The Political Whore

For the second time this year the St. Petersburg Times editorial board has given a backhanded approval to a candidate with an anti-gay record. This time it’s Darryl Rouson, an incumbent Republican-turned-Democrat House member who has often enjoyed the newspaper’s largess.

As I wrote last week, Rouson is on record in a 2006 TV appearance as saying that being gay is “morally wrong” and opposing gay adoption. After taking some heat from gay rights activists last week, Rouson explained that he has changed his position, an evolution of thought in his mind.

In fact, the editorial recommendation didn’t seem to have much good to say about him:

As a member of the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, Rouson was a leader in placing Amendment 5 on the November ballot. It would reduce school-related property taxes and open the door for a sales tax increase and the elimination of many sales tax exemptions. Other votes are more difficult to defend. On the commission, Rouson supported an amendment that would remove a constitutional ban on public money going to churches and religious organizations but opposed one to allow public money for private tuition vouchers. Curiously, he does not see the inconsistency.

The Times has always come to the aid of gays under attack, so it is surprising that Rouson’s editorial recommendation wasn’t the slightest bit tempered by a mention of his “evolving” stance on gay rights. Then again, neither was the recommendation for St. Pete City Council candidate Gershom Faulkner, who lost the race to Wengay Newton. While the newsside wrote about the gay controversy with Faulkner like this:

 Two state legislators have pulled their endorsement of City Council candidate Gershom Faulkner after he told a group of local gay and lesbian political activists that people choose to be gay.

Faulkner, a Democrat running for the nonpartisan council in District 7, said he could not support what he called a gay lifestyle because of his religious beliefs, according to those who attended the August meeting of the Pinellas Stonewall Democrats.

… it still didn’t mention the issue in its editorial recommendation.

When President Bush is anti-gay, the Times rebukes him editorially.  Hillsborough parents who want gay clubs pushed off campus get a smack. But establishment candidates in St. Pete who are anti-gay? Not so much.

Now, I played the race card in the title, and to be fair, you can be white and anti-gay and get a pass from the Times if the gay issue is not central to the campaign. Like the recent endorsement of the wildly anti-gay Brian Blair.  Yet I seem to recall at some point Blair being spanked for his anti-gayness editorially, even if I haven’t found a link yet for it. It seems much more acceptable for the politically correct Times to accept a bit of anti-gayness from black candidates, who play to an audience that is much more socially conservative than the MSM every acknowledges.

Bonus cut: The only mention on the editorial pages about Rouson’s stance(s) on gay rights is an op-ed piece by Bill Maxwell.

Posted in Tampa Bay Politics | Leave a comment