Orlando-Area Republicans Back LGBT Protections

Jim Burroway

July 29th, 2016

A group of twenty LGBT Orlando-area Republicans signed on to a resolution pledging to support legislation that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This was done in conjunction with a commemoration of the Pulse gay night club massacre in which 49 victims lost their lives. According to the Orlando Sentinel:

The resolution supports the creation laws and ordinances that promote fairness by banning anti-gay and gender based discrimination and reads “Now, Therefore, we the undersign do hereby Resolve that all Americans should be treated with equality, dignity and respect, and support efforts of Florida Businesses and individuals to pass legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identification”.

“These are what I like to think are the new generation of Republicans.” said (Orlando Mayor Teresa) Jacobs “What we grieved over a few weeks ago wasn’t a loss of gay people or Hispanic people, it was a loss of human beings. Human beings regardless of where they come from or who they love, had dreams and aspirations just like you and I.”

The Sentinel published a complete list of signatories. It included U.S. Congressman John Mica, and state Reps. Mike Miller and Rene Plasencia. Also signing the resolution were seven Orlando-area mayors, one city council president, two Orlando city commissioners, four county commissioners, two school board members, and the Orange County Republican Executive Committee Chairman Lew Oliver.

The inclusion of gender identity in the resolution seems particularly significant, given the hostility towards discrimination protections for transgender people that Republicans have recently shown elsewhere.

It’s hard to gauge how much support exists elsewhere in the state for any kind of LGBT non-discrimination. According to one report, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) met with Miami state Rep. David Richardson (D-Miami/Miami Beach), the state’s only openly gay lawmaker, and signaled that he might be willing to support some kind of unspecified non-discrimination bill. The Governor’s office would only confirm that a meeting took place. Meanwhile U.S. Sen. Mark Rubio (R-FL), who is re-booting his senatorial re-election campaign after his failed run for the GOP presidential nomination, is clearly banking on Florida’s politics being as anti-gay as ever. He is slated to headline an anti-gay event in Orlando in two weeks.

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