The fight begins. All supporters must be welcome.

There are two important things to think about when you read this Palm Beach Post item. The first is that all supporters of marriage equality must get in fighting shape right now. The other is that we absolutely cannot start beating away people who are on our side.

From the post:
---
Former NBA star Tim Hardaway tonight is scheduled to become the first petition-signer on the Equal Marriage Florida effort to put a proposed constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex marriage in the state on the November 2014 ballot... Equal Marriage Florida would define marriage as a “union of two persons” and would erase a gay marriage ban approved by voters only five years ago.
---

As I already noted in a prior post, it will be hard to pass this item. While I think a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Florida today would surely fail because it couldn't hit 60 percent, reversing this terrible decision from just five years ago will be a challenge because that high hurdle is now our burden.

And that brings me to the second critical aspect of this fight. We cannot scoff at anyone's support. Not anyone.

It will be hard to stomach for many to fight alongside Tim Hardaway in this fight, a man who made headlines making unabashed homophobic remarks at just the same moment the last gay marriage fight in Florida was gearing up. He was beaten up for that, and seems to have fully embraced the equal rights agenda now. We need to welcome people who change their mind into the fold.

It wasn't so long ago that the great fear of straights supporting gay rights was that we would be mistaken for gay. I'd love to tell you that was never a concern of mine growing up, but this I don't think I would have marched in the streets at age 19 for gay rights just because I would be afraid what others would assume. Of course, I got over that at a younger age than certain NBA all-stars, but that's not the point.

There is a reason that we didn't see a pro athlete in one of America's major team sports come out until this year. The attitudes on personal issues like that are different from situation to situation. If we preach tolerance, we need to allow people to evolve and embrace them when they reach the other side of this great divide. Our job is to coax people into our position using reason, not embarrass them by waving the finger of shame.

This has struck me especially this year, we saw the first GOP senator come out in favor of gay marriage. Rob Portman changed his position because his son is gay, and that changed his position. Of course, Dick Cheney it may be presumed was at least influenced by similar circumstance. Liberals unwilling to put down the sword for even a second chastise these individuals for having selfish reasons for coming to the side of angels.

The New York Times' Paul Krugman said of Portman:
---
While enlightenment is good, wouldn’t it have been a lot more praiseworthy if he had shown some flexibility on the issue before he knew that his own family would benefit? I’ve noticed this thing quite a lot in American life lately — this sort of cramped vision of altruism in which it’s considered perfectly acceptable to support only those causes that are directly good for you and yours.
---

But so what? Hardway may only have come around on gay rights because he was afraid of losing endorsement deals. Portman may only have rethought his position on gay marriage because a ban hurts his own child. Do you know what that makes these men?

Allies.

Folks, this is how change happens. The reason marriage equality supporters were losing this issue so badly 10 years ago wasn't because we weren't organized. It wasn't because we needed better spokesmen or better funding. Improvement in those area helps, but in a democracy, none of those things are what truly wins the day.

We were losing 10 years ago because the vast majority of Americans thought we were wrong. We lost on Amendment 2 five years ago more than 3 of every 5 Floridians favored codified bigotry over equal rights. We only win this issue when we convince people who once that we were wrong that we in fact are right.

Now, momentum is so clearly on our side it seems unimaginable that the tide will turn against gay marriage. But make no mistake, the winning shot on this one is not made by Jason Collins. It's made by Tim Hardaway. He is the one who changed the game he was playing. And we need the game-changers on our side.

Repeal and Replace Amend 2 Now

Florida voters need to remove the term Prop 8 from their heads. It's gone now and it never affected them in the first place.

In all the excitement about rulings this week, entirely too much attention has been placed on Prop 8. Certainly, it's a big deal that same-sex marriage is legal in the largest state of the union, but more most of America, it is still against the law. And many Florida liberals have appeared startlingly unaware for years that on the same day California passed a law dashing marriage equality in one Sunshine State, Florida voters were preemptively discriminating against homosexuals here in the other one.

I imagine most of the readers on this obscure blog understand the landmark court decisions this week didn't legalize gay marriage nationwide. It's much more complicated. If you happen to live in one of a dozen states where court rulings, legislative action or voter referendum has come down on the side of human rights, your fight is over. But for Florida and 37 other states, the fight has only just begun.

Here, we need to do two things, and they won't be easy.

Holy Crap! Jennifer Carroll is out?

I would never have predicted this (via the Miami Herald):

---

Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll resigned, Gov. Rick Scott’s office announced Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, she was interviewed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is assisting in a national probe of Allied Veterans of the World, a Florida-based nonprofit that operates a chain of internet cafes.

Carroll once owned a public relations firm that represented Allied Veterans, and she did work for the company at the same time she served in the Florida House.

---

I have to concede that I always viewed Carroll as one of the legitimate government people in the Voldemort administration. She is not the one I figured would get perp-walked out of office. Reading the story completely, it is quite possible this matter, being pushed forward by an investigation in Oklahoma, may be a guilt-by-association thing. Only time will truly tell.

Carroll was actually a supporter of Bill McCollum in the governor's race two years ago, and was tapped by Rick Scott as a running mate in an apparent attempt to unite he party.

I'm very curious how this whole thing plays out, but at the very least, this will result in a judgment issue for Scott. Why, of all the potential running mates with legitimate government credentials, did Scott go with someone doing this type of outside work in addition to her public service? Was he that poor at vetting? Was it just a craven move motivated by a desire for diversity on the ticket?

And if Carroll ends up not having done anything wrong, will Scott have to answer for cutting her loose at the first sound of trouble.

In truth, Carroll has been a surprising source of problems for the administration. Allegations leveled against her by former staffer Caretha Cole, and Carroll's unfortunate response to those rumors, garnered embarrassing attention to the normally invisible office of Lt. Governor.

But seeing her depart from office, especially as the next gubernatorial cycle just starts to rev up, is going to be troublesome for Scott. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving administration.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/13/3283274/lt-gov-jennifer-carroll-resigns.html#storylink=cpy

Why Poland Springs?

Sorry. It had to be said. If our U.S. Senator had to take an opportunity at the national stage and use it turn himself into a meme, couldn't he at least have grabbed some Zephyrhills?

Too many bottled water companies call Florida home to evade getting called out on this one Marco Rubio!

Lake County's Bigoted History

I should have learned a long time ago that it never was good for Lake County to make national headlines. The possibility the school district may ban all school clubs to make sure a pro-gay club isn't allowed to operate at Carver Middle School leaves me hiding me head in shame once again.

I'm not sure where to start on the bad publicity surrounding this, but a good place is probably the sad history of the Lake County schools' brushes with national attention. I was in high school when the America First controversy garnered attention from across the nation. Those who did not grow up in Lake County can read that link to the New York Times (that's the New York FRIGGIN' Times) for background. The short version is that the School Board, after seeing the Christian Coalition get three members elected on the five-member board, voted to require history classes teach that America was morally superior to all other cultures in the world. It is hard to believe this whole episode happened in the early 1990s.

As someone who lived in the county at that time, I cannot overstate the extraordinary embarrassment foisted upon everybody living there by this utter nonsense. This should not be forgotten by School Board members considering taking a stand firmly on the side of homophobia in a world changing faster that street-front of 441.

As that Times article notes, a political solution was eventually found to the problem with the political ouster of these School Board members, in a Republican primary no less.

But something left unexplored in this article is the long list of specific embarrassments we suffered thanks to this crew. I myself testified in front of a School Board committee at one point because the district, which at the time beamed Channel 1 into classrooms each morning, was planning to censor a report on AIDS which discussed condoms. Because I attended hearings in Tavares, I was one of the only students in the district to see the full report—it did get censored—but I still cannot fathom the logic that mentioning sex in front of teenagers in the context of a terrible and fatal disease was going to be arousing, but going to school uneducated about the dangers of unsafe sex would keep youngsters on the path of the righteous.

If only this was the darkest part of history for education in Lake County. No, that distinction belongs to the entire 28-year reign of Sheriff Willis McCall.

The wickedness of McCall's time as a "law and order man" in Lake County could fill books, but his most notorious interaction with the learning of children likely came in 1954, when the sheriff ejected five Croation children out of a Mount Dora school because they appeared colored. This happened the same year that the Supreme Court declared desegregation illegal in the famous and surely-known-even-in-Lake-County verdict for Brown v. Board of Education. Yet in a public hearing, McCall said the children weren't allowed in white schools, even pointing directly at a 13-year-old girl and declaring he didn't "like the shape of that one's nose."

Right now, school officials in Lake County are concerned the actions of the School Board today will make the county appear out of step with the rest of America. Unfortunately, such action would be par for the course.

In an interesting historic twist, Lake County's Chistian Coalition majority was booted from office by voters the same year Willis McCall died. I naively hoped at a younger age that the county's days of discrimination and its philosophy of supremacy was sent to the hells of history in 1994. Sadly, that does not appear to be so.

It is important to note that a Gay-Straight Alliance, as students at Carver Middle School wish to start today, is devoted to promoting tolerance, not to recruiting homosexuals. It does not seek to "make" kids gay. Likewise, any fears one might have that sexual experimentation was going on within a middle school should want groups like this to be sanctioned and sponsored by professional faculty. That's the way to ensure student's conflict about their personal identity are dealt with in an appropriate setting, not through putting themselves in private, potentially predatory situations.

The issue of fairness should also be considered. The School Board never batted an eye about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (nor should it have). It also hasn't ever stopped clubs with no academic purpose whatsoever to form. At one point, Leesburg High School had a Dungeons and Dragons club.

But I hope above all that the School Board, the next time it meets, considers how their decision on this matter will be viewed in 20 or 60 years. Despite his political popularity at the time, the actions of Willis McCall are viewed universally as monstrous bigotry today. Lake County already looks behind the time on tolerance by entertaining a ban on student groups. If such a ruling is truly put into place now, will the decision in the future be viewed any differently than the actions of McCall?

My genuine fear is that history will see this ban as a continuation of hateful policies. After a few decades pass, there will be visible a clear line from banning Croatians to boasting superiority to banning gays. In every case, brave voices always stood up and said these policies were wrong. Will the Lake County School Board stand with the brave or the bigoted?

Bill McBride, 1945-2012

The news of the passing of Bill McBride took by sorrowful surprise today. Considering the man never was as successful in politics as many of us hoped he would be, I know his death will not be seen widely as a major event. But for so many reasons, I feel loss at the news.

Of course, I have always liked that McBride went to the same high school I did. The notion a Yellowjacket could have become governor of Florida was undeniably appealing from the moment I learned he was pondering entering the race in 2002. But I also appreciated how his small town heritage informed his politics, sometimes to his detriment in terms of strategy but always in a way that earned admiration on a personal level. I think back to how these powerful individuals who lived their lives sweeping the state end to end would always make sure there was never a day when one parent wasn't with their children, even if that meant rejiggering a high-stakes campaign. McBride's family came before his ambition, and I weep today for the now-grown children Bert and Lexi.

McBride, of course, was a remarkably successful lawyer before he tried his hand at statewide politics, so that loss should not be overlooked. In the end, Alex Sink was the more politically successful part of this power couple, something I would never have guessed a decade ago.

I recall when I first met McBride. He was campaigning at a Democratic banquet in Leesburg. His message at the time, that he was a better challenger to Jeb Bush's re-election than the baggage-laden Janet Reno, went over remarkably well with this hometown crowd. In the end, the fact McBride beat Reno and lost to Bush was a lesson to Florida Democrats on being overly cautious. (Could Bush have really bludgeoned Reno with Waco as the country was mounting up for a full-scale war with Iraq?) But for the Democrats at Silver Lake, the simple prospect of having a governor who knew what Lake Griffin looked like in the 1970s and could it to the polluted mess of modern times was enough reason to forgo any other options in the gubernatorial contest.

McBride spoke to me and told me he was already tracking what his hometown paper, The Daily Commercial, was writing about his own bid. He had read a recent article I wrote questioning if McBride, even if he won the nomination, could even carry Lake County in the end (he couldn't, it turned out). But he said he wanted me kept abreast of the race and gave me a direct cell phone number to reach him whenever I needed. Curses, I lost the number pretty quickly, but the campaign kept in touch to the bitter end.

The paper that year was the first in Florida to endorse McBride in the general, a risky move in a Republican County but one which still feels right. The guy was a hometown hero, even if he ended up being a bit politically naive. But I loved that someone growing up in the small town, conservative bastion of Leesburg had, just like myself, grown up realizing progressive policies would benefit the region more than free market-conservatism. The fact he was one of the most successful businessmen in Florida made him a good spokesperson for that message as well.

He wasn't perfect. I recall interviewing him about his longtime relationship with Gary Morse, the politically powerful owner of The Villages, and he simply said "I don't know what your problem with Gary is?" Oh, where to start... But even then, it struck me his failure to support oversight of explosive urban sprawl in the case of The Villages had more to do with misplaces personal loyalty than financial corruption.

I am saddened by news of McBride's death, though not entirely shocked. Even during the race, it was obvious the man was not the poster child for healthy living, and at the paper, we would get calls regularly from people talking about his dramatic shifts in weight. But I certainly wished for a long and happy life for McBride.

Going forward, I pray for Alex Sink and her family, and I hope still for the future McBride tried to achieve. I hope the days of the small town Democrat combining rural values with progressive sense haven't died with him.

RIP

Let The Consternation Begin

We saw it coming. Now the moment has arrived. Charlie Crist, whose early political stances earned him the nickname Chain Gang Charlie, is now a Democrat. From the Tampa Bay Times, which seems to have the fullest account: 
---
Crist... signed papers changing his party from independent to Democrat. He did so during a Christmas reception at the White House, where President Barack Obama greeted the news with a fist bump for the man who had a higher profile campaigning for Obama's re-election this year than any Florida Democrat.
---

The paper goes on to tell some of these reasons Democratic partisans should be happy about this. The man is almost certainly running for governor in two years, and quite frankly would be a slam dunk to kick Gov. Voldemort and his deatheaters back into hiding.

 But all I feel is dread. Why? Because Charlie Crist has done all the things I said last May that would make his worth our consideration as a viable Democratic candidate, and it all makes feel a little ill. Part of it is that the rank political opportunism emanating from the man's political soul smells more than ever precisely because he was willing to do all those things. But strong as well is the fact no politician in the country better exemplifies what is so wrong with the Republican Party post-2010, and what makes the Democratic Party the one which genuinely represents a cross-section of America.

A man who served as the standard bearer for conservative values in a hopeless Senate bid in Florida as recently as 1998 is now treated as an alien at Marco Rubio's tea party. That Democrats will consider a man who even with his rush to the left would be a moderate within our own ranks speaks to the open-minded of those on the left.

 Of course, that also opens our side up to being dragged rightward in the central positions of our party, and that is distressing. Great candidates like Pam Iorio look like moderates today but could be branded communists by the time a primary with Crist was completed. A candidate like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, whom I have greatly admired since her days in the state Senate, will get lambasted as Marxists from the start should she enter the race.

But then again, Crist may have done as much as any Florida Democrat to help President Obama win Florida this year. That means a lot with party officials, and more with moderate voters.

So what's a good Democrat to do? I suppose we're back to basics. Fight hard for the candidates we want representing the party in primary season, then going to the general election with whoever comes out alive. I will refrain from attacking Crist with the vigor I did in 2010, but I have not forgotten his roots, even as he has done. And we'll see how the 2014 cycle shakes out.

But somehow, the man who almost single-handedly made the 2010 cycle in Florida the craziest of my lifetime seems poised outdo himself in 2014, and he's doing so with the blessing of my president. This is going to be fun.