The Political Whore

As I wrote about over the weekend, Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner will ask his colleagues on Thursday to allow staff to prepare a cost-benefit analysis of offering domestic partnership benefits in the county’s current renegotiation of its insurance plans.

That move has set off a firestorm of activity on the Christian Right, if two e-mails that I got my hands on are any indication. The first from the man that Beckner beat, Brian Blair:

From: Brian Blair
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009

Subject: Fw: New County Commissioner tries “stealth attack”! Please read and act – THIS IS VITALLY IMPORTANT!

Do you think with $250,000 in campaign donations we should have mentioned he [Beckner} was an Activist on several G.L.B.T. Boards and that a large percentage of his campaign donations came from out of State? I want to personally appoligize to all that suported me! May God Sincerely Bless you in 2009!

Brian

Here's the e-mail he was commenting on, from Terry Kemple's Community Issues Council:

From:
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009
To: CIC
Subject: New County Commissioner tries "stealth attack"! Please read and act - THIS IS VITALLY IMPORTANT!

Community Issues Council - Your help is urgently needed again!

This urgent message is short - please read it and act on it!

THEN FORWARD IT TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK WHO CARES ABOUT FAMILY VALUES!

Almost before sitting in his new furniture Commissioner Beckner is trying to undermine the conservative values that prevail in Hillsborough County. In an apparent attempt to sneak in a radical change to employee policy in the county he placed an item on the agenda for next week's agenda at 4:00 on Friday (this afternoon). One could easily surmise that he did this, with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and the Presidential inauguration coming up on Monday and Tuesday, in the hopes that there would be no chance to mobilize any opposition.

That's exactly the reason that it's so important to have teams like Community Issues Council prepared to jump into the fray at a moment's notice!

Mr. Beckner wants us to foot the bill for health care for "domestic partners" of county employees. Since Equality Florida endorsed him as an "out" homosexual and since he brags about having been with his "partner" for 9 years, one might be led to assume that he wants us to pay for health benefits for this other man!

This is absurd on 2 key points (these points can be used for your emails to the Commissioners):

1. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of the people in Hillsborough County just voted to keep marraige, and the benefits associated with marriage, between one man and one woman. This seems to me to be nothing more than a back door attempt to establish those benefits through his office as County Commissioner.

2. It's bad judgment, at a time of budgetary crisis like this, to even suggest that money be spent investigating this issue. It becomes absolutely ludicrous when you take into account the possible presupposed result. If the recommendation comes back yes it means the proposal would be made that tax money be used to pay for health benefits for unmarried partners - whether they be heterosexual or homosexual.

THIS CAN'T BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN!

Please contact all 3 county wide commissioners - Norman, Beckner , and Sharpe - and your commissioner from your district and let them know that you don't want this to go any further.

Contact information

District 1 Rose Ferlita 272-5470 ferlitar@hillsboroughcounty.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
District 2 Ken Hagan 272-5452 hagank@hillsboroughcounty.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
District 3 Kevin White 272-5720 whitek@hillsboroughcounty.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
District 4 Al Higginbotham 272-5740 higginbothama@hillsboroughcounty.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
District 5 Jim Norman 272-5725 normanj@hillsboroughcounty.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
District 6 Kevin Beckner 272-5730 becknerk@hillsboroughcounty.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
District 7 Mark Sharpe 272-5735 sharpem@hillsboroughcounty.org

LET'S SHOW COMMISSIONER BECKNER THAT THIS ISN'T CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!!!

Together we can make a difference!

God bless you!
Terry

Posted in Tampa Bay Politics | Leave a comment