Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
LGBT focus shifting to politics
Community wants voices to be heard
The gay and lesbian community is gearing up for a different kind of June pride month, one featuring less partying and more politics.
Several causes are contributing to the change: alarm over President Donald Trump, the first anniof versary of the Pulse nightclub massacre, and a sense by some that the movement for gay and lesbian rights may need a jumpstart two years after same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide.
LGBT leaders in South Florida hope rallies today in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and 95 other communities across the country will show strength in numbers and mobilize a force that packs a punch — to further advance gay and lesbian rights and carry through to future elections.
“It’s really important that as a community we come together and make sure that our voices are heard,” said Miik Martorell of Aventura, an organizer of the Fort Lauderdale gathering.
“This was a nasty election. And there’s a lot of unhappiness all the way around. People truthfully feel like no one cares about them.”
Rand Hoch, founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, said LGBT South Floridians are fortunate because the region’s culture — and antidiscrimination ordinances enacted by city and county governments.
“If you go a few miles north into Martin County, they have none,” Hoch said.
Hoch said he wants the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a law that would ban anti-gay discrimination in housing, jobs and public employment and apply pressure to the Trump administration.
Friend or foe
The gay and lesbian community isn’t monolithic in its views about Trump. Some see him as hostile to LGBT people; some see him as supportive; and others say it’s tough to tease out exactly what he thinks.
Among the critics’ complaints about Trump and his administration’s decisions:
Placing people who have opposed LGBT civil rights and same-sex marriage into the government’s most critical jobs. Activists point to Vice President Mike Pence, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Rolling back Department of Education protections for transgender students in schools.
Eliminating LGBT demographic questions from the National Survey of Older Americans. U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Broward-Palm Beach County Democrat who is a vice chairman of the congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, said that would make it much harder to assess the way the federal government should spend money on seniors.
Removing LGBT pages from the White House website within hours of the president’s inauguration.
Deciding not to issue a proclamation in support of LGBT Pride Month in June, something done by Democratic former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Nadine Smith, CEO of the Equality Florida civil rights organization, said Trump’s positions on LGBT issues are “fairly illegible, sort of all over the map.”
But, she said, his personnel decisions are “crystal clear. He has stacked his administration with unrepentant bigots, from the vice president to the attorney general.” Hoch said there are many things the president could be doing but isn’t, such as supporting gays who are being hunted down, tortured and killed in the Russian republic of Chechnya.
Smith was a prominent supporter of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign; Hoch is a former Palm Beach County Democratic chairman.
Charles LoPiccolo of Lauderdale-by-theSea, a gay Republican who supports Trump, said too many LGBT leaders are blinded by their allegiance to the Democratic Party and refuse to fairly assess the president.
On June 1, the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, tweeted her support for LGBT pride. “This month we celebrate and honor the #LGBTQ community,” she wrote. During his speech at last year’s Republican National Convention, Trump became his first party’s nominee to bring up LGBT Americans in a positive light. A major convention address was delivered by an openly gay Trump supporter.
“For the first time, a person who had won the Republican nomination for president came out against prejudice against gay people. That was incredible. He got no credit for that in our community,” LoPiccolo said.
Mark Foley, the openly gay former Republican member of Congress from Palm Beach County, said he’s known Trump for years and doesn’t see hostility toward the LGBT community.
Foley said reflexive hostility from LGBT Democrats toward Trump and other Republicans isn’t an effective long-term strategy. He said events such as the weekend rallies can be valuable when they bring increased attention, but he recommended against a “poke in the eye rather than trying to create the opening for real conversation and understanding.”
Organizers of the weekend’s events in South Florida said they are nonpartisan, though many of the speaking slots are filled by Democratic politicians and activists.
Party or activism
Pride month festivals and parades have evolved more toward celebration and fun than activism and politics. A high point was in 2015, as people anticipated the U.S. Supreme Court decision finding a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry.
It turned to mourning a year later, after the June 12, 2016, massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, where a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others.
David Jobin of Wilton Manors, an organizer of the Fort Lauderdale event, said: “Too often people look at South Florida and they see a party capital, especially for LGBT folks. For those of us who make this our home, we want to make a political statement.
“You see pride parades with floats and go-go boys. We’re fortunate that we were able to enjoy that for all those years, but now we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work again.”
Mark Ketchum, who is helping organize the event in Fort Lauderdale, where he lives, sees a political benefit if there are large turnouts of LGBT people and their allies.
“We organized this to send a message to Washington and Tallahassee that we are organized, we are voters,” he said.
Michael Macocco, a housing case manager from Oakland Park, said he hopes his presence at the Fort Lauderdale rally helps send a message to the president and the rest of the political world. “Hopefully they’ll take notice.”