Box Turtle Bulletin

San Diego’s Pro-Marriage Mayor Re-elected

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.

Anti-Marriage Politics: A Losing Proposition

More GOP strategists see divisive marriage politics as a losing proposition this year:

“At best, it doesn’t move voters, and at worst for Republicans, it moves them against them,” said Matthew Dowd, President Bush’s 2004 chief strategist. “Why are we having a discussion on this issue when we should be talking about things that matter, like the economy, health care, or the war?”

How NOT to Write an Article

If one were to write, say, an article about gay Republicans, one might think it smart to interview a living breathing gay Republican. With about a quarter of self-identified gay voters pulling the Republican lever, and with Log Cabin Republicans operating a full time office, these are hardly elusive folks hiding in the shadows.

Yet Charles Kaiser managed to write a piece for Out Magazine without input from a single gay Republican. An excerpt from Washington’s Gay War:

Welcome to gay Washington in the 21st century, where the gay Democrats are proud and out on the Hill and in the lobbying firms on K Street, while many gay Republicans still cower in the closet until they trip themselves up with off-color instant messages to teenage pages, or conduct unbecoming to a United States senator in an airport bathroom.

It really doesn’t improve much as it goes along. Kaiser’s imaginary Washington doesn’t contain Jim Kolbe or any of the many openly gay Republican staffers. Nor does it have any of the many Democrats who are closeted. Riddled with ancient anecdotes and wild assumptions, it has about as much resemblance to “gay Washington in the 21st century” as it does to Narnia. Washington Blade’s Chris Crane perhaps said it best:

The result was a 2,800-word, one-sided hack job that failed to report even one single new fact.

I doubt that Kaiser set out with the intent of maligning a huge chunk of the community. I suspect he is simply a victim of his own limited experiences. Not knowing gay Republicans, he cannot fathom why such a creature would exist. So his article included the opinions of “people like us”, not those oddities.

And in the process he embarrassed himself and his magazine.

But Kaiser’s article can provide a lesson to us all. I have been guilty of writing from the perspective of ignorance and misunderstanding. We have all made assumptions about the motivations and intentions of others, especially those who we perceive as anti-gay, and in the process painted wide swathes of people with the same brush.

I like to believe that at Box Turtle Bulletin we try to avoid presumptions and stereotypes to the best of our abilities. But this incident has served for me as a reminder that care should be taken to avoid making broad declarations about those with whom I am not familiar.

A Ray of Light

When homophobic rants like those of Sally Kern get a standing ovation from her House Republican caucus, or when folks like Oregon State Sen. Gary George (R – Newberg) can call gays “perverts” and advise that they just “shut up”, it can become discouraging. It does seem as though our nation is deeply divided along party lines and that we are an easy target in the raging culture wars.

But I think much of the venom and bile are the behavior of those who know in their gut that dusk is falling on their culture of heterosexist oppression. The signs are there for those who look. And here’s one from the Bay Area Reporter:

Log Cabiners’ optimism that their party is turning a lavender corner was buoyed last month at the California Republican Party’s state convention, held in San Francisco. The party adopted a new platform that no longer calls for passage of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The change in stance on an amendment is a blow to conservative groups trying to place such a ballot measure before voters this November. And it reinforces gay GOPer’s belief that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will oppose such a measure should it get on the ballot.

The party does still define marriage as being between a man and a woman, though a push to strip that from the platform came close to passing this year. It fell short by only eight votes.

A closer look does illustrate continued homophobic language within the platform, including

We believe that public policy and education should not be exploited to present or teach homosexuality as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle. We oppose same-sex partner benefits, child custody, and adoption.

And in its discussion on Equal Opportunity, it clarifies that Equal does not include gay people.

We oppose any special rights based on sexual or behavioral preferences.

Clearly a (small) majority of the California Republican Party voting membership has decided not to view gay citizens as equal or deserving of the same rights that they hold so dear for themselves.

But in our constant battle against those who actively seek us harm, it can be easy to forget how much progress has been made, and how quickly progress continues to be made. In many states, any Democratic candidate that displays overt homophobia cannot expect to win their party’s nomination. In some areas, Republican candidates are facing the reality that their constituents can no longer be motivated by hate. And more importantly, many elected officials of all parties are coming to recognize the inherent worth of gay citizens on their own.

I believe that those kids who are now toddlers will live in a world in which a Sally Kern will seems as much an anomoly or embarrassment as David Duke or George Wallace. And while that day is still a ways off, this change in the CRP platform is definitely a positive omen of better days to come.