Matt Chen of the Broward Republican Executive Committee wants Broward’s LGBT voters to support GOP candidates. The Republican Party has a long history of getting citizens to vote against their own interests.

One of the main issues the Republican Party has cynically used to manipulate voters is LGBT rights. Over the past three decades, the GOP has had much success in ominously yelling “homosexual agenda” in crowded churches, getting many working poor and those lacking health insurance to support them.

Chen and his allies at Log Cabin Republicans want Florida LGBT voters to believe that the GOP is no longer anti-gay, and to help re-elect Florida’s GOP candidates for Governor and Attorney General. Yet this year, both Rick Scott and Pam Bondi tried to get a federal judge to throw out the lawsuit challenging Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage. Just this past May, Bondi said in court documents that Florida recognition of gay marriages performed in other states would “impose significant public harm”!

The fact is that in 2014 LGBT equality continues to be anathema to the majority of Republicans running for office, while Democratic office holders remain the driving political force behind advancing LGBT non-discrimination legislation and marriage equality.

Marc Paige

Fort Lauderdale, FL

While I have been critical of the Agenda‘s emotional enslavement to anti-American Far Left ideologies and proliferating exaggerated images of suffocating GOP homophobia; I am compelled to tip my hat to you, Sir, for publishing the Matt Chen’s illuminating commentary on the Gay-friendly Broward and Dade GOP and endorsing Governor Rick Scott.

Your inclusion of the Log Cabin Republican viewpoint demonstrates the character to search for the truth.

The Republican Party of Broward, Dade and West Palm Beach has given us multiple places at their table, and leadership positions long ago.

I’m sure all Gay Republicans and conservative GLBT Independents, who represent nearly 40 percent of the South Florida GLBT voters, are very appreciative of your paper finally giving us a place at the table, Mr. Hack.

Sincerely,

Louis LaHue

Boynton Beach, Fl

Editor’s note: While the Agenda has a long history of supporting many candidates from the Democratic Party, it is totally comfortable publishing any views in opposition to its own. It’s called Freedom of the Press. We support it and under this editorship, always will.

For more information see http://briannealfitness.org/

This community free walk meets each Saturday at 8:30am at Richardson Park 1937 Wilton Drive Wilton Manors FL   We walk one hour and three miles.

Louie LaHue
Boynton Beach , Florida

Editor’s note: Governor Rick Scott states that he has created 580,000 in private sector jobs since taking office, not 630,000. His July 2010 campaign promise to create 700,000 jobs in seven years came just after non-partisan economists at the state legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research projected that Florida’s long-term job growth for July 2010-June 2018 would be slightly over one million, regardless of government intervention.  To allow for this calculation, Scott promised to create 700,000 jobs in addition to those projected by the economists. While Gov. Scott has brought sizeable business growth to the state, his private sector job tally would need to total 850,000 at this point in his term to fulfill his actual campaign promise. Those facts aside, the front page article concerned U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s apprehension that Scott’s influence on voting procedures since his election has negatively impacted the ease of voting in Florida. If proven accurate, there is nothing disingenuous about the concern or the article. Agenda stands behind its facts as written.

Editor’s Note: While it is true that volunteering to sing at the Stonewall Pride Festival is not the way to normally get on stage, there are many opportunities to “launch your act” to receptive audiences via the weekly karaoke nights. Every club has one, and it only takes that single special performance done in front of the right audience to have Wilton Manors begging for more.     

Photo by Big Dewitte: Ric and Andy of Karaoke with Two Men on a Mic at the Village Pub.

City Hall was stunned two weeks ago when a local attorney entered its meeting Chambers and declared in a thunderous and accusing manner that I had somehow violated an ethical code by not disclosing that I was going to make money off a deal should his client’s hotel project on the beach not be approved that night. And as a result, he demanded that I should recuse myself from voting on the project.

This was no ordinary lawyer. His name is William Scherer, a Republican stalwart who’s never shown any love towards the gay community, and, might I add, best buds with my former political opponent, Charlotte Rodstrom. Our Commission meeting stopped dead in its tracks, a recess was called, and everyone was trying to figure out what the heck he was talking about.

Here’s a little background: Sometime during the beginning of my campaign last fall to fill Charlotte’s seat after she quit to run for County Commission, the developer for a hotel called the Vintro came to the beach neighborhood board meeting (the CBA) to discuss their plans to build a hotel on a quarter acre lot they just purchased right behind the Casablanca Restaurant. Everything about it sent up red flags–the size of the lot, the location on such a busy corner, you name it, and I told them at the time that as-is, in my opinion, it may be difficult for them to get neighborhood approval. It was an interesting design and the developers were new to the area, so I offered them some suggestions on how to help them out. They looked at me with an unflinching gaze and said, “It’s either this or nothing.” Whatever, I still needed to win my race, and I thought nothing more of it.

Once elected in March of this year, some weeks had passed and I get a call from my former partner, Richard Smith, a realtor, letting me know that a mutual client was interested in that same parcel to convert the historic home that was  on the property to a restaurant. I told him that I had no information on the intentions of the developer, and if the client was interested, he would have to call the developers attorney directly because I could not be involved.  I gave him the name of the attorney, a Scott Backman, and that was the last I heard from Richard for a while.

Apparently, from papers that have been shown to me, Richard did make contact with the attorney and Richard prepared a letter-of-intent (LOI) on behalf of his client in order to submit it to the developer to see if there was any interest in selling the property. My his own admission, Richard mistakenly used a form that I had once prepared for him on a different project which still had my name on it as the closing agent. I don’t know exactly when I discovered his error, but as soon as I saw it, I immediately told him to remove my name because I could have no involvement with the transaction. He said he would and we left it at that.

The developer is now accusing me of talking against his project so that I could do a real estate closing if Richard’s buyer decided to buy the property. The claim is that I was planning this even before the election, back when I first met this developer, which is before this client ever expressed an interest in the property. In any case, buyer or no buyer, the design and the site plan of the hotel had problems.

Apparently  the developer had been talking with Richard all summer long about putting a deal together to sell the property, and in an actual contract offer that was submitted to the developer, my name was nowhere to be found on any of the documents.

Not in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought this would be an issue.

Mr. Backman met with me several times during the year and each time, it was congenial, I spoke about how we might still save the deal if his clients would just acquire some additional land around the site, but he said his clients refused. Never did he disclose to me that he was working with Richard nor that he thought that I might have been working behind his back to squeeze his clients out. In fact, a couple of times when Richard would ask if there was any progress on the hotel moving forward for approval, I kept telling him to move on and find another location for his client because I believed the developer was set on getting it built on the original site.

A disclosure of this nature is not normally contemplated when we as commissioners are asked to disclose our communications with the principal parties. Being so far removed in time and in person from those who were directly involved in the project, there really was nothing to disclose.

Nevertheless, at the Commission meeting, I agreed that, in order to avoid even the appearance of an impropriety, I would recuse myself. I not only did not vote, I did not even participate in the discussion.

Despite all the blustery accusations made by Scherer and having now succeeded in denying me my right to vote, the hotel was still defeated–unanimously. The developer had not one vote in his favor. So what attorney worth his salt would ever ask for a vote from a governing body unless he had all his votes counted and was assured  success. What was really going on here? Why was knocking out my vote so important?

One reason is possibly because the developer knew he was going to lose, so he was looking for some way to justify a basis for an appeal. Whatever the Commission wouldn’t give him, maybe a court would. It’s a common tactic and Scherer is no stranger to it because he sued me once before as a Commissioner and personally when another project of his client’s was turned down back in 2005. Scherer lost. He just doesn’t like me.

The strategy becomes more apparent when you realize that he has been plotting this scenario for months. For example, over the past year, he sent two young associates ( his own children, no less) to my agenda review meetings.  When I asked their names, they sheepishly revealed who they were but also confessed that they did not live in the district but were there to “learn about city government.” Really? You sent them to me so that I could mentor them? Spies in our midst. Go figure.

What now concerns me about what has since occurred is that the news media have taken some of these facts, made up some of their own, and have tried and convicted me across three counties all knowing that I recused myself and there was no other goal but that intended by Mr. Scherer. Of course, it still didn’t stop him from filing an ethics complaint against me, but that’s all part of his show to his client for the fact that his efforts at success went down in flames.

What Scherer doesn’t realize is that I am no shrinking violet. I chose to serve elected office to empower our community and achieve goals that were being ignored. People all over town have come to my side, whether we have agreed on issues or not. This experience has only strengthened my resolve.

Now it’s time to get back to work.

I enjoyed the Debbie Wasserman Schultz article in Issue 205. The story reminded me of the time my sister told me about my five year old nephew, Mathew. Mathew has never known me, his uncle Jay, without also knowing his uncle Jay’s ‘best friend’ Ron. One day, Mathew asked his mother, my sister Karen, “Is Ron a member of our family?” Mathew was trying to understand how his uncle’s friend Ron fit into the family. Mathew, apparently, knew Ron was a ‘special’ friend to his Uncle Jay.

Ron always attended family gatherings, but at five years old, this was in 1987, Mathew was confused about his uncle’s relationship with this other man. Karen simply answered her son, “Yes, Ron is a member of our family.” Ron and I visited my sister’s family in 1992. We spent a week together. We all had a wonderful time. Mathew, now 10 years old, with a 6 year old brother Jason accepted Ron and I without blinking an eye. I am the oldest sibling, with four sisters and two brothers. Every member of my family, from my grandparents to my youngest nephew and niece, accept Ron and I as members of the family.

Also, Ron has a niece he is very close to, Elena. We met Elena’s fiance, Danny, in the 1989. Ron was the best man at Elena and Danny’s wedding, actually giving Elena’s hand in marriage to Danny. When their first child was born, Elena called us to tell us Danny and she had chosen to name their first child, Ronald James Tang. I immediately started to cry.

Ron and I met in March 1984, we married in Massachusetts in 2004 and honeymooned in Paris. We look forward to our 30th anniversary in 2014.

Thank you for the Florida Agenda and for the story reminding me of how fortunate I am to have a loving family. We moved to Florida from Boston, in 2006, and have found South Florida much different, less tolerant than Massachusetts, where we lived most of our lives. Your newspaper gives us hope: even here in Florida there are people who realize we all need each other.

Sincerely,

Jay

I enjoyed reading your article on “Where Not to Cruise” (Agenda, January 23, 2013, TRAVEL). Providing information to the LGBT community on where is not safe to travel is as important as providing them information on where we are welcome.

I was then concerned when I turned to the back cover and saw an advertisement on a getaway to Belize. I am confused.

It’s bad energy to have an editorial that the LGBT community should avoid Belize in the same issue as you accept advertising dollars encouraging the same community to visit Belize.

Yes, we can make our own decisions on where we travel and the editorial you provide assists in that decision-making, it just makes no sense to me why those two phenomena—a searing article against traveling to Belize and an ad designed to entice a visit to Belize—would occur in the same magazine together, ever.

My concern would be for the person who saw the ad and did not read the article and booked a trip and got hurt or arrested.

Steve Klugerman

Dear Editors:

The recent ad run in the Florida Agenda by the Broward Log Cabin Republicans does not represent the position of Log Cabin Republicans, and we reject it completely. The 9-11 attack on Americans posted in Libya was an act of terrorism. To suggest that the Al- Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb attack on the US consular mission in Benghazi was connected to homophobia is just as ridiculous as US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, claiming the attack in Benghazi was prompted by a film critical of Mohammed.

Violence against the LGBT community is a challenge to civil society throughout the world, and America is a beacon for freedom for all minority voices. There are plenty of reasons to vote Republican to protect US interests and human rights abroad, but the obscene ad in this publication is fallacious, grossly inappropriate and irresponsible.

Further, on a personal level and as a former diplomat, seeing this ad makes me sick. I know Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, who happens to be a pro-gay rights conservative, and I am deeply embarrassed to have to explain to him and strong pro-gay rights conservative ally, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, that a local chapter of Log Cabin Republicans ran such an offensive ad in an attempt to get voters to the polls and bolster the US bilateral relationship with Israel.

Our organization’s mission is to build a stronger, more inclusive Republican Party, and this ad failed on all fronts.

Regards,

R. Clarke Cooper

Executive Director, Log Cabin Republicans Washington, D.C.

This business of towing cars from The Shoppes of Wilton Manors hit me particularly hard a few weeks ago. My twin brother, his partner, and I drove down to Wilton Drive and parked by the old Poverello. They both got out and headed up the Drive, while I walked over to Boom, had a few drinks, and as planned met them 20 minutes later where the car [was supposed] to be.

The three of us went through the same trauma as Vaughn: an ungodly, crimeridden neighborhood, and a cab driver who couldn’t even find the [impound] lot—and this was at about four in the afternoon! Now comes the interesting part: the EMS Towing guy let me know that the calls authorizing cars to be towed came from the Alibi. He said “I’m not supposed to tell people that, I’m to tell them the property management company is the one calling.”

This is exactly what the bartender told me: he remembered me coming in and mentioned that no bartender is calling to authorize a tow. The manager on duty at Alibi offered me his sympathy but said there was nothing he could do. To add insult to injury, the manager said that ‘jobs are hard to come by’ and he does whatever he needs to in order to keep his own. It is reasonable to assume this includes making phone calls.
Bill De Lange
Wilton Manors