V 1 N G
General Gayety
by Leslie Robinson
Contributing Writer
Florida flush
These days when I think of Florida, I don’t think of Walt
Disney World or spring training or the Everglades. I think of
bathrooms.
That’s because some Floridians seem to think of nothing
else. They’re not potty mouths, they’re potty heads.
Consider events in the city of Gainesville, home to the
University of Florida. Last year the city commission added gen
der identity to Gainesville’s anti-discrimination ordinance, which
already included sexual orientation. The city’s transgender citi
zens were protected from discrimination in housing and employ
ment, plus they could use the public restroom of their choice.
And, so began the War of the Loo.
Irate bathroom defenders got a charter amendment on the
ballot to sweep away the city’s protection for trans folk and gays
and lesbians. A new broom sweeps mean.
A group called Citizens for Good Public Policy led the forces
of bathroom segregation. The name Citizens for Good Public
Plumbing would’ve been more to the point.
The group took its campaign to the airwaves. In one ad, a
young girl leaves a playground and heads into a women’s rest
room. Lurking outside, a grungy-looking man follows her in.
Words on the screen read, “Your City Commission Made This
Legal.”
How easily, in a political campaign, truth swirls right down
the drain.
A spokesman for Citizens for Good Public Policy noted his
side’s message stayed consistent during the campaign; “Keep
men out of women’s restrooms!” He declared, “That’s our
motive, plain and simple.”
In the end, this all-bathroom, all-the-time approach didn’t
work. On March 24 Gainesville voters rejected repealing LGBT
civil rights. Three cheers and a 21-toilet-brush sdute to the
people of Gainesville!
A week before the Gainesville vote, the city of Fort
Lauderdale enthroned a new mayor, ending the 18-year reign of
Jim Naugle, a man known in and beyond Florida for his fixa
tion with facilities.
Term limits prevented Naugle, a conservative Democrat,
from running again. Thank the porcelain god, for presumably
this means he won’t touch off another firestorm like he did in
the summer of 2007 when he told the South Florida Sun-
Sentinel that public restrooms in the beach town were plagued
by “homosexual activity!’
He wanted to install a robotic toilet near the gay beach as a
deterrent. Robo-john as robo-cop.
Naugle also said he doesn’t use the word “gs^ since most
homosexuals “aren’t gay. The/re unhapp/’
I don’t have to tell you that a certain substance hit the fan.
The local gay community launched a “Flush Naugle” campaign.
At the hei^t of the flap, Naugle invited the media to come hear
an apology. He proceeded to offer one — to families, for not
being aware how bad the problem of gay sex in public rest
rooms actually was.
Fort Lauderdale police called bathroom sex “a non-existent
problem.” But Naugle’s mind was bogged down in the bog.
Naugle had supporters. A man in Fort Worth, Texas, emailed
the mayor to say,‘Tfs time us straight people started taking our
country back from these sick people and make them either get
help for their disease or go to jail.”
Ideas suitable for flushing.
Probably the people taking the most comfort from Naugle’s
loss of station are local tourism officials. They had toiled to
make Fort Lauderdale gay-friendly and the city collected lots of
money from gay visitors. After Naugle roiled the waters with his
comments, he was removed Ifom the Tourism Development
Council. Yes, he was no longer privy to what went on.
Tourism officials said the mayor’s remarks kept gays away
and also kept away families who feared the city was a sewer. As
far as the officials are concerned, Naugle’s mouth worked, but
his mind was indisposed. I
info: LesRobinsn@aol.com .www.GeneralGayety.com
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