CBS 11 aired this story last night about what we first reported Saturday — Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Pauline Medrano’s last-ditch effort to get an LGBT equality resolution on the June 12 City Council agenda.
As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, Mayor Mike Rawlings is vehemently opposed to the council considering the resolution, and he apparently convinced City Attorney Tom Perkins to take the position that the mayor is not absent — and therefore Medrano is not acting mayor — even though Rawlings is in South America.
Now I’m no attorney, but does this not seem like a pretty awful legal opinion? If Rawlings is not absent when he’s on another continent, where does he have to go to be absent? Antarctica? Mars? Though these may sound like good places for Rawlings, one has to wonder what the point is of even having a mayor pro tem or deputy pro tem, if they’re never going to be needed.
Anyhow, as we reported yesterday, LGBT advocates are planning to converge on Wednesday’s council meeting to express their disapproval of the council’s failure to take up the resolution. But personally, I think we should also take the opportunity to thank Rawlings.
We should thank him for giving us a wake-up call about the lack of support for the LGBT community at City Hall, and more importantly, we should thank him for galvanizing us around this issue — and mobilizing us to action. Although this is only a city resolution, we have much bigger fights ahead.
Let’s face it, the U.S. Supreme Court isn’t going to hand us nationwide marriage equality later this month, and the justices certainly aren’t going to hand us employment protections. The reality is, we’re going to have to continue to fight for equality city by city and state by state, so why not draw a line in the sand right here and right now in Texas?
After all, if we can’t prevail against a patsy like Rawlings in what amounts to a scrimmage, how are we going to go up against the state Legislature for the real thing?
Watch Channel 11’s report below.
