Five Days Later, Star Finally Mentions Charlotte Lucas Rant Against Minorities

It only took a few hours for the Indianapolis Star to get a story online commenting on the irony of State Sen. Mike Delph (R) tweeting a photo of a rainbow taken outside his Carmel home the same day as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a lower court ruling throwing out Indiana's Defense of Marriage Law, but it took the Star five days to muster the courage to write a brief story about Lucas Oil co-founder Charlotte Lucas' Facebook rant against minorities. Here's what Star publisher Karen Ferguson gave Bill McCleery permission to write about Lucas.

A controversial Facebook post about “minorities running our country” has drawn international attention to the co-founder of Lucas Oil, whose name graces the Indianapolis Colts stadium.

News outlets as far away as Europe have published stories of Charlotte Lucas’ post from last Thursday.

Lucas, who co-owns Lucas Oil with her husband Forrest, posted:

“I'm sick and tired of minorities running our country! As far as I'm concerned, I don't think that atheists (minority), muslims (minority) n (sic) or any other minority group has the right to tell the majority of the people in the United States what they can and cannot do here. Is everyone so scared that they can't fight back for what is right or wrong with this country?”

The Lucases maintain an Indianapolis residence among several other homes.

Stories about the post have appeared in such prominent venues as the U.K. Daily Mail and the New York Daily Post.

Charlotte Lucas later deleted and apologized for the post — though she indicated the mistake was the clumsiness with which she expressed herself rather than the essence of the belief she tried to get across.

“I apologize to everyone for the insensitive comments posted on my Facebook account,” she said, as recounted in the Daily Mail. “My comments did not reflect my personal views about any individual or minority group, only my frustration that our government system sometimes seems out of balance.”

She further explained: “We live in a great country, but the agenda for our elected officials is too often dictated by special interest groups.”

Let me guess that Ferguson's Gannett-owned newspaper won't be writing any editorials demanding the Lucas name be stripped from Lucas Oil Stadium.