http://www.military.com/news/article...=1186032325324
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Woman Dragged From Air Force One
May 30, 2009
Macon Telegraph
A woman with Macon ties who was dragged away from Air Force One in Los Angeles on Thursday says she was targeted because she's a black woman and because the Catholic Church is out to get her.
Brenda Lee, a Savannah native who grew up in Macon, said she simply wanted to hand President Obama a letter urging him to "stand against the gay life that threatens to tear America apart."
Lee, a columnist for the monthly Macon-based Informer newspaper, posted that letter to the paper's Web site Friday. She also gave her account of the events that led to her being dragged away from Air Force One shortly before the president arrived to board the plane and leave Los Angeles International Airport.
"I think the events were three-folded," Lee wrote. "It was an opportunity for the Catholic Church and the gays to discredit me, and it cast President Obama in negative light for a black female to be mishandled to this extent."
Spokespeople for the White House and Secret Service have declined to comment on the incident. A spokeswoman for the airport, whose security officers removed Lee from a cordoned-off press area, said the officers were simply reacting to Lee's bizarre behavior.
Lee was cleared to cover the president's arrival and departure at the airport along with various local media organizations, airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles said. She went through normal security screenings, Castles said. But, as Lee was waiting for the president to arrive for his departure Thursday, she began talking about a letter she wished to give him.
Lee said she'd initially intended to mail the letter to the White House, but took it with her to the airport partly to save a stamp, partly to make sure the president received it and partly because she "focused on the letter" as she left her home.
"Whenever I focus on things, it generally means that I need to have them," she said.
Though she allowed officials to read the letter, she refused to leave it with a White House staffer, preferring to attempt to hand it to Obama himself as he walked by.
Lee told The Telegraph she prayed about this at the time and "the Holy Spirit confirmed that I wasn't to give (the staffer) the letter."
On the Informer Web site, she wrote that some of the papers she was carrying fell, and when she looked at the one left in her hand "it said 'No,' meaning that I was not to give him the letter."
"(The staffer) then told me that he could guarantee that President Obama would not be coming near me and he asked that I not wave, motion, or yell out to the president," Lee wrote.
"At that point, I was offended, as I do not carry myself in that manner. I agreed to his conditions. He walked off. No one ever said that I was not to give the letter to President Obama if he were to come near me."
At one point, Lee left the press area to discuss the situation with officials, Lee said. She was allowed to return, but Lee said officers soon came back and wanted her to leave for good. Instead, she sat down in an act of civil disobedience.
"It was the sitting down that did it, I think," Castles said. "No one touched her."
Said Lee: "I figured, during the civil rights movement, if things become volatile you sort of drop to your knees. It gives everybody that's standing up a chance to take a breath ... and rethink things. Well, when I did that, one of the persons grabbed me... and then I said, 'Now I'm not leaving.' "
Lee was picked up by the arms and feet and carried away, struggling.
Media recorded video and took photographs of the incident, which was widely reported.
Lee said she spent most of Friday answering reporters' phone calls at her California home.
Airport officers eventually let Lee go, and she was not charged with any crime. She said she still has the letter and plans to give it to her daughter.
Though Lee has lived in California and other places since about 1970, she still has roots in Macon. She graduated from Ballard-Hudson High School. Her twin sister and mother live in Macon. She visits regularly and has repeatedly visited The Telegraph in an effort to get the newspaper to write about her dispute with the Catholic Church.
She said Friday that Time magazine also has refused to write her story.
Lee says she is a Catholic priestess, though the church does not ordain women into the priesthood.
She bases her claim, she said, on the fact that she has participated in processionals in both Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
"It doesn't matter whether the Catholic Church ordains anyone," she said Friday. "God doesn't need anybody's permission."
In the column she writes for the Informer newspaper, which was previously named the Georgia Informer, Lee refers to herself as the Rev. Brenda Lee. She frequently attacks the Catholic Church, as well as gays, in those columns.
Longtime Informer publisher Herbert Dennard, who recently handed over day-to-day paper operations to his son, said Lee has strong opinions, but she's "not a danger to anybody."