By ERIC DEGGANS, Times Media Critic
Published February 6, 2005
He has tackled the question in public twice now, with more politeness and directness than such an invasive query deserves.
Still, there is a lesson in watching Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist deal openly with an issue that has dogged him covertly for years:
Is he gay?
It's an oddly uncomfortable episode that reflects Florida's own contradictory relationship with gay people, gay rights and the question of whether an openly gay person can, as a practical matter, hold a major office in this state.
Consider the inconsistencies: Florida served as home to one of America's most notorious homophobes - orange juice queen Anita Bryant - and honored her campaign to ban gay people from adopting children. But the Sunshine State does allow gay people to serve as foster parents, warehousing hard-to-adopt kids with people the state doesn't believe will ever be fit to become their legal parents.
Areas such as South Beach, Key West and Orlando have become vacation destinations for gay tourists. And 15 Florida communities encompassing 10-million people - including Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota - have ordinances protecting the civil rights of gay people in one way or another.
But on Jan. 19, a federal judge in Tampa dismissed a lawsuit filed by two women seeking to have a legal same-sex marriage in Massachusetts recognized in Florida.
Does any of this add up?
"We don't mind if gay people come down and spend money at gay days . . . we love to have their tax revenue," said Dave Wiethop, editor of the Orlando-based gay newspaper Watermark. "But to give us rights like everyone else . . . all of a sudden, we're second-class citizens."
Consider attitudes nationwide, and the issue doesn't get much clearer. We tune in to gay-themed TV shows such as Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but we also vote for laws banning gay people from marriage and, in some cases, civil unions between same-sex partners.
Coming out by celebrities is so commonplace these days that Hollywood yawned when Sex and the City co-star Cynthia Nixon announced she had left her husband for a woman, with the revelation barely generating a mention in most national newspapers and magazines.
But U.S. Rep. Edward Schrock, R-Va., a married father who co-sponsored the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, ended his campaign for re-election last year when a Web site threatened to "out" him as a gay man.
U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, has long refused to discuss rumors regarding his sexual orientation and how it may relate to his support of the Defense of Marriage Act - legislation passed in the mid 1990s that defined marriage federally as a union between a man and a woman, allowing each state to disregard any same-sex marriage authorized in another state.
Crist first faced The Question publicly Jan. 15 during a meeting of the Tampa Tiger Bay Club in which a woman asked, "I have heard that you were gay, sir, and I wanted to know if that was true." The second time he faced The Question, it was in response to a request from Tampa radio personality Dave McKay, who had asked Crist on his show Jan. 18 to pop the query, "Are you a homo?"
Both times, Crist denied being gay. With McKay, he expressed wonderment that anyone would ask.
But anyone who remembers how Florida's newest U.S. senator, Mel Martinez, criticized his straight-arrow Republican primary opponent Bill McCollum as "pandering to gays" knows Crist likely had to address the speculation before his expected candidacy for governor could begin in earnest.
And with a record percentage of hate crime attacks connected to victims' sexual orientation last year in Florida, Sunshine State Republicans can still get a lot of mileage from accusing candidates of getting too close to gay people.
Still, Howard Simon, director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, says it is "jumping over a step" to imply the state's voters share this hypocritical stand on gay rights and gay people.
"I don't know that the public has been tested," said Simon, who saw the ACLU lose an attempt to overturn Florida's ban on gay adoption when the U.S. Supreme Court in January refused to hear the group's lawsuit on the matter.
"What we have here are fearful, pandering politicians (catering) to what they perceive to be public prejudices," said Simon, calling from his office in Miami. "I bet if there were a secret vote in the Legislature, they would probably repeal the ban on gay adoptions. What is the impediment? (Legislators) don't want to become a target for the religious right."
Perhaps. But the numbers also indicate little progress for openly gay officials running for office in Florida.
According to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a group that raises campaign funds for openly gay political candidates nationwide, just 19 elected officials in Florida are openly gay - mostly in city council and city commission positions in South Florida, Gainesville and Orlando. So far, no statewide or federal officeholders in Florida are openly gay.
"Any politician, any leader, who is willing to deny who they are, is not serving their constituents," said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Victory Fund, who also worked seven years for former Gov. Lawton Chiles as operations manager of his 1994 campaign and director of external affairs, among other jobs.
"It is better for officials to be open and honest - they do a better job," noted Wolfe, who said he was open about his homosexuality while working for Chiles. "As anyone who has come out can tell you, once you are out, it is a freeing issue. You feel like you can deal with anything. And you're no longer playing the double-entendre. You can pay attention to doing your job, and that's a better place to be."
Some gay activists have taken to outing people themselves, filling Web sites with names of prominent Republican staffers and legislators they accuse of publicly pressing the GOP's persecution of gay people while secretly maintaining same-sex relationships. The Miami Herald brought the issue to bear in August, revealing that both McCollum and Martinez had highly placed staffers who are gay, despite running campaigns that opposed gay marriage - and, in Martinez's case, demonized gay people.
The intent is admirable - breaking up the hypocritical "don't ask, don't tell" posture the public seems to want from elected officials. But the invasion of exposing someone's sexual history - unless his or her public face is seriously hypocritical and homophobic - may outweigh any political benefit.
As head of Orlando's chapter of the gay Log Cabin Republicans, Patrick Howell has faced allegations he is helping an antigay political party spread a homophobic agenda. But Howell opposes rejecting the Republican Party outright - by, for instance, outing politicians simply because they are Republican - insisting gay people gain more by keeping elements of their vote accessible to the GOP.
"I believe in marriage equality . . . (but) I think there are even some gay people who might say this is not the time for gay marriages to be legalized in Florida," noted Howell, citing the group's success in turning moderate Republicans against a constitutional ban on gay marriage. "When you decide to support or not support a politician, you look at many different things. Our community's votes should be looked at as a constituency that can be won over."
Howell's position still seems a little naive - overlooking a pervasive bigotry within the GOP that has been exploited by the party in a cynical ploy for votes. And it avoids an important issue: If there is nothing inherently wrong with being gay, then your sexual orientation shouldn't exclude you from any important civil right. Period.
Which brings us back to Crist. Frankly, I couldn't care less if he is gay - regardless of his stance on gay issues - and I can only hope the whispered rumors don't end his gubernatorial campaign before it starts.
Until Floridians finally bend to the logic of equality, I'm afraid Crist's forced answers will say much more about us than they do about him.
Eric Deggans is a Times editorial writer. He can be reached at 727 893-8521 or deggans@sptimes.com
