District 14 candidates react to clash between activists, council members; District 5 hopeful’s campaign says he’d support pro-LGBT measure
ADIOS CARLOS? | Out Fort Worth school board member Carlos Vasquez faces an uphill battle to hang onto his seat in the June 15 runoff.
DAVID TAFFET | Staff Writer
Both candidates in the June 15 runoff in District 14 say the LGBT community needs an ally whose support isn’t conditional.
After attending a City Council meeting Wednesday, June 12, where LGBT advocates clashed with council members over their failure to take up an equality resolution, Bobby Abtahi and Philip Kingston said they were outraged. The resolution, authored by Councilman Scott Griggs, would state the council’s support for marriage equality and employment nondiscrimination.
Abtahi said the council is playing politics with the resolution.
“If you don’t get how important this is to a particular group of your constituents, you don’t get it,” he said. “That’s why we have 7 percent voter turnout.”
Abtahi said he was in tears listening to some of the public speakers but was so disgusted with the discussion among council members, he walked out.
“I’m not going to play politics with human rights,” he said.
Kingston said he didn’t like any part of the council discussion. Some council members suggested the resolution should go to committee, but Kingston said no resolution has ever gone to committee.
“It just needs to be on the agenda,” he said. “A majority, at one point, said they’d vote for it. Let’s put it on the agenda and vote for it.”
Kingston said it was important to have “true blue” allies on the council.
“People who are hardcore, who the LGBT community can trust,” he said.
What happened to the resolution was retaliation against Griggs by people who wanted to punish him for unrelated votes, Kingston said.
“But that gave fence-sitters cover to back away,” he said. “I will be the guy collecting signatures to get the item on the agenda. I will never be the kind of guy who’s only with you if others can get it on the agenda.”
Kingston said he’s committed to continuing the work of the city’s LGBT Task Force and hopes changes are suggested from within.
“More voices are better,” he said.
He’s discussed the Task Force with Griggs and Councilman-elect Adam Medrano and hopes a couple of new council members will also participate.
“Others who haven’t been as strong allies will evolve as we all do,” he said.
Kingston also criticized Mayor Mike Rawlings for calling the resolution a “misuse” of the council’s time. He said that same day, Rawlings spent hours on school issues. Dallas Independent School District is an autonomous agency that the council has no power to control.
Kingston cited two upcoming appointments as important to the LGBT community.
“We’re about to hire a city manager and city attorney,” he said. “Those two will have more impact on the LGBT community than the City Council.”
He said both must have a commitment to equality, and as an example he said the community is “in striking distance” on comprehensive transgender healthcare benefits, an issue he hopes the new city manager will understand.
Abtahi, meanwhile, has suggested appointing an LGBT liaison to the mayor and council.
“I don’t like the idea of human rights, equality issues becoming wedge issues,” Abtahi said.
“Nobody wins.”
Abtahi said it was sad during Pride Month to be talking about gaining enough votes to pass a resolution rather than talking about the accomplishments of the LGBT community. But mostly he said he’s confused by the mayor’s refusal to put the resolution on the agenda.
“I don’t know his reasons,” Abtahi said. “If it’s a misuse of time, well, you know what? We’re wasting a lot more time talking about it.”
And while Abtahi said supporting equality is personal to him because his sister, who is lesbian, was recently engaged and deserves the same rights as him, he also makes the business argument for supporting the LGBT community.
“People talk about Uptown and the urban core,” he said. “Without the gay community, none of that would have been possible. It’s an expansion of the work in Oak Lawn.”
He said the city has benefited from its LGBT population and he called a resolution supporting the rights of that group a no-brainer.
Elsewhere, in the newly created District 5 in Pleasant Grove, Jesse Diaz faces Rick Callahan. Diaz received the endorsement of Stonewall Democrats. Neither candidate sought the endorsement of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance.
Callahan finished first in the low-turnout May 11 election by 118 votes but failed to capture the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.
Diaz was also initially endorsed by The Dallas Morning News, but the newspaper rescinded its endorsement, saying Diaz had falsely claimed endorsements from council members Tennell Atkins and Carolyn Davis. Both denied ever speaking to Diaz or endorsing him.
Callahan campaign manager Penny Anderly said the Diaz campaign also has sent race-baiting mailers.
“We need to elect a candidate who will unify the district and is not divisive,” Anderly said.
Callahan said in response to Dallas Voice’s candidate questionnaire that he supports civil unions but not marriage.
However, Anderly said Callahan would support the equality resolution, describing him as open-minded and fair.
She also said he would defend domestic partner benefits despite an attack on them by Attorney General Greg Abbott.
Anderly said she served as campaign manager for gay former Councilman Craig McDaniel and worked on the campaign for the first openly gay Dallas council candidate, Bill Nelson. Anderly said Callahan believes same-sex partners should have all the same rights as heterosexual couples.
“The only way to do that is with some legal recognition,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Diaz campaign sent out mailers of an editorial in the newspaper El Lidor that accused Callahan of being a racist. Among the charges is that he has an all-white campaign staff “and his campaign has only issue [sic] one check to a minority: a $92 reimbursement for postage to his secretary Erika Rodriguez.”
Diaz has not returned calls from Dallas Voice over the past several weeks to his home and to his campaign.
In Fort Worth, school district trustee Carlos Vasquez came in second to Jacinto A. Ramos Jr. in the election. Vasquez is one of only two openly gay school board members in Texas.
However, many in the LGBT community are supporting Ramos.
J.D. Angle, the husband of gay Fort Worth Councilman Joel Burns, is campaign consultant for Ramos.
“Jacinto came to be a client because people were looking for new leadership for the district,” Angle said. “I was impressed by his personal story.”
He said Ramos’ story is compelling, involving his juvenile justice work and gang prevention and intervention. He said Ramos grew up in the area and returned with his family to the neighborhood and called that an important part of the renaissance of urban schools.
Vasquez did not return calls for the story. Ramos led Vasquez in the May 11 election 46.4 to 30.7 percent, so the incumbent faces an uphill battle in the runoff to remain on the board.
Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. For more info, visit DallasCountyVotes.org.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 14, 2013.