Why Committee of 100 president’s comments sparked debate

The Prince William Committee of 100 chose a new president for the organization – 20-year member James Young.

According to Young, he did not seek out the role, but was nominated by a committee for the seat.

“Our nominating processes are fairly self perpetuating. Every year, a nominations committee gets together and seeks to recommend candidates…I’ve been on the board for a long time as a district representative, and was asked to be allowed to put up my name for nomination and I thought about it for a little while, and said sure,” said Young.

For the next year, Young said that he is hoping to focus on the political debates that the Committee hosts each year.

“It’s an important year for us – every year basically, we host political debates for county voters, and this year’s particularly important because not only do we have virtually every race in the county up for election…we also have the first real race for Commonwealth’s Attorney…we will provide a forum as we always do for vigorous and serious debate,” said Young.

Young is an Emory University School of Law graduate, and an attorney for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

The Prince William Committee of 100 provides a non-partisan, educational forum to study essential interests, problems and goals of the people of Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park, states the Committee’s website. As it does every year, the Committee again this fall plans to host a series of political debates featuring candidates for local offices such as county board of supervisors, school board, and state-level offices. 

In recent days, comments Young made online have caught the attention of Committee members who are now questioning whether the Committee is able to be an impartial host for the debates under Young’s leadership.

Young asserts his opinion online

On a Facebook post last week regarding Alabama’s decision to eliminate state government-issued marriage licenses after being forced by the Federal Government to recognize same-sex marriage, Committee member Al Alborn and Young shared a heated exchange.

Alborn stated in the thread:

Young responded to Alborn’s comments stating:

Click image for full screenshot of the Facebook post.

While the comments made are expressing Young’s own views, and not those of the Committee, the Committee is known for its nonpartisan stance.

There is currently no mention of conduct expectations or social media usage for Committee leadership, as stated in their by-laws.

“I don’t have any further comment on [those comments]…Mr. Alborn made it clear that his predisposition was that he didn’t like my candidacy – he didn’t run himself – perhaps he couldn’t find someone to nominate him, I don’t know. And he didn’t nominate anyone else. He’s entitled to his opinion,” said Young.

Additionally, Young stated that his views were not partisan or political.

“I wasn’t elected to shut me up. And if people expect that to happen, then they’re going to be very disappointed. I don’t know how defending the understanding for marriage for every civilization in human history, and every major religion for the last 6,000 years of recorded human history is partisan,” Young commented.

Committee members respond to Young’s comments

Following the exchange on Facebook, Alborn stated that he has decided to resign from the Committee of 100.

Alborn stated on Facebook:

Additionally, other Committee members expressed their thoughts on Young’s comments.

“I sincerely hope the [Committee of 100] will continue its record of delivering high quality programming that creates opportunities to examine all sides of the important issues of the day. I hope the new leadership recognizes the importance of setting aside personal political agendas when it comes to governance of the committee,” stated Committee member Betty Dean.

The newly elected Committee Vice President Marlo Watson felt that Young’s comments were his own, and did not reflect upon the Committee.

“I think that the issue for anyone is their ability to have personal opinions on a variety of topics that people agree/disagree with. I am not sure that there is a policy that deals with it in our by-laws. I personally would never want to stop a person from having their personal views on any topic whether I personally agree/disagree with them. With that said, it is always imperative that the community is aware that any of our personal views are not those of the Committee’s,” said Watson.

The Committee held a forum on May 21 to discuss the state of employment in Prince William County.