A Democratic mayor in Florida has publicly stated she will “review” pro-LGBT rights ordinances — assumedly with the intention of removing them — after receiving the endorsement of an anti-gay organization. Shirley Gibson (image, top, at podium), mayor of Miami Gardens — but running for the more powerful position of Miami-Dade County Commissioner — over the weekend accepted the endorsement of the Christian Family Coalition (CFC), which just formed a powerful alliance with the Catholic Cultural Fund (CCF).
The Christian Family Coalition’s announcement includes this tidbit:
“If any candidate wants to get elected to public office in Miami-Dade County and all of South Florida, then they need to work with fair-minded, pro-life, pro-family citizens of this community,†said Anthony Verdugo, executive director of the Christian Family Coalition.
CFC now represents 100,000 fair-minded pro-life, pro-family voters in Miami-Dade County, during last year’s countywide elections, 29 percent cast a ballot versus only 16% of all voters countywide.
The Miami New Times reports:
Despite the Christian Family Coalition’s regular habit of hurling hate-fueled messages towards the LGBT community and tirelessly working to strip gays of even the most basic rights, spineless local politicians desperate for any vote continue to legitimize the group by courting its members.
Miami Gardens Mayor Shirley Gibson is currently running to unseat incumbent Miami-Dade County Commissioner Barbara Jordan, and over the weekend accepted the group’s endorsement. In return, she promised to “review” Miami-Dade’s human rights ordinance that protects gays from discrimination.
The CFC and its founder and executive director, Anthony Verdugo, have taken the reigns of Anita Bryant’s Miami anti-gay crusade. In 2002 Verdugo unsuccessfully lead a group trying to repeal a Miami-Dade ordinance that protects gays against discrimination in housing and at the workplace. The CFC website’s “Homosexual Agenda” section is filled with all sorts of homophobic “alerts.” Among other things, they’ve even called Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen an “an arrogant, anti-Family, homosexualist extremist.”
That didn’t’ stop Gibson, a registered Democrat running for the nonpartisan county commission, from accepting a joint endorsement from the Christian Family Coalition and the Catholic Cultural Fund according to the Herald‘s Gay South Florida blog.
According to Steve Rothaus, Gibson promised to “seek a cost review of Miami-Dade County’s human rights ordinance, which protects gays and lesbians from discrimination in work and housing, and also provides health benefits for same-sex and opposite-sex partners.”
The CFC calls themselves “Florida’s tireless human rights and social justice organization.” Earlier this year, the Miami New Times called the Christian Family Coalition “a fringe organization most notable for opposing the ‘homosexual agenda’ at every stop and trying to resurrect anti-gay laws from Miami-Dade’s homophobic past,” and added that it “may have a feel-good name, but make no mistake the group’s founder and executive director Anthony Verdugo is something of the less successful, second coming of Anita Bryant.”
In 1977, Dade County passed an ordinance protecting homosexuals from discrimination at the workplace and in housing. Bryant lead a successful, high-profile campaign to have the ordinance repealed. Twenty years later, Miami-Dade once again passed a similar bill protecting homosexuals from discrimination. Verdugo helped lead a similar effort to have the new ordinance repealed by a referendum, but it was voted down by 56 percent of voters in 2002. In other words, his most extreme views haven’t flown with Miami-Dade voters for at least the past decade.
Kyle Munzenrieder at the Miami New Times cautions:
Local politicians should be careful with dealing with the CFC. It may not be worth it, anyway. Verdugo say it represents more than 100,000 local voters. Their Facebook page, though, has all of 19 likes.
Image: (Left to right): Rev. Julio E. Perez, Speaking: Miami Gardens Mayor Shirley Gibson, Anthony Verdugo, Founder & Executive Director, Christian Family Coalition (CFC), grassroots activists, judicial candidate John “Johnny” Rodriguez, via CFC