Mike Hill’s homophobia shows us why Pride Month is important

We would rather not spend time writing about a lone Panhandle politician who seems intent on making himself look ridiculous.

But Mike Hill is powerful evidence of why — gay or straight — we should pay attention this June to LGBT Pride Month.

He is proof that homophobia not only lives, it gets elected. It shapes laws. It serves in the military. It sells insurance. It sits on hospital boards. It goes to church.

It’s all around us, and it’s why Pride Month matters.

Hill was a second-tier and little-noticed state representative from Pensacola until he burst onto the scene last month through a recording of a civic meeting where he and another person exchanged their thoughts on the Bible’s view of homosexuality.

The other person misquoted I Corinthians in the New Testament, saying it called for death to men who had affairs with men. Hill replied that punishment was echoed the Old Testament. Another audience member mentioned possible legislation along those lines. Hill chuckled and wondered aloud how that would go over.

Hill says he was laughing at the absurdity of the suggestion, not the idea of a state law to execute people because of their sexual orientation.

In what has been misreported as an apology, Hill issued a statement through a friendly talk-show host conceding he should have corrected the audience member’s misinterpretation of scripture and regretting how his tone was “received.”

The lawmaker’s absence of humility and grace is overshadowed by what we’re learning about the core beliefs of this person who occupies respectable and consequential positions in his community and the state.

Hill seethes with contempt for the LGBT community, and proudly displays his disdain on Facebook and Twitter.

In an article last week, Andy Marlette, the Pensacola News Journal writer and cartoonist who originally revealed the recording, followed up by documenting Hill’s social media attacks on the LGBT community.

For example, before an annual LGBT event in 2015, Hill tweeted a photo of the moon shining on the Gulf of Mexico with the caption, “Pensacola Beach before the hostile invasion.”

In 2017, Hill tweeted a link to a post on a blog called Last Days Watchman, which celebrated the idea that “you are free to treat gay ‘marriage’ as abnormal and criminally sick in Russia.”

And just last week, amid the controversy over his recorded comments, Hill retweeted evangelist Franklin Graham’s thanks to the Trump administration for refusing to allow rainbow flags to be flown at American embassies during

Pride Month (though some embassies are defying the order).

Hill’s recorded comments produced a brief spasm of outrage from state Republican legislative leaders — and a more muted response from Gov. Ron DeSantis — who sought an apology from their colleague. They’ve quietly retreated and Hill now counters that he’s the one who deserves an apology. (A reminder that the new norm in some political circles is to never say you’re sorry for anything.)

Hill knows he has them at a disadvantage. A spirited defense of LGBT rights is not a winning political proposition for the GOP right now.

It’s why party leaders won’t even give a hearing to the Competitive Workforce Act, which would expand the Florida

Civil Rights Act and is supported by an array of businesses, from Disney to AT&T to CSX.

The workforce act would prevent someone from being denied a restaurant meal or a job or housing because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. You can’t discriminate now because of someone’s race, gender, religion or even marital status, but you can if they’re gay. And legislative leaders don’t have the stomach for changing that.

Maybe that explains why Hill is behaving so boldly. After all, the conversation about biblical remedies for sexual orientation was part of a discussion about the Competitive Workforce Act, which led Hill to state his belief that a “lifestyle choice” doesn’t deserve protection.

Hear his meaning: Not everyone deserves equal protection under the law.

That’s why Pride Month matters.

Mike Hill is proof that homophobia not only lives, it gets elected. It shapes laws. It serves in the military. It sells insurance. It sits on hospital boards. It goes to church. It’s all around us, and it’s why Pride Month matters.