Questions arose this weekend over the whereabouts of congressional candidate Carl DeMaio, when he failed to show up for Saturday’s San Diego Pride parade. The parade, which attracted an estimated 300,000 participants and spectators, included many elected officials and candidates including DeMaio’s opponent Scott Peters, Speaker of the Assembly Toni Atkins, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman and Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
“Our Democratic Congressman, Scott Peters, marched with over 100 supporters and was loudly cheered the entire parade route,” said prominent LGBT activist Susan Atkins. “But Carl DeMaio didn’t show. I’m not surprised because Carl really hasn’t been a friend of San Diego’s LGBT community and therefore hasn’t been embraced by most of the community. Scott has been there for LGBT issues and Carl hasn’t. Carl is a Tea Party extremist and our community has issues with him.”
Dave McCulloch, spokesperson for the DeMaio campaign, explaining DeMaio’s whereabouts at Pride, told San Diego LGBT Weekly, “Once again, Scott Peters is willing to tell bald-faced lies and is running a campaign seeking to divide San Diegans rather than unite them. Carl had a great time at San Diego LGBT Pride this weekend, doing media interviews, and attending several events. DeMaio has a 100 percent voting record on LGBT issues from his time on the City Council – and, as he has every year, attended several Pride weekend events.”
DeMaio’s Pride weekend events included an interview with KGTV at Friday’s Spirit of Stonewall Rally about the changing tides in politics and visiting the Children’s Garden at the San Diego Pride Festival on Sunday.
Was a well written article, until you labeleb Carl DeMaio a “Tea Party extremest”. Give credit where credit is due, if that is how you measure commitment to the LGBT community, and end it with that.
No reason to start calling names and labeling individuals, because that is the type of thinking that the PRIDE Parade is all about in the first place.
Carl DeMaio now [July 31, 2014] asserts via new campaign mouthpiece Nicole M. R. he “couldn’t attend the PRIDE parade because of a year-long previous engagement.” [I suspect Nicole M. R. meant the commitment was one made a year in advance; not that that the previous engagement was a “year-long” one.] How odd that this novel “explanation” for DeMaio’s conspicuous absence was never offered by the official DeMaio campaign spokesperson when the issue was first presented in the Press: http://lgbtweekly.jeffjungblut.com/2014/07/24/carl-demaio-missing-from-pride-parade-while-scott-peters-marches/ .
Care to identify this “previous engagement” planned a year in advance that would keep DeMaio from the Pride Parade ? Odd that his Campaign did not issue a Press Release to that effect a week or two before the Parade. Or after the event.
Perhaps poor Nicole M. R. is the only one gullible enough to believe this silly assertion, and he is being used as a duped mouthpiece after- the- fact ? Perhaps the official DeMaio campaign spokesperson could identify this “previous engagement” and provide documentation that the date was committed to one full year in advance ?
And when DeMaio did go to the PRIDE Festival Grounds on Sunday he did not have a booth, nor did he engage adults in topical discussions of substance. He went to the Kids’ Play area for a bit with Nicole M. R., then quickly departed.
DeMaio gleefully accepts huge campaign support from the very same people who supported and legally defended Prop. 8. He has accepted millions in support from the UBER right wing Koch Brothers. In exchange for such support, he explicitly promised to not “push the gay social agenda”.
The mere act of being Gay does not entitle any politician to the support of the Gay community. DeMaio is a Tea Party, ultra right wing Republican.
Think of how he would vote on progressive social issues, safety -net issues, immigration issues, public health questions, environmental and global warming issues——- FRIGHTENING thoughts.