The Political Whore

Phyllis Busansky, a Democratic Hillsborough County commissioner in the 1980s and ’90s, is set to announce her bid for Supervisor of Elections on Thursday.

Busansky would take on incumbent Supervisor Buddi Johnson if she wins an expected primary contest against fellow Democrat Lee Nelson. Johnson, although a frequent target of news reports about screw-ups in his office, is expected to be a tough pol to dislodge, given Hillsborough County’s skew toward GOP candidates.

Busansky confirmed her candidacy in a conversation with PoHo last night. She is recovered from lung cancer surgery and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2006.

(Full disclosure: I previously worked in Busansksy’s 1996 congressional campaign and worked for her when she was the director of the state’s welfare-to-work program, WAGES.)

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Sure, they managed to force the anti-gay rights Marriage Amendment onto the November ballot, but for the rest of the social conservative movement, it hasn’t been a great 12 months. Their top presidential candidate, Fred Thompson, bit the dust without a fight. Mike Huckabee never really had a chance. And now, according to the Florida Baptist Witness executive editor James A. Smith Sr., it looks like Florida educators are going to do (gasp!!) actually put science into the science curriculum:

In spite of growing concern and opposition, Florida education leaders are on the brink of requiring an evolution-as-dogma approach to teaching origins in public schools in the Sunshine State. Fortunately, there’s still time to change the outcome on this critical matter.

All the state committee looking at the science curriculum for public schools is doing is recognizing the vast storehouse of evidence that supports evolution, as first posited by Charles Darwin. I wrote about the movement to interject creationism or Intelligent Design two years ago in CL and in this blog post last year, and the fight continues today. The Baptist Witness writes that anti-Darwinists aren’t trying to put ID or creationism into the curriculum:

Like the first draft, what is missing from the revised standards is any recognition that there is controversy about Darwinian evolution and that students should learn about that controversy. Whatever happened to academic freedom and exposing students to all sides of a debate? For the evolution-as-dogma crowd, there is only one side when it comes to Darwin.

This arrogant approach, however, has prompted a growing backlash from parents, teachers, interested citizens and at least a dozen school districts in Florida that have passed resolutions urging the State Board of Education to not impose the evolution-as-dogma model on their school districts.

Contrary to claims of Darwin’s defenders in the education and science establishments, few opponents of the proposed science standards are requesting the addition of creationism or Intelligent Design in the standards. Exposing students to serious, scholarly critiques of Darwinian evolution is all that is asked for from most critics of the standards. Such an approach to teaching evolution is hardly unique or unprecedented.

Challenging a theory with scientific evidence is what science is all about; no theory can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, but they can be disproved. Theories, however, have an extensive bulk of scientific evidence that supports them; Intelligent Design and creationism has no such evidence in wide acceptance, and hardly any evidence at all, even in the disputed category. That doesn’t make those ideas wrong; it just makes them unproven hypotheses (at best), far from being scientific theory and not of value in a science class.

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Super duper!

• Welcome to Super Tuesday. Get comfy, we’re gonna be here a while.
• The final polls are in. Obama and Romney lead in California; Clinton and McCain pulling away in New Jersey. Believe it or not?
• No deal to end the writers strike — yet.
• New York prepares for a Giant celebration.
• An even better catch than David Tyree’s.
• The iPhone and iPod Touch get a memory upgrade … but it’ll cost you.
• Things that “probably” don’t cause cancer: Mobile phones, coffee, breast implants. Rest easy Pam Anderson.
• DON’T CLICK THIS LINK! (I warned you.)

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As I flipped through the “news” on cable television yesterday, I ran across the top story of the day at Bay News 9: that Tampa officials are at the Phoenix Super Bowl to see what they can learn to make the Tampa 2009 championship game that much better. Uh, yeah, if you believe that’s what our folks were really doing out there. And tha’s also if you believe that of all the things happening in Tampa Bay and the nation and the world, that is the most important thing that was occurring on Sunday.

The hype has started, make no mistake about it. This from The Business Journal:

Fans heading to Sky Harbor International Airport Monday to return home after the Super Bowl saw a billboard proclaiming “See You in Tampa Bay.”

Hoteliers, restaurateurs and lap-dancers rejoice! Just 363 days until financial salvation, Tampa Bay-style.

The biggest news of the day, however, will be the unveiling of the Tampa Bay Super Bowl logo, a media spectacle that is set for tonight on NBC primetime. The local reaction?:

“The unveiling of the Super Bowl XLIII game logo puts Tampa Bay officially on the clock,” said Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee Chair R.A. “Dick” Beard, in a release. “Our preparations are already well under way, and we’ll be ready to host the NFL and the world in 2009.”

Several websites are posting the following logo as the official one:

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And then there is the bad news: The religious right gathered enough signatures to get a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage in Florida on the November ballot. That means nine months of campaigning that is certain to make you want to puke your guts out by the end of the ugliness. As news reports quoted one proponent:

“I’m grateful to God first and our supporters second,” said John Stemberger, an organizer for Florida4Marriage.org. “The bottom line is kids need a mom and dad. Same-sex marriages subject kids to a vast, untested social experiment.”

Of course, it makes no difference that same-sex marriages are already illegal in this state (thanks, unfortunately, to a client of my former political consulting firm). Have been since 1997. What this amendment is really about is a chance to vent anti-gay and intolerant rhetoric and drive right-wing voters to the polls in November, since the Republican Party has very little holding it together this year and religious right voters are without a strong presidential candidate. From the same Times article:

The presence of the proposal has the potential to greatly alter voter turnout in a presidential election year.

Evangelicals and social conservatives now have a much higher motivation to go to the polls.

But the proposal could also spur interest from the opposition, which is vast and diverse. An opposition group, the bipartisan Florida Red & Blue Committee, calls the initiative “dangerous and disingenuous.”

(photo credit: Rudy Kleysteuber/flickr.com)

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And that is a big fat raspberry and a moral lesson in doing what is right. On Friday, Mayor Pam Iorio made a stand that is the best thing she has ever done in her political career: She told county leaders she won’t even consider merging or consolidating functions with them because of their anti-gay stance. As she wrote to Times reporter Bill Varian in response to county commissioners’ overtures about merging parks and recreation departments:

We should not merge any services where our values are not compatible. The County’s lack of tolerance towards a segment of our community cannot be allowed to affect the services provided by Parks and Recreation.

Yes, Ronda Storms’ crusade of intolerance back in 2005 lives on. It is county policy not to recognize gay pride events, a policy that Storms made sure can only be overturned by a supermajority vote of the County Commission. As Iorio rightly points out in her e-mail, merging with the county parks department could endanger some city-support gay events:

The county took over the library system many years ago. (It has its own county-wide millage rate) This worked well until a few years ago when the BOCC decided not to allow any Gay pride displays at the libraries. This I very much disagreed with and thought it sent the wrong tone for the entire community. The City co-sponsors through our Parks and Recreation Department many special events as I mentioned above. One for example is Winter Pride at Al Lopez Park.

In my recent “Fix It Now” column, item No. 9 was “Stop beating up on gay people:”

We waste far too much time, energy and newsprint writing about the battle over gay marriage or transgender firings. Richard Florida was right; communities that embrace tolerance and diversity outperform those that don’t. Even if you aren’t down with homosexuality because of your religion or whatever psychosexual hang-ups you have, just walk away from this fight.

Iorio shows why this is so important. No matter what you think about the mayor, take time today to send her an e-mail of support for her strong stance and for the warning shot across the bow of the county leaders. There is a price we pay for intolerance, in lost economic growth, in government efficiency, and in creative and cultural richness. (While you’re at it, send some love over to the county commissioners and urge them to repeal their hateful gay pride resolution.)

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