could tell that something was up, but nobody was willing to talk to me about it. The Common Ground leaders brushed it off, and when I called Lapin, he only cited personal reasons. Instinctively knowing that more was going on than I was being told, I continued to investigate. Then I found a source willing to share about her knowledge of the situation, confirming those instincts.
After speaking with one of my editors, we discussed possible ways to go after this story. That’s when we came upon the idea of an open records request for Lapin’s e-mails.
After composing the appropriate letter, I found myself questioning where exactly to send it. That’s when I called Sara Sidebottom, the Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, to find out this information. She summoned me to her office.
It was there the we discussed several concerns about the request. After a couple of days of negotiating and contemplating the need for the information, The Northerner made a successful request with the General Counsel’s office for the necessary records.
I had no idea what these e-mails would say. I was certainly hoping to find something conclusive and juicy, but at the very least I was just hoping to find some information–information that I had been lacking.
Then, I was informed the information was available for pick up. I went to Sidebottom’s office and was handed 16 pages of emails. Among them were e-mails indicating that at least perceived intimidation was present. Now, we had a story.
The investigation into this story led to some high profile names, going all the way up to the President of the University. Following up on all the e-mails and obtaining information was difficult, as some sources were less cooperative than others and questioned if the story was even newsworthy.
With all the various sources involved, some which were or became less cooperative, it became imperative that the story be examined. Thus, several hours were spent organizing, writing, and editing the article to ensure it was factual.
Anyway, we presented the facts to you, the readers, for your conclusions.
The e-mails to and from Sam Lapin obtained through the open records request are available in PDF format by following the link below.
Editorial Note: The Northerner has chosen to black out all personal (non-NKU) contact information in the web posting of the e-mail documents.
Click here for Lapin E-mail Records
To see Senate Bill 112, relating to restricting state employees from extending health benefits to those other than their family members (which excludes domestic partners), go to:
http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/08RS/SB112.htm (Click here)
To see Sam Lapin’s website for wedding services:
http://www.weddingsam.org/ (Click here)
To learn more about the Universal Life Church Monastery, under which Lapin is ordained:
http://www.ulc.org/ (Click here)
I’ve been putting together a pretty complicated and big story relating to the administration and whether or not they influenced a campus event.
So, stay tuned! Plus, there will be exclusive content here on the blog when the article comes out.
Keep reading,
Jesse
It was feeling like a normal Friday night for me. My friend Jessica and I were leaving an event for my sorority around 9 p.m. cause another girl had told us how bad the roads were supposed to be.
Well, we ended up getting lost in some part of Mt. Zion, Ky., and due to the ice, we were sliding everywhere and I lost control of my car and did a 360 and ran into a ditch. I was also low on gas.
But everything worked out and we made it back to campus by about 11 p.m. Jessica said she had knew someone who said they might be passing out numbers at midnight for the housing recontracting process that was set to happen the next day at 9 a.m. So we head over to the Norse Commons to check it out, and to my utter disbelief a line was already forming of about 50 people.
It was only midnight.
I thought there was no way in heck that I would be waiting in this line. But there was a little part of me that told me that I should stay, that there is this one chance that if I left I would not get the room I wanted.
So I stayed there- laptop, snacks, movies and all. Along with the 50 students in front of me, and the line that was starting to form behind me.
It felt like I was waiting in line for a huge concert. But I was waiting to get a place to live for next school year. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to leave, I was exhausted and I wasn’t about to stay up for the next 9 hours.
So Jessica and me start watching a movie on my laptop and by this time the line was getting even longer. The two rooms were filled at 2 a.m.
We both ended up drifting off to sleep and I woke up at about 6 a.m. due to me lying on my arm weird on a hardwood floor and not to mention I was lying under a vent. Mostly everyone was still awake, there were the occasional people snoozing.
Now the line was out the door. I had like 60 or so people behind me.
I woke up later at 8 a.m., and this is when everyone started to get really excited cause the Assistant Director of University Housing Arnie Slaughter came and spoke to us about how they are going to be passing out numbers soon. I got so excited I felt like a kid in a toy store.
About 40 minutes later they got done passing out numbers and I was 53rd in line of over 100 people.
Pretty soon, the University Housing began passing out breakfast items to students such as juice boxes, energy drinks, pop tarts, doughnuts and granola bars. It was a nice touch to the long lines; it showed me that University Housing really thought about the process to get a room and how long it is for students.
Housing began letting 10 people at a time out of the rooms to another line in front on the Housing office. I eventually got to that line at about 9:20 a.m. and I can’t tell you how excited I was and how glad I was for not leaving.
At first, you turn in your prepayment and then you wait in line for the particular building you want to live in. The lines weren’t too bad then. I probably had to wait 5 minutes at the most then.
But in the end, I got in the building I wanted. Overall, I have to say it was a better process than years before and I was glad I stuck it out.
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