Posts Tagged As: Jerry Sanders

San Diego candidate learns not to buddy up to ex-gay gadfly James Hartline

Timothy Kincaid

March 17th, 2010

hartline2It never pays to buddy up to ex-gay activist James Hartline. You’re going to get burned. Even if you agree with everything that Hartline supports, you have to be as extreme and wacky as he is or he’ll turn on you.

And San Diego City Council candidate Lorie Zapf has just found that out. Hartline is sharing some of their communications with the press. (Union-Tribune)

Hartline said he distributed the e-mail to media outlets this week because Zapf was not living up to his anti-gay standards.

zapfIt all started in 2006 when Zapf supported a candidate for City Council who endorsed the mayor who was known to be tolerant of gay people. Although she had attended church with him at Mission Valley, this was enough to lead Hartline to suspect Zapf’s anti-gay credentials. Or as Hartline tells it (in the third person):

It was because Hartline and Zapf knew each other at MVCF that Hartline began to email Zapf regarding her obviously hypocritical involvement with the campaigns of Judy Riddle, a member of the cult Mormon Church, and pro-homosexual San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders. Hartline could not understand at the time how Zapf could be involved in promoting Mormon candidates when MVCF had taught her that Mormonism is a cult. Equally perplexing for Hartline was the idea that Zapf was so involved with Jerry Sanders after the years Sanders had marched in San Diego’s pornographic gay pride parades.

Initially, Zapf attempted to manipulate Hartline in emails, telling Hartline that she was firmly in his camp on the homosexual issue. As Hartline responded with emails showing Zapf was compromising, she began to take a sinister turn, emailing Hartline’s pastors in an attempt to shut Hartline down. It appears by her responses in the recent Union Tribune article, that the sinister Zapf is once again replacing the “Aunt Bee” Lorie Zapf.

Hartline’s view of “compromising” is probably a bit different than yours. Zapf was pretty clear where she stood: (City Beat)

“I absolutely want to keep homosexuals out of public office and not be allowed to influence our schools, textbooks, altering marriage, children, and on and on”

“I like that you are trying to keep homosexuals and homosexual activists out of public office because we both know what the long term agenda is.”

“I do believe homosexuality is a sin. I have three homosexual first cousins. I love them all and would ‘be seen’ in a photo with them. I believe they all live in sin and frankly all are very unhappy people and had horrible childhoods as well.”

But hating the gay isn’t enough for Hartline. You have to be fire-breathing, take no prisoners, crazy-ass in your hating of the gay. But crazy-ass homophobia doesn’t sell with in San Diego. Yes, this is a Republican city, but it likes its Republicans to be either gay supportive or gay themselves.

So Zapf is now clarifying. She says that she didn’t mean gay people, per se, just gay activists (ya know, the gay folk who aren’t closeted, delusional, ex-gay, or like Roy Ashburn).

And she’s a victim. It was just taken out of context.

“This is what keeps good people from running for office,” she said. “Everyone’s got something. It’s going to be a little sentence plucked out, taken out of context … and then used against me to try to destroy me and my family.”

Zapf said voters should note that Hartline’s anger stems from her support of gays.

“The irony is that James Hartline, of all people, who is so rabidly anti-gay, is trying to hurt me because I’m not,” she said. “He doesn’t think I’m anti-gay enough. I’m not at all.”

Oh, I dunno, Lorie. I think you’re plenty anti-gay.

Even if you would ‘be seen’ in a photo with me.

Jerry Sanders to testify in Perry v. Schwarzenegger

Timothy Kincaid

January 18th, 2010

sanders280The very Republican trial to overturn Proposition 8 is about to become even more so. Jerry Sanders, the Republican mayor of San Diego will be on the stand tomorrow (SD Union-Trib)

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders will testify on Tuesday in the federal case about whether states can ban same-sex marriage.

“He’s testifying essentially on his experience on the issue and why he believes marriage equality is important from a government perspective,” [spokesman Darren] Pudgil said.

San Diego’s Pro-Marriage Mayor Re-elected

Timothy Kincaid

June 4th, 2008

sanders280.jpg In September, Republican San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders surprised residents when he changed his views and endorsed same-sex marriage. This decision did play a part in his campaign for re-election.

While his largest opponent, Steve Francis, supports domestic partnerships and did not make Sanders’ position on marriage a central issue, he did criticize Sanders for his decision and say that he would have vetoed the city’s amimus brief filed in support of the gay marriage case that was before the state Supreme Court.

Oddly, this election did not follow the predictable lines. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports

Francis welcomed a number of progressive groups to his cause this year as opposed to 2005, when he ran as a conservative with the backing of the county GOP. In another change this year, that party’s endorsement went to Sanders.

The county GOP flooded the homes of San Diego’s 185,000 registered Republicans with mail praising the mayor and protesting Francis. At the same time, the mayor targeted the city’s 205,000 absentee voters exclusively with his own campaign mail, most recently two weeks ago with a brochure that asked, “Who do you trust to get our city back on track?” The piece answered the question by comparing Sanders’ accomplishments with alleged examples of Francis’ hypocrisy.

Francis, on the other hand, shopped for votes on the political left. His final mailer touted endorsements from three labor unions, two Latino newspapers, the Sierra Club and leaders of the black, Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender, and Filipino/Asian-American communities.

Although Francis sought to portray himself as the more liberal Republican and hired a gay policy director, Democratic activists in the gay community, including Nicole Murray-Ramirez, rewarded Sanders for his support and worked for his reelection.

Sanders, who served as chief of police and as CEO of the San Diego United Way and board member for the city’s Red Cross, was “always reaching out to the gay and lesbian community,” said Murray-Ramirez, who rode in the city’s first Pride parade in 1974. “He marched in over a dozen Gay Pride parades and was the first police chief to march in uniform. He’s more of a public servant than a politician.”

When Sanders pledged his support for gay marriage, he also revealed that his daughter, Lisa, is a lesbian. Many have attributed Sanders’ marriage views to his daughter’s sexual orientation, but Corbin and Murray-Ramirez said that having gay appointees to advise him also contributed to his support.

In Tuesday’s election Sanders received 52% of the vote, enough to avoid a run-off in November.

    

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