State Sen. Jim Forrester (R–Gaston), the man behind the proposed amendment to ban gay marriage, has made his fair share of questionable claims. Some of them can be chalked up to a difference of opinion, while others clearly indicate a misunderstanding of science. But the falsifications recently discovered on his resume are an entirely different matter.
A penchant for blurring the line between fact and fiction is never a good sign, but it is especially pernicious in an elected official, like Forrester, since so many people put their trust in him. As a candidate, his voters put faith in the accuracy of his resume. As a state senator, his constituents rely on him to represent their interests in the legislature and pass laws that will make their lives better and protect their rights. And in his day job as a family practitioner, Forrester’s patients trust him with their most valuable possession of all: their health.
Forrester falsely claimed to be not only a member but a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine. Though Forrester now claims he let his membership lapse but was in fact a member at some point in the past (either in “about 1960” or in 1984, depending on which interview of Forrester you’re looking at), the fact remains that he hasn’t actually been a member for at least 25 years. Moreover, according to the ACPM, Forrester was never a fellow, which the organization says is its “highest designation of membership.”
This wasn’t Forrester’s only gaffe. In addition to the ACPM, his resume said he was a member of the American Medical Association and an associate fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association.
According to these organizations’ spokesmen, he isn’t currently a member of either, though he was a member — but never an associate fellow — of the Aerospace Medical Association until he stopped paying dues in 2005.
If it weren’t for Forrester’s radical stance on homosexuality and the quack science he uses to support it, one might believe his claim that these errors were inadvertent. Given the similarity of the organizations in question, however, it’s unlikely these were isolated, unrelated oversights.
Even if these errors were accidental, there remains the issue that Forrester seems to think it’s perfectly OK to make these kinds of mistakes.
For an elected official with an advanced degree, it’s simply unacceptable, not to mention embarrassing.
Once his lies came to light, Forrester gave a cavalier response characteristic of his treatment of those who get in his way. Rather than addressing the specific complaints, he instead tried to discredit his critics, dismissing their objections to factual inaccuracies as mere mudslinging.
