The Political Whore

Interesting development over at The Buzz, with state Reps. Bill Heller and Rick Kriseman withdrawing their endorsements of St. Pete City Council Dist. 7 candidate Gershom Faulkner over anti-gay comments he made to the Pinellas Stonewall Democrats.

Faulkner was/is a shoo-in for the seat, which is currently held by Rene Flowers and covers a racially diverse district west of downtown. He is a Democrat who has attracted lots of money and support from both sides of the aisle. Faulkner told the Stonewall group that being gay was a lifestyle “choice” that he isn’t down with (or for the grammarians out there, “with which he isn’t down.”)

Faulkner’s objection to gay rights, on religious grounds he said, points out one of the more interesting contradictions in African-American politics — that while blacks still vote strongly in a bloc as Democrats many share a more socially conservative bent than the Party of the Left does, believed to reflect the strength of traditionally black churches in community politics. Democratic County Commissioner Thomas Scott, for instance, voted against allowing Hillsborough County to hold any recognition of Gay Pride events a few years ago; he is a preacher in addition to a politician. (Faulkner is a deacon in the Souls Harvest Fellowship Church, in addition to being a former Marine.)

Some see this as hypocrisy, but it’s more a reflection of how complicated political belief systems are and how we can’t reduce them to left vs. right, conservative vs. progressive, etc. And attitudes in the black community are changing for younger black voters; some academic research shows that college-age blacks hold significantly more tolerant views of gay politics than their elders. Faulkner is 36, not old enough to have harshly homophobic views but not young enough to see the shift in gay rights tolerance in the black community.

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