Outrageous comment on war and discrimination

March 27, 2003

ATLANTA: Southeastern Legal Foundation president and former editorial page editor and columnist for The Augusta Chronicle, Phil Kent, today called on feminist protest organizer Martha Burk to apologize for her "shabby, shameful use of the American military effort in Iraq as a pretext for supporting her floundering campaign against Augusta National."

As reported in The New York Times, Burk said in New York this week: "It's appalling that the women who are willing to lay down their lives for democratic ideals should be shut out of this club . . . Democratic ideals do not include discrimination."

· "Burk again uses the typical politically-correct party line emphasizing "victimization" in an attempt to win sympathy - the phony "victims" are women who can't be members of the all-male Augusta National Golf Club. The "oppressors" are the club members, in her scenario," said Kent. "The Augusta National no more "discriminates" against women than the Junior League, college sororities, all-female colleges, and Girl Scouts "discriminate" against men and boys."

"Burk prattles about upholding "democratic ideals." Yet she hypocritically works to dynamite the "democratic ideal" the Augusta National upholds - a constitutionally legal members policy, as the Supreme Court underscored when it upheld the right of the Boy Scouts of America to dictate its own membership," Kent added. "Burk and her shrinking band of followers are desperate to make their protest relevant."

"I asked that our attorneys put together a constitutional analysis of the Burk/[Jesse] Jackson attack on The Augusta National Golf Club, and I am prepared to make that analysis available at the Masters in early April," Kent added.

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