State Sen. John Carona addresses the gay GOP group Metroplex Republicans in October.
State Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, whose disgusting recent flip–flop on gay rights ranks right up there with former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert’s, isn’t commenting about his decision to sign a right-wing group’s letter calling for the Boy Scouts to keep their ban on gay Scouts and leaders.
Back in October, Carona told me he supports same-sex adoption rights, domestic partner benefits and LGBT workplace protections. In fact he came within a hair’s breadth of declaring his support for marriage equality. Carona’s business, AssociaTitle, is a major sponsor of Dallas’ annual Black Tie Dinner, the largest LGBT fundraiser of its kind in the nation.
But Carona, who once suggested that rabidly anti-gay state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, is in fact a closeted homosexual, is now siding with Patrick on LGBT rights because he’s scared of losing his seat in the Senate in 2014 — or perhaps because he’s positioning himself for a run at statewide office.
“Senator Carona is not available for comment,” Carona spokeswoman Jamie McCormick wrote in an email this morning responding to my inquiries from yesterday. “Thank you for following up with our office.”
You’re more than welcome, Jamie, and as I said yesterday, let’s hope the LGBT community will continue to follow up with Carona’s office, and ask him to do the right thing by taking his name off the Boy Scouts letter. His contact info is here. You can also go to his Facebook and Twitter pages.
You may be saying to yourself that Carona’s betrayal of the LGBT community isn’t the least bit surprising and wondering why this even matters. Well, say what you want about Republicans, but they have a stranglehold on the Texas Legislature. And if we cannot get moderates within the GOP like Carona — whose District 16 includes a large chunk of Oak Lawn and who supports us privately — to stand up for us publicly, we won’t make any statewide progress here in the foreseeable future.
If Carona backs down in the face of pressure from the right, it will make it that much more difficult to get anyone else in his party to stand up.
