Vickers “Vic” Cunningham, a former Dallas judge who’s running in the Republican primary runoff election for Dallas county commissioner on Tuesday, decided to provide his children a monetary incentive to condone homophobia and racism. Cunningham set up a living trust with a clause rewarding his children if they marry a white, straight Christian.
His estranged brother, Bill Cunningham, who is in a same-sex marriage with a Black man, went to The Dallas Morning News last week to share his brother’s trust plans and said he has been a lifelong racist. Amanda Tackett, the GOP candidate’s former political aide, said Cunningham regularly used the N-word to degrade Blacks.
According to Tackett, he used “TND’s,” short for “Typical [N-word] Deals,” to describe criminal cases involving Black people.
Cunningham, 55, denied being a bigot but did confirm on Friday that his trust includes a condition intended to discourage his children from marrying a person of another race or of the same sex.
“I strongly support traditional family values,” Cunningham told The Morning News.
He defined that as marrying a partner of the same race.
“If you marry a person of the opposite sex that’s Caucasian, that’s Christian, they will get a distribution.”
Cunningham said the following in a statement:
“This trust was set-up during a time of concerned feelings about my brother Bill’s gay lifestyle. My views on interracial marriage have evolved since I set-up the irrevocable trust in 2010, and today I would absolutely remove those conditions if I legally could.”
Cunningham told The Morning News his viewpoints on interracial marriage changed because he has accepted his son’s relationship with a woman of Vietnamese decent. However, he didn’t specifically mention if his viewpoints on same-sex marriage have changed.
In regard to Cunningham saying he’s not racist, others, besides his brother, claim he is, including his mother.
In a recorded conversation, the GOP candidate’s mother, Mina Cunningham, acknowledged that he had been a longtime bigot, according to the Morning News.
Dallas County Republican Party Chairwoman Missy Shorey released a statement Saturday that said, in part, the party “strongly condemns both the behavior and language that was used by Vic Cunningham.”
