Letters

Campaign civility

Dear Editor,

Recently, Ken Williams, editor of the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News service, wrote an op-ed in which he issued a call for more civility in political discourse – in particular highlighting events during the recent San Diego mayoral debate at The Center. He decried someone shouting out the word “liar” while Carl DeMaio was in the middle of denying he had ever attacked an opponent for their pro- LGBT political stances. It is quite ironic and a little troubling that Mr. Williams sees fit to use this incident as a cornerstone for calling for more civility in our political discourse.

Carl DeMaio has a decade-long history in San Diego, and this history is replete with examples of over the top claims, political bluster and an abundance of not-so-nice political discourse. Does anybody remember the billboard truck Carl hired to drive around town claiming a San Diego city librarian was making more money than a four star general? In any event, the mere fact that someone is calling someone else a liar does not make said statement necessarily uncivil – if the statement is true. The fact of the matter is Carl DeMaio IS a liar, and should not be able to hide behind contrived ideals of civil political discourse to try and get people to stop calling him a liar.

The fact of the matter is that Carl DeMaio (or someone in his campaign), as part of his effort to gain the San Diego County GOP endorsement, sent a 14 page packet of information, attacking Nathan Fletcher’s conservative credentials. I see no problem with this, and I doubt anybody else does. What we have a problem with is Carl’s use of “family values” organizations to help make his point. The group in question is called “Capitol Resource Family Impact,” and their Web site is capitolresource.org. You can check them out yourself. The irony of a gay man, ostensibly proud of his community, using a “family values” group to attack a fellow Republican should not be lost on anyone.

This call for civility is particularly galling coming from the editor of a news source owned by Jonathan Hale, Carl’s partner. My acquaintance, William Rodriguez-Kennedy, was recently likened to a monkey flinging feces at a wall – from the OFFICIAL Twitter account of SDGLN. For SDGLN to piously and self-righteously call for civility after that little episode, and still claim the mantle of an ethical news organization, is the height of hypocrisy

If SDGLN wishes to have more civil discourse in our community, perhaps they ought to tell Carl to be straightforward and honest with the LGBT community. Tell him to either own up to what he did or apologize – don’t expect to lie and get away with it. Perhaps, instead of dancing around the obvious conflict of interest with Carl’s mayoral campaign, they ought to be straightforward as well – why not just report on the campaign and place a disclaimer at the bottom of every story about the campaign? This game of using “independent” news such as Gay San Diego is not (I hope) fooling anyone. Do your own search on SDGLN’s site and see if you can find a negative story on Carl DeMaio. You won’t.

Thomas Bollman

Hillcrest, San Diego