A newspaper has been slammed for deleting a reference to a man’s husband from his mother’s obituary.
Texas newspaper The Olton Enterprise published the obituary for Brenda Light in its February 23 edition, but edited the family’s original tribute.
The obituary read, “Those left to cherish her memories include her son, Barry Giles, and his husband, John Gambill, of Dallas.”
But the published version removed the reference to Gambill, reading, “Those left to cherish her memories include her son, Barry Giles of Dallas”.
The Dallas Voice reported Gambill contacted the newspaper’s editor Philip Hamilton questioning whether the newspaper had received an incomplete version of the tribute from the funeral home.
Mr Hamilton, a Baptist pastor, told Gambill he had intentionally left him out of the obituary, and said in a statement to Fox News the decision was because of his religious values.
“It is my religious conviction that a male cannot have a husband. It is also my belief that to publish anything contrary to God’s Word on this issue would be to publish something in the newspaper that is not true,” he said.
Hamilton claimed it would be “unethical to publish a news item that is known by the editor to be false”.
“Based on the truth found in the Word of God, I could not in good conscience identify Mr Gambill as the husband of Mr Giles,” he said.
Gambill had been in a relationship with Mr Giles for more than 30 years and had a good relationship with his mother-in-law and said she was like his second mother, Fox News reported.
