State: A city sparks scrutiny of ties to Scouts

WILTON MANORS -- John R. Fiore stops his blue Honda Accord in front of the modest Florida ranch home where he grew up. His mother and father still live inside, surrounded by the lawn he hated to cut as a boy.

But their son and the neighborhood around them have come a long way since then.

From the Honda's front seat, Fiore's hand sweeps in a circle to describe the well-integrated block: "Straight, straight, straight, gay, straight, gay, straight, gay, straight." At 47, he has come to know the sexual orientation at each address. As well he should.

In March, he was elected mayor of Wilton Manors with 58 percent of the vote, bringing about a political rarity: Fiore and two other men constitute only the second openly gay majority to lead a local government in the United States, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

It was only a matter of time.

Just seven minutes north of downtown Fort Lauderdale, Wilton Manors has seen its gay and lesbian population explode in the last five years -- by some estimates to more than 30 percent of its 13,000 residents.

So it was no surprise when the city provided the spark that in recent weeks has compelled a number of South Florida governments to question -- and in some cases sever -- their dealings with the Boy Scouts of America.

It started in August when Wilton Manors' gay vice mayor, Gary Resnick, reviewed the city code in the wake of this summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the scouts to exclude gays from their programs. Although Wilton Manors has no formal ties to the scouts, Resnick, a lawyer, discovered the city had no anti-discrimination ordinance, and he publicly urged his fellow council members to enact one.

It was as if someone had lit fire to a dry prairie.

The same week, a Fort Lauderdale city commissioner, Tim Smith, launched a campaign to eliminate a $4,200 public grant to a local scouting program. Smith is not gay, but his district includes Victoria Park, where thousands of gays and lesbians have invested heavily, creating one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods.

The commission voted 3-1 to cut the grant, but not before furious protests from conservative Christian groups who sent hundreds of e-mails, made more than 2,000 calls to City Hall, threatened a tourism boycott and showed up several hundred strong at a boisterous public hearing 12 days ago. The crowd had the ear of only one commissioner, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle, who says his Presbyterian faith teaches that homosexuality is a sin.

The flames spread quickly to Broward County's government and school district, both of which are edging closer to severing ties with the scouts. Two small towns, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and Hillsboro, swung the other way, voting to continue support for the scouts.

Moving south, the controversy engulfed Miami-Dade, where some city governments and the county are re-examining their dealings with the scouts.

South Florida is one of a handful of regions where the high court's ruling has struck a nerve, said Stephen R. Scarborough, an attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay and lesbian civil rights group.

"There's really been a ground swell," he said, adding that no one wants to see the Boy Scouts suffer. "What's happening is a lot of very painful decisions are being made."

The issue promises to linger through the fall and perhaps longer as the Boy Scouts threaten legal action against Broward schools.

But head back north to Wilton Manors, where it all started, and you find an unexpected detachment. The gay mayor is not stoking the fire or leading the charge against discrimination. Instead, he frets that the ruckus could disrupt the hard-won air of tolerance that allows homosexuals and straight senior citizens and straight couples with children to quietly co-exist within Wilton Manors' cozy city limits.

Though the city is a magnet for gay people, many residents see it as a non-issue.

"On most local issues it makes no difference who's gay or straight on a city council," said Sloan Wiesen, a spokesman for the Victory Fund, which works to elect gays and lesbians. The only other U.S. city with an openly gay majority running the government is West Hollywood, Calif., he said.

Fiore supports the anti-discrimination measure proposed by Resnick, but he is more focused on the city's library expansion, its youth programs and the steady rise in property values that has seen homes that sold for $100,000 five years ago triple in price.

"The city's business is done regardless of sexual orientation," Fiore says. "There's no gay way to fill a pothole."

People here like to fix up their property.

"If all the gay people disappeared, Home Depot would have to close down," quipped Scarborough, the Lambda fund lawyer. "It's like, "Give us our rights or we'll increase your property values.' "

Election records point to political change as well. The number of registered Democrats in Wilton Manors has increased 53 percent since 1995, a reflection that the Democratic Party traditionally has been more hospitable to gays. Independents and minor party registration has increased a whopping 78 percent, while the number of registered Republicans has dropped 9 percent.

Even Fiore's 79-year-old mother has became versed in the dynamics of gay politics. Last spring, as she campaigned for her son, Angela Fiore learned to spot sure-fire supporters by the rainbow symbols on their cars.

Along Wilton Drive, the main street where gay and lesbian business people have started a renaissance with new restaurants and hair salons and antique stores, visitors also see the Junior League Thrift Shop and two Christian Bookstores. Not far away: the "country music" Baptist church and the Wilton Manors Elementary School. The city's small billboard advertises an upcoming family event.

Gay couples are everywhere, as are straight senior citizens and young traditional families.

At the city's first-ever Gay Pride parade in June, "a lot of straight residents were there and had a great time," Fiore said. Conversely, "a gay or lesbian couple can go into any establishment in the city and no one bats an eye."

In the 12 years he served on the City Council before becoming mayor, sexual orientation has come up only twice, and has never been an issue at election time, Fiore says.

He is perplexed by Naugle, the Fort Lauderdale mayor with the 70 percent approval ratingwho recently was called a "homophobe."

Over the years, Naugle has been gracious to Fiore and his partner and has worked with Fiore on several municipal issues. Recently, Naugle wrote a letter of support for a gay theater festival.

Naugle explains that, while he hates the "sin" of homosexuality, his faith calls him to love the "sinner."

"This is a side of him I never experienced," said Fiore, who last week had dinner with Naugle at a Florida League of Cities event in Key West. When the subject of the Boy Scouts came up, they quickly moved on to safer topics.

At last week's Wilton Manors City Council meeting, where the proposed anti-discrimination ordinance was discussed, the debate was polite and straightforward.

Gay men spoke of the need for such a measure, and some senior citizens clapped. A local Republican leader spoke against the idea and got equal applause.

Although two elderly women chuckled to themselves that one of the council members was "abnormal," there was none of the harsh rhetoric of the previous week's meeting in neighboring Fort Lauderdale. There, opponents had derided gay men as heathens bent on infiltrating the scouts so they might have their way with boys.

In Wilton Manors, Pastor Ron Leggett of the Baptist church got up and said he treated everyone fairly, "even if I don't agree with their lifestyle." But hard as he tried, he couldn't see the need for the ordinance.

"Wilton Manors is a place where tolerance is practiced, as it should be," he said. "We already have what we need to carry on a healthy government."

The gay majority City Council decided to keep working on the ordinance, fearing the current wording would hurt groups who engage in "lawful" discrimination.

It was 11:30 p.m. when they moved to the next issue, spending $50,203 to replace the city's worn-out backhoe.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk