Editorial Listing:
Cecelia Moreno, Meet Marie Antoinette
Dear "John" (substance abuse)
Wake the "F" Up Dems! - (election wrap-up)
Carl DeMaio's Big Gay Problem (why DeMaio is persona non grata)
An Elephant in Donkey's Clothing (Nicole Ramirez' democrat drag)
Cecelia Moreno, Meet Marie Antoinette
By: Timothy P. Holmberg
Tuesday, January 20, 2015 @1430
Ms. Cecelia Moreno, since you have an apparent fondness for the French, I'd like to introduce you to someone who shares your apparent disdain for dissent. Though you two are removed from each other by centuries, clearly there is a natural kinship between you and Marie Antoinette. Like her, you seem to have had a little “let them eat cake” moment recently:
. . . could the French police come take care of some folks who obsess about tearing down the hillcrest community with their negative nelly rants? so over them . . .
Leaving aside that it has been a steady stream of the 'nelly folk' who have sustained and built your business success . . your tiff was at the very least an unfortunate choice of words that I'm sure Marie can identify with. So hopefully this introduction will help you avoid a comfortable pillow at the hands of the HBIA membership. You see, like you and your compatriots on the HBIA board, Marie was also consumed with throwing lavish parties while neglecting the needs of the little folk (citizens). If she could talk to you across the chimes of time, she would tell you something very important that seems to have eluded your ears despite the near deafening entreaties of past and current community leaders.
It is simple: you serve the HBIA, not the other way around.
Those nettlesome detractors are actually the ones you serve. Rather than mocking them, you should be seeking their consul and listening carefully. Hillcrest and its businesses are struggling, and they need something more than a Mardi Gras with chain link fences around it. When past presidents of the HBIA and community activists come to the dais and tell you to change course, you should sit up and take note rather than mocking and snickering at them.
Let's take stock of the product of yours and Mr. Johnathan Hale's leadership for a moment. Under your tenure, the organization's events have ballooned to the point they now consume over 80% of staff resources. Most of them make no money, and in some cases have a direct detrimental effect on member businesses. The organization is under investigation for financial irregularities. It is rife with conflicts of interest and unilateral decision making by its president that is itself unethical, if not outright illegal. You and Hale have sought to jettison dozens of members who do not agree with you by gerrymandering the by-laws in a blatant attempt to expunge dissenters. To wit, you have been repudiated by the city for repeatedly violating your contract with them. Cityfest, the premier event of the HBIA which generated tens of thousands of dollars annually for business improvement projects, has faltered and now generates a fraction of what it did under past leadership. You have repeatedly violated the Brown Act, and the ADA and cavalierly shrug it off while exposing the business association to liabilities that could bankrupt it. A raft of no bid contracts are doled out to friends of Hale and supporters of his partners political aspirations, while siphoning off the organizations money. Ben Nicholls, who left to join an event production outfit only a short time ago, is now cozily tucked back into the HBIA after having been jettisoned for allegedly attempting to steal clients to start his own firm. He collects a salary from another local BID while being listed as a full time ED of the HBIA (well now).
This is the picture of a leadership that is detached from the needs of its membership, and consumed with its own needs and avarice. We don't use guillotines today, and it is a fortunate thing for you Ms. Moreno. Cake may be on your menu at Crest Cafe, but I think it's best if you avoid recommending it for a while.
By: Timothy P. Holmberg
Tuesday, January 20, 2015 @1430
Ms. Cecelia Moreno, since you have an apparent fondness for the French, I'd like to introduce you to someone who shares your apparent disdain for dissent. Though you two are removed from each other by centuries, clearly there is a natural kinship between you and Marie Antoinette. Like her, you seem to have had a little “let them eat cake” moment recently:
. . . could the French police come take care of some folks who obsess about tearing down the hillcrest community with their negative nelly rants? so over them . . .
Leaving aside that it has been a steady stream of the 'nelly folk' who have sustained and built your business success . . your tiff was at the very least an unfortunate choice of words that I'm sure Marie can identify with. So hopefully this introduction will help you avoid a comfortable pillow at the hands of the HBIA membership. You see, like you and your compatriots on the HBIA board, Marie was also consumed with throwing lavish parties while neglecting the needs of the little folk (citizens). If she could talk to you across the chimes of time, she would tell you something very important that seems to have eluded your ears despite the near deafening entreaties of past and current community leaders.
It is simple: you serve the HBIA, not the other way around.
Those nettlesome detractors are actually the ones you serve. Rather than mocking them, you should be seeking their consul and listening carefully. Hillcrest and its businesses are struggling, and they need something more than a Mardi Gras with chain link fences around it. When past presidents of the HBIA and community activists come to the dais and tell you to change course, you should sit up and take note rather than mocking and snickering at them.
Let's take stock of the product of yours and Mr. Johnathan Hale's leadership for a moment. Under your tenure, the organization's events have ballooned to the point they now consume over 80% of staff resources. Most of them make no money, and in some cases have a direct detrimental effect on member businesses. The organization is under investigation for financial irregularities. It is rife with conflicts of interest and unilateral decision making by its president that is itself unethical, if not outright illegal. You and Hale have sought to jettison dozens of members who do not agree with you by gerrymandering the by-laws in a blatant attempt to expunge dissenters. To wit, you have been repudiated by the city for repeatedly violating your contract with them. Cityfest, the premier event of the HBIA which generated tens of thousands of dollars annually for business improvement projects, has faltered and now generates a fraction of what it did under past leadership. You have repeatedly violated the Brown Act, and the ADA and cavalierly shrug it off while exposing the business association to liabilities that could bankrupt it. A raft of no bid contracts are doled out to friends of Hale and supporters of his partners political aspirations, while siphoning off the organizations money. Ben Nicholls, who left to join an event production outfit only a short time ago, is now cozily tucked back into the HBIA after having been jettisoned for allegedly attempting to steal clients to start his own firm. He collects a salary from another local BID while being listed as a full time ED of the HBIA (well now).
This is the picture of a leadership that is detached from the needs of its membership, and consumed with its own needs and avarice. We don't use guillotines today, and it is a fortunate thing for you Ms. Moreno. Cake may be on your menu at Crest Cafe, but I think it's best if you avoid recommending it for a while.
Dear “John”: A Letter From Our Community
By: Timothy P. Holmberg
Dear “John”, I’m writing this letter because I can see that the years of addiction have shattered you – so badly perhaps, that this may be the last time I’m able to reach you. I’ve watched you struggle with the fear, shame and paranoia that has transformed your life into a hall of mirrors. Images of you, distorted and sliced up in every direction you turn; and you unable to find your way back to the real you - if that person is even still there.
As many times as I have said to you, that you alone are the one who is ultimately responsible for your decisions, I feel like it is time to acknowledge something. To look deeper, and offer a confession of sorts.
We also failed you “John”.
I know it will prick the nerves of many in our community to say this, but none-the-less, it’s true.
We failed you when we allowed resident dealers to set up shop in our bars and bathhouses. We failed you when we pressured our bartenders to serve you another drink, even when you could hardly stand. We failed you when we put on blinders to the ambulances lined up outside our “Pride” parties.
When you gave us porn to jerk off to, we failed you by asking you to get high to do it. We failed you when we quietly dumped you in a back alley when you went into a G-hole. We failed you when we started paying off Vice cops to turn a blind eye to the epidemic unfolding in our community places. We failed you when we started talking about drugs as if they could be fixture of your social life without ultimately destroying you. We failed you when we played stupid to what was going on under our noses.
We have more addicts in our community today than we have HIV positive people (and the two often go hand in hand). And our addicts deserve more from us than just judgment. We speak to each other of Pride and freedom and rights, and all these things are good. But what good are any of these things to the guy who just lost his job from constant benders, or the lesbian whose addiction just got her car repo’d two months ago, or the trans man whose license was pulled after that last DUI.
When people in our community were dropping like flies from AIDS, we cared; we mobilized. We spoke to each other of protecting ourselves, and caring for each other. We do still call ourselves "family", don't we? But for decades now, meth, alcohol, cocaine and G have been plucking some of the best and brightest from our ranks. And we have been all but mute.
Sure, we love to reach out and give our “Johns” a chance at salvation. Everyone loves a salvation story. The schadenfruede addict in us leaps at the chance to applaud the stories of our resurrected. And clearly, we can fill the passing donation basket of our recovery centers, but can we loft a cent or two to prevent these stories from ever being?
We log countless hours at gyms and tanning salons; spend small fortunes on supplements. But for what? To subject all that work to G and K and T or whatever “trail-mix” was in that zip-lock baggy? Legions of our brothers and sisters are lost in “clouds”.
We feel the moral outrage that we should when a gay man is bashed and left for dead on some highway. But what of the twenty-something gay who drowned in his vomit after overdosing on G?
We are survivors. All of us. We pushed past the judgments of family, friends and even God Himself. We even survived the flagellation of our own self-loathing. But did we overcome all these things just so we could wake up alone in a ditch somewhere, homeless and wreaking of the streets; a stranger to our own friends?
If your are struggling with addiction and are ready for help, please contact the following organizations:
Live & Let Live Alano Club
1730 Monroe San Diego, CA 92116
619 298-8008
Mon-Fri 10:30-10:00, Sat-Sun 8:30-10:00
Stepping Stone of San Diego
3767 Central Avenue San Diego, CA 92105-2506
619.278.0777
Monday — Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For additional resources, you can also visit the following web sites:
http://owenclinic.ucsd.edu/hiv-support/Pages/alcohol-substance-recovery.aspx
http://www.thecentersd.org/programs/behavioral-health-services/
If you are a substance abuse provider and would like to be listed here, please email [email protected] with your information.
Please email responses to this column to [email protected] and include your name and general location.
By: Timothy P. Holmberg
Dear “John”, I’m writing this letter because I can see that the years of addiction have shattered you – so badly perhaps, that this may be the last time I’m able to reach you. I’ve watched you struggle with the fear, shame and paranoia that has transformed your life into a hall of mirrors. Images of you, distorted and sliced up in every direction you turn; and you unable to find your way back to the real you - if that person is even still there.
As many times as I have said to you, that you alone are the one who is ultimately responsible for your decisions, I feel like it is time to acknowledge something. To look deeper, and offer a confession of sorts.
We also failed you “John”.
I know it will prick the nerves of many in our community to say this, but none-the-less, it’s true.
We failed you when we allowed resident dealers to set up shop in our bars and bathhouses. We failed you when we pressured our bartenders to serve you another drink, even when you could hardly stand. We failed you when we put on blinders to the ambulances lined up outside our “Pride” parties.
When you gave us porn to jerk off to, we failed you by asking you to get high to do it. We failed you when we quietly dumped you in a back alley when you went into a G-hole. We failed you when we started paying off Vice cops to turn a blind eye to the epidemic unfolding in our community places. We failed you when we started talking about drugs as if they could be fixture of your social life without ultimately destroying you. We failed you when we played stupid to what was going on under our noses.
We have more addicts in our community today than we have HIV positive people (and the two often go hand in hand). And our addicts deserve more from us than just judgment. We speak to each other of Pride and freedom and rights, and all these things are good. But what good are any of these things to the guy who just lost his job from constant benders, or the lesbian whose addiction just got her car repo’d two months ago, or the trans man whose license was pulled after that last DUI.
When people in our community were dropping like flies from AIDS, we cared; we mobilized. We spoke to each other of protecting ourselves, and caring for each other. We do still call ourselves "family", don't we? But for decades now, meth, alcohol, cocaine and G have been plucking some of the best and brightest from our ranks. And we have been all but mute.
Sure, we love to reach out and give our “Johns” a chance at salvation. Everyone loves a salvation story. The schadenfruede addict in us leaps at the chance to applaud the stories of our resurrected. And clearly, we can fill the passing donation basket of our recovery centers, but can we loft a cent or two to prevent these stories from ever being?
We log countless hours at gyms and tanning salons; spend small fortunes on supplements. But for what? To subject all that work to G and K and T or whatever “trail-mix” was in that zip-lock baggy? Legions of our brothers and sisters are lost in “clouds”.
We feel the moral outrage that we should when a gay man is bashed and left for dead on some highway. But what of the twenty-something gay who drowned in his vomit after overdosing on G?
We are survivors. All of us. We pushed past the judgments of family, friends and even God Himself. We even survived the flagellation of our own self-loathing. But did we overcome all these things just so we could wake up alone in a ditch somewhere, homeless and wreaking of the streets; a stranger to our own friends?
If your are struggling with addiction and are ready for help, please contact the following organizations:
Live & Let Live Alano Club
1730 Monroe San Diego, CA 92116
619 298-8008
Mon-Fri 10:30-10:00, Sat-Sun 8:30-10:00
Stepping Stone of San Diego
3767 Central Avenue San Diego, CA 92105-2506
619.278.0777
Monday — Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For additional resources, you can also visit the following web sites:
http://owenclinic.ucsd.edu/hiv-support/Pages/alcohol-substance-recovery.aspx
http://www.thecentersd.org/programs/behavioral-health-services/
If you are a substance abuse provider and would like to be listed here, please email [email protected] with your information.
Please email responses to this column to [email protected] and include your name and general location.
Wake the "F" Up Dems!
By: Timothy P. Holmberg
Before I even placed the “I voted” sticker on my T-shirt, I knew I wasn’t going like what I saw when I got home and pulled up last night’s election results. For weeks now, I have been having chats with various insiders, and we all have been coming up with roughly the same handicapping of last night’s election. State wide, Democrats are still riding high with few worries on the horizon. But once you cross the San Diego County line, what you see is a Democratic party that is in deep disarray and denial. The Lincoln Club and SD Rostra are giddy this morning.
In short, local Dems got their clock cleaned last night.
Scott Peters my friend, if you keep this up, you're going to need start looking for a new lobbying gig. Because at this rate, come November, you're gonna be hiring movers to clean out your DC gigs. Not many people gave you odds on beating Brian Bilbray last time - you pulled off an amazing nail biter there. But our nails have barely grown back from the last time. Do you realize that right now, Carl DeMaio and Jonathan Hale are out looking for apartments around Dupont Circle? (Perhaps someone can forward Jonathan and Carl the number to Marion Barry so he can show them the lay of the land out there. <sniff>)
Probably the biggest disappointment, Lori Zapf is taking SD City Council District 2 in the primary. BAM! Which is interesting to me. Not more than two weeks ago I sat down in Sarah Boot’s campaign office, and inquired if they would be staking out the OB farmers market to sign people up for GOTV, and their response told me all I needed to know about last nights election results. They were basing their planning on making the run-off. “Primaries always have low turnout. We don’t see [Lori] being able to reach 50 + 1, so we are planning for the general election”. Really? Low turn out is exactly why you throw every last thing you have at the b—ch. Sinks, crowbars, Nicole Murray Ramirez. Anything!
Save your resources for the general election?
Are you nuts?
I would fire the campaign manager that had ANY money in the bank on primary night, or a single volunteer that was not completely comatose. I like Sarah. I sincerely hope she makes a run at another office. But next time, you walk in that ring like you were Mike Tyson. You don’t go in there to play with Lori for ten rounds girl. You go in there and bite her f-ing ear off if you have to!
(yes, I know he lost that fight, but you get the point)(Todd Gloria, Todd Goria . . . paging Todd Gloria, endorse dems much?)
If the last hope Dems have of holding onto a veto proof majority on the City Council is district 6 - then you may not need to bother going out and getting that medical MJ prescription, you are already high. Carol Kim is a nice person, with a nice smile, but with her paltry 31(ish) percent of the vote? True, she may grab (and needs to grab) a major chunk of Mitz Lee's voters to pull this off in the general. BTW, if you want to attract voters based on your support of small business – offer small business something more substantive than just a hug! If there are two voting blocks that are an almost knee jerk vote for Republicans, it's businesses and the military. It's not that Democrats can't get these groups, but we have to work harder than the R's at it. Can anyone who looks at Carol Kim's website show me one single policy proposal that goes beyond a hug for small business, neighborhoods and the military? And whose idea was it to pin our hopes on this district? Really? Look at the SD City Council District 6 map. This is designed as a Republican house. You may be able to claim the front yard, but the house is still their’s. (Todd Gloria, Todd Gloria . . . paging iMayor Todd Gloria. Endorse much?)
Bonnie Dumannis, as the first person to interview you for the GLT when you first ran as an open lesbian and promised not to be a R-obot –
You lied.
Sure, you started off good. Because back then, you wanted the gay Democratic vote. But you’ve come to take your election night trysts with gay dems for granted, and those power brokers in your party eventually got to you. It was bad enough when you ran to Jerry Sanders in the run-off for mayor, but to endorse Ernie Dronenburg, they guy who invited a Prop 8 attorney to set up shop in the County Recorder’s office shows that you don’t have an independent bone left in your back. R-obot through and through. All that is left to do now is get you a ghetto blaster and a taped copy of Herbie Hancock’s Rockit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHhD4PD75zY
Oh, there you are Todd Gloria! Finally an endorsement :-(
Speaking of Ernie Dronenburg, getting nearly 60% of the vote after loaning out your office to Charles LiMandri does not exactly inspire fear of the LGBT vote. With half of our elected officials giving aid and comfort to our enemies, there has rarely been a time when the LGBT vote has been so diluted. And that is exactly the Republican plan.
If you are in a city with an increasingly democratic voter base, the only way you hold onto power for all your special interest buddies, is to start cleaving off the votes from certain reliably Democratic groups. The LGBT community is being duped into believing that some new brand of "moderate" Republican wants to stand tall with our community in our battles for civil rights. Hah! Hang out with the folks over at SD Rostra and the Lincoln club for a while, and you will get a good whiff of just what they think of us gays.
And what has happened to our fine iMayor, Todd Gloria? You endorsed Bonnie Dumanis against a fine alternative. This is the Bonnie who endorsed LGBT community foe Ernie Dronenburg. Why did you do it? Because you knew Bonnie would win.
Barrio Logan is now the poster child for the absolute futility of the community planning process. Millions of tax payer dollars went up in smoke last night, and the democrat’s campaign for Prop B and C was as limp as an empty condom. Let’s just say it, David Alvarez was abandoned on the battlefield. (Todd Gloria, Todd Gloria . . . paging Todd Gloria)
And what about our Democratic Party apparatus in San Diego? What has happened there? Do Democrats even endorse Democrats anymore? Sure, the whole thing with Bob Filner turned into our usual circular firing squad, but isn’t it about time we started to walk on? We’ve had a voter registration advantage in this city for what, like a decade now? We should be running the board here. Instead, we are falling on our swords.
We can and must do MUCH better than this. We have a group of Republican insiders who have plundered this city’s treasures and left our infrastructure in a crumbling mess. Big business has practically run this city into the ground. And somehow we seem unable to turn that indictment into almost a single election night victory? It’s one thing not to win the Super Bowl, but to not even make the playoffs? Cheezus.
By: Timothy P. Holmberg
Before I even placed the “I voted” sticker on my T-shirt, I knew I wasn’t going like what I saw when I got home and pulled up last night’s election results. For weeks now, I have been having chats with various insiders, and we all have been coming up with roughly the same handicapping of last night’s election. State wide, Democrats are still riding high with few worries on the horizon. But once you cross the San Diego County line, what you see is a Democratic party that is in deep disarray and denial. The Lincoln Club and SD Rostra are giddy this morning.
In short, local Dems got their clock cleaned last night.
Scott Peters my friend, if you keep this up, you're going to need start looking for a new lobbying gig. Because at this rate, come November, you're gonna be hiring movers to clean out your DC gigs. Not many people gave you odds on beating Brian Bilbray last time - you pulled off an amazing nail biter there. But our nails have barely grown back from the last time. Do you realize that right now, Carl DeMaio and Jonathan Hale are out looking for apartments around Dupont Circle? (Perhaps someone can forward Jonathan and Carl the number to Marion Barry so he can show them the lay of the land out there. <sniff>)
Probably the biggest disappointment, Lori Zapf is taking SD City Council District 2 in the primary. BAM! Which is interesting to me. Not more than two weeks ago I sat down in Sarah Boot’s campaign office, and inquired if they would be staking out the OB farmers market to sign people up for GOTV, and their response told me all I needed to know about last nights election results. They were basing their planning on making the run-off. “Primaries always have low turnout. We don’t see [Lori] being able to reach 50 + 1, so we are planning for the general election”. Really? Low turn out is exactly why you throw every last thing you have at the b—ch. Sinks, crowbars, Nicole Murray Ramirez. Anything!
Save your resources for the general election?
Are you nuts?
I would fire the campaign manager that had ANY money in the bank on primary night, or a single volunteer that was not completely comatose. I like Sarah. I sincerely hope she makes a run at another office. But next time, you walk in that ring like you were Mike Tyson. You don’t go in there to play with Lori for ten rounds girl. You go in there and bite her f-ing ear off if you have to!
(yes, I know he lost that fight, but you get the point)(Todd Gloria, Todd Goria . . . paging Todd Gloria, endorse dems much?)
If the last hope Dems have of holding onto a veto proof majority on the City Council is district 6 - then you may not need to bother going out and getting that medical MJ prescription, you are already high. Carol Kim is a nice person, with a nice smile, but with her paltry 31(ish) percent of the vote? True, she may grab (and needs to grab) a major chunk of Mitz Lee's voters to pull this off in the general. BTW, if you want to attract voters based on your support of small business – offer small business something more substantive than just a hug! If there are two voting blocks that are an almost knee jerk vote for Republicans, it's businesses and the military. It's not that Democrats can't get these groups, but we have to work harder than the R's at it. Can anyone who looks at Carol Kim's website show me one single policy proposal that goes beyond a hug for small business, neighborhoods and the military? And whose idea was it to pin our hopes on this district? Really? Look at the SD City Council District 6 map. This is designed as a Republican house. You may be able to claim the front yard, but the house is still their’s. (Todd Gloria, Todd Gloria . . . paging iMayor Todd Gloria. Endorse much?)
Bonnie Dumannis, as the first person to interview you for the GLT when you first ran as an open lesbian and promised not to be a R-obot –
You lied.
Sure, you started off good. Because back then, you wanted the gay Democratic vote. But you’ve come to take your election night trysts with gay dems for granted, and those power brokers in your party eventually got to you. It was bad enough when you ran to Jerry Sanders in the run-off for mayor, but to endorse Ernie Dronenburg, they guy who invited a Prop 8 attorney to set up shop in the County Recorder’s office shows that you don’t have an independent bone left in your back. R-obot through and through. All that is left to do now is get you a ghetto blaster and a taped copy of Herbie Hancock’s Rockit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHhD4PD75zY
Oh, there you are Todd Gloria! Finally an endorsement :-(
Speaking of Ernie Dronenburg, getting nearly 60% of the vote after loaning out your office to Charles LiMandri does not exactly inspire fear of the LGBT vote. With half of our elected officials giving aid and comfort to our enemies, there has rarely been a time when the LGBT vote has been so diluted. And that is exactly the Republican plan.
If you are in a city with an increasingly democratic voter base, the only way you hold onto power for all your special interest buddies, is to start cleaving off the votes from certain reliably Democratic groups. The LGBT community is being duped into believing that some new brand of "moderate" Republican wants to stand tall with our community in our battles for civil rights. Hah! Hang out with the folks over at SD Rostra and the Lincoln club for a while, and you will get a good whiff of just what they think of us gays.
And what has happened to our fine iMayor, Todd Gloria? You endorsed Bonnie Dumanis against a fine alternative. This is the Bonnie who endorsed LGBT community foe Ernie Dronenburg. Why did you do it? Because you knew Bonnie would win.
Barrio Logan is now the poster child for the absolute futility of the community planning process. Millions of tax payer dollars went up in smoke last night, and the democrat’s campaign for Prop B and C was as limp as an empty condom. Let’s just say it, David Alvarez was abandoned on the battlefield. (Todd Gloria, Todd Gloria . . . paging Todd Gloria)
And what about our Democratic Party apparatus in San Diego? What has happened there? Do Democrats even endorse Democrats anymore? Sure, the whole thing with Bob Filner turned into our usual circular firing squad, but isn’t it about time we started to walk on? We’ve had a voter registration advantage in this city for what, like a decade now? We should be running the board here. Instead, we are falling on our swords.
We can and must do MUCH better than this. We have a group of Republican insiders who have plundered this city’s treasures and left our infrastructure in a crumbling mess. Big business has practically run this city into the ground. And somehow we seem unable to turn that indictment into almost a single election night victory? It’s one thing not to win the Super Bowl, but to not even make the playoffs? Cheezus.
Carl DeMaio’s Big Gay Problem
By: Timothy P. Holmberg
Carl DeMaio has a big gay problem.
Unlike many of his Republican colleagues who have yet to emerge from the closet, the problem is not that he is hiding his gay identity. He has been living openly for quite some time now. No, Carl’s problem is that his community, the gay community, doesn’t much like him. Contrary to his insistence in numerous interviews, this dislike is not just relegated to some hyper-partisan fringe corner of our LGBT movement. Rather it is a broad based dislike that is palpable anytime he and his partner, Jonathan Hale, walk through Hillcrest.
An ever-increasing roster of reporters has pressed the obvious question of why the LGBT community seems to have such a special dislike for him and his partner. To be sure, for his part, DeMaio has been happy to fan the political flames with Democrats. When DeMaio’s office was recently ransacked, within a matter of hours he was on Fox News all but blaming gay Democrats for the vandalism. But even this, can hardly account for the visceral distaste in the LGBT community for all things Carl. So vivid is this dislike, that when DeMaio and his partner marched in a recent Pride Parade, onlookers for the length of the parade turned their backs to him in a display of rejection that even the most strident denialist would find difficult to miss.
So, is this just partisanship run amok? Have we all maligned DeMaio to appease our own guilty worship of the Democratic Party?
Hardly.
The San Diego LGBT community has a long list of Republicans we have embraced and blessed with our votes. Bonnie Dumanis, and Ron Roberts come immediately to mind.
DeMaio, above all else, is a Magna Cum Laude opportunist. His career, even as young as it is, is already littered with those he has betrayed in his climb to higher office. One such betrayal stands large in the LGBT community. DeMaio’s alliance with Charles LiMandri, the very attorney who defended Proposition 8, is demonstrative of what is driving the LGBT community’s revulsion. To have abandoned fidelity with our community by promising to be AWOL on LGBT rights in exchange for donor support is inexcusable. To do so and then stroll to a marriage equality victory party at the LGBT Center, and stand up on the stage alongside figures with true battle scars over that issue is frankly despicable. But such is the nature of Republican allegiances.
Perhaps it feeds DeMaio’s obvious narcissism to believe that Democrats fear that he will single handedly do what GoProud (the Republican LGBT group that recently folded) was unable to achieve. Already, DeMaio puts himself up almost daily as proof of some miraculous change within the GOP. To be sure, Republicans are running away in droves from their long-time pillar of mandated opposition to marriage equality.
But if DeMaio is in denial about the nature of the LGBT community’s distaste for him, he is blatantly ignorant of the nature of his own party. Even the most color blind Republican can see the marriage issue is lost, but this does not translate to an open embrace for broader gay rights. Even as “traditional marriage” is quietly shuffled out of party position papers, the new battle flag of “religious freedom” is unfurling at Republican gatherings across the country. And religious freedom is just the new code word for an LGBT version of Jim Crow. This is the new battle line that our community will have to confront with years of legal battles and activism.
This is not some new Republican party that has found its civil rights bonafides. Republicans want to exclude minorities and economically disadvantaged voters. What makes anyone think they want gays at the polls either? How many holes will Republicans shoot in ENDA before they jump behind it and claim it as an example of their newfound tolerance? Republicans have long been creatures of opportunism and unlike their idealistic Democratic counterparts, they are willing to place the ends above whatever distasteful means are necessary to achieve victory. And those ends, even now, do not call for full civil rights for the LGBT community.
As naïve as DeMaio would have to be to call his current band of “moderate” Republicans his political family, he is equally naïve about the nature of Democrat’s dislike of him. Democrats have put themselves on the line for decades over the cause of LGBT rights. They have advanced openly gay candidates to some of the highest offices, and been proud to do so. Legislatively, Democrats have pressed substantive legislation over the howling objections of the bulk of the Republican establishment. Democrats do not fear Republicans voting in favor of gay rights; rather, we would welcome them to advance real civil rights protections for the entire LGBT community.
But the Republican party of Lincoln is dead. It has been for over 100 years now. Lincoln himself would bow his head in shame at what Republicans of today have done to his party. Lincoln would never have voted to cut veterans funding. The man who helped end slavery would not have fought marriage equality. If anyone had threatened to shut down the Union over a budget dispute or healthcare, he would have fought them bare-fisted himself. Lincoln, the man who preached “malice toward none, with charity for all” would be nauseated at his party turning its back on the poor during the Great Recession while lavishing the wealthy with tax breaks.
But while these things are obvious to the LGBT community at large, they are lost on DeMaio and his merry band of thieves.
Julius Caesar had more loyal friends than Carl and those he has allied himself with. So forgive us if we refuse his invitation to join his Republican “friends”.
Please email comments to [email protected]
All comments are posted as-is other than correcting minor spelling errors. Though this is pretty much a no holds barred forum, abusive posts are not allowed - try to keep it neat and clean folks. All opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of others involved with this site.
By: Timothy P. Holmberg
Carl DeMaio has a big gay problem.
Unlike many of his Republican colleagues who have yet to emerge from the closet, the problem is not that he is hiding his gay identity. He has been living openly for quite some time now. No, Carl’s problem is that his community, the gay community, doesn’t much like him. Contrary to his insistence in numerous interviews, this dislike is not just relegated to some hyper-partisan fringe corner of our LGBT movement. Rather it is a broad based dislike that is palpable anytime he and his partner, Jonathan Hale, walk through Hillcrest.
An ever-increasing roster of reporters has pressed the obvious question of why the LGBT community seems to have such a special dislike for him and his partner. To be sure, for his part, DeMaio has been happy to fan the political flames with Democrats. When DeMaio’s office was recently ransacked, within a matter of hours he was on Fox News all but blaming gay Democrats for the vandalism. But even this, can hardly account for the visceral distaste in the LGBT community for all things Carl. So vivid is this dislike, that when DeMaio and his partner marched in a recent Pride Parade, onlookers for the length of the parade turned their backs to him in a display of rejection that even the most strident denialist would find difficult to miss.
So, is this just partisanship run amok? Have we all maligned DeMaio to appease our own guilty worship of the Democratic Party?
Hardly.
The San Diego LGBT community has a long list of Republicans we have embraced and blessed with our votes. Bonnie Dumanis, and Ron Roberts come immediately to mind.
DeMaio, above all else, is a Magna Cum Laude opportunist. His career, even as young as it is, is already littered with those he has betrayed in his climb to higher office. One such betrayal stands large in the LGBT community. DeMaio’s alliance with Charles LiMandri, the very attorney who defended Proposition 8, is demonstrative of what is driving the LGBT community’s revulsion. To have abandoned fidelity with our community by promising to be AWOL on LGBT rights in exchange for donor support is inexcusable. To do so and then stroll to a marriage equality victory party at the LGBT Center, and stand up on the stage alongside figures with true battle scars over that issue is frankly despicable. But such is the nature of Republican allegiances.
Perhaps it feeds DeMaio’s obvious narcissism to believe that Democrats fear that he will single handedly do what GoProud (the Republican LGBT group that recently folded) was unable to achieve. Already, DeMaio puts himself up almost daily as proof of some miraculous change within the GOP. To be sure, Republicans are running away in droves from their long-time pillar of mandated opposition to marriage equality.
But if DeMaio is in denial about the nature of the LGBT community’s distaste for him, he is blatantly ignorant of the nature of his own party. Even the most color blind Republican can see the marriage issue is lost, but this does not translate to an open embrace for broader gay rights. Even as “traditional marriage” is quietly shuffled out of party position papers, the new battle flag of “religious freedom” is unfurling at Republican gatherings across the country. And religious freedom is just the new code word for an LGBT version of Jim Crow. This is the new battle line that our community will have to confront with years of legal battles and activism.
This is not some new Republican party that has found its civil rights bonafides. Republicans want to exclude minorities and economically disadvantaged voters. What makes anyone think they want gays at the polls either? How many holes will Republicans shoot in ENDA before they jump behind it and claim it as an example of their newfound tolerance? Republicans have long been creatures of opportunism and unlike their idealistic Democratic counterparts, they are willing to place the ends above whatever distasteful means are necessary to achieve victory. And those ends, even now, do not call for full civil rights for the LGBT community.
As naïve as DeMaio would have to be to call his current band of “moderate” Republicans his political family, he is equally naïve about the nature of Democrat’s dislike of him. Democrats have put themselves on the line for decades over the cause of LGBT rights. They have advanced openly gay candidates to some of the highest offices, and been proud to do so. Legislatively, Democrats have pressed substantive legislation over the howling objections of the bulk of the Republican establishment. Democrats do not fear Republicans voting in favor of gay rights; rather, we would welcome them to advance real civil rights protections for the entire LGBT community.
But the Republican party of Lincoln is dead. It has been for over 100 years now. Lincoln himself would bow his head in shame at what Republicans of today have done to his party. Lincoln would never have voted to cut veterans funding. The man who helped end slavery would not have fought marriage equality. If anyone had threatened to shut down the Union over a budget dispute or healthcare, he would have fought them bare-fisted himself. Lincoln, the man who preached “malice toward none, with charity for all” would be nauseated at his party turning its back on the poor during the Great Recession while lavishing the wealthy with tax breaks.
But while these things are obvious to the LGBT community at large, they are lost on DeMaio and his merry band of thieves.
Julius Caesar had more loyal friends than Carl and those he has allied himself with. So forgive us if we refuse his invitation to join his Republican “friends”.
Please email comments to [email protected]
All comments are posted as-is other than correcting minor spelling errors. Though this is pretty much a no holds barred forum, abusive posts are not allowed - try to keep it neat and clean folks. All opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of others involved with this site.
Please email comments to [email protected]
All comments are posted as-is other than correcting minor spelling errors. Though this is pretty much a no holds barred forum, abusive posts are not allowed - try to keep it neat and clean folks. All opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of others involved with this site.
All comments are posted as-is other than correcting minor spelling errors. Though this is pretty much a no holds barred forum, abusive posts are not allowed - try to keep it neat and clean folks. All opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of others involved with this site.
