08.21.07
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Steps Up Anti-Gay Rhetoric
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle stepped up his war of words Tuesday over what he sees as rampant gay sex at public washrooms at the beach.
The outspoken mayor staged a news conference outside Fort Lauderdale City Hall where he was flanked by conservative Christian leaders and declared gay sex had become a major public health crisis in the city.
The mayor began his campaign last month when Naugle claimed that gay sex is rampant in public washrooms on the beach and called for the city to spend a quarter-million dollars on a replacement toilet that he said would end the problem.
The remarks angered the city’s gay community which launched a “flush Naugle” campaign to flood his office email with “virtual toilet paper” and the police department said there had been only one arrest at the toilet on the stretch of beach known for its gay sunbathers.
While Naugle sees a problem, police do not. A police department spokesperson said there have been only two arrests in three years for sex in public washrooms throughout the city.
Earlier this month Naugle announced he would issue an apology, but instead turned it into another broadside against the gay community.
The conservative Democrat said he was apologizing for what he claimed was underestimating the problem and that the county had the highest rate of new HIV/AIDS cases involving men having sex with men in the country.
Naugle then suggested the county tourism office should rethink its ad campaigns that welcome gays to the area.
Tuesday he reiterated his claim the county had become the area with the highest AIDS rate in the country and accused the county health department of suppressing the facts
“I think that the Broward County health people because of their constraints with the Broward County government are interested in being politically correct,” Naugle told reporters. “I think the people who are here are more interested in saving lives.”
Gay and AIDS outreach workers who watched the press conference reacted angrily to the Mayor’s latest pronouncements.
“I am a person living with AIDS and what you are saying is wrong,” Michael Rajnor of the Campaign to End AIDS yelled back at the mayor.
“He should be serving the people. He should be standing up for people. He should be fighting for funds for housing, for substance abuse, for vocational training. Who the hell do you people think you are?”
Members of the group supporting him handed out bumper stickers saying “Mayor Naugle is right.”
“We want the homosexual community to know that we love them and that God loves them also,” the Rev. O’Neal Dozier told the news conference. “But God hates the act of homosexuality.”
Two weeks ago Broward County commissioners passed a statement attacking Naugle but stopped just short of passing a motion to censure him.
Commissioners called the mayor bigoted and said his remarks were despicable, but even had they officially censured him it would have no effect. Although Fort Lauderdale is within the county, as a separate city with its own council the county can exercise no control over the resort town or its politicians.
Fort Lauderdale’s City Commission is on summer recess. When it returns next month it is expected to vote on a censure motion.
The mayor’s anti-gay campaign has raised concerns in Fort Lauderdale’s tourism industry.
Fort Lauderdale ranked No. 6 among gay travelers last year, and accounted for about 11 percent of Broward’s $8.5 billion tourism industry.
So concerned is the tourism industry over the potential fallout the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau is using paid media watchers in New York and Europe to see how far the story is spreading.