Aug. 7, 2002
All publications Front Page Nightspots Blacklines En La Vida Out! Resource Guide Current WCT Issue	Like 'A Jew Voting for Hitler' Stirs Political Controversy By Bob Roehr   A gay Democrat who votes for an openly gay Republican candidate for office is like "a Jew voting for Hitler," said Doug Head, chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party, as quoted in a July 30 article in the Orlando Sentinel. He was speaking about Patrick Howell, an openly gay man who is running for the Florida legislature as a Republican. It has raised a firestorm of criticism, both locally and nationally. "Head's analogy is alarming and reprehensible. There is no comparison between a man who's participating in the democratic process and a totalitarian responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent people, including Jews and gays," said Bob Kearney, political director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. The group is a bipartisan national organization that supports openly GLBT candidates. It has endorsed Howell. "Head's attempt to make sexual orientation a partisan issue is divisive and ignores the positive contributions made to our society by openly gay public servants of every political affiliation," the Victory Fund said. Head "clarified" his statement the following day in the Sentinel, saying, "He's not Hitler. But for a gay Black Democrat not to recognize that the Republican Party isn't going to look our for their interests isn't paying attention." Writing on the Party Web site, Head said he was "shocked by the bizarre campaign Web site photo of 'proudly' gay Mr. Howell posing as the happy heterosexual family man with his arm around a female campaign worker and the son of a marriage he left when the boy was two months old." When asked about the photo, Howell said that his webmaster put together the site and when he visited it, he "saw a picture of my son and someone who I'm very, very close with," who also is his campaign manager, "and didn't think anything about it." But when people suggested that others might interpret the photo differently, Howell quickly agreed. "I need to look at appearances and perceptions, not just how I feel," he said. The photos have been removed. "Patrick Howell can't represent gay people by selling out," wrote Head. He chastised Howell for supporting the Republican President and Governor and issued a list of 18 points that he wanted Howell to support. The list showed a sophisticated understanding of gay issues that few heterosexuals have mastered. Yet Head is not openly gay. It added another intricate level of "bizarre" to the machinations and motivations of the dust up in Orlando. Local Republican Party Chairman Lew Oliver weighed in with a column in the Aug. 1 edition of the Sentinel, calling Head's remarks "so extreme, so vulgar and so desperate that it begs for a reaction of indignant outrage." "How can any party chairman regard any voting block as exclusively Republican or Democrat? Voters do not belong to me or my party, like distinct herds of cattle." He chastised Head for making a person's sexual orientation "a litmus test." "The Republican Party, to its credit, doesn't care about Howell's sexual orientation," wrote Oliver. "The fact that he has another unique connection with part of his district is simply in furtherance of that old bromide that 'all politics is local.'" Log Cabin Republicans, in an open letter to National Stonewall Democrats, said, "These tactics by the Democratic Party are not only morally indefensible, they show tremendous disrespect for gay and lesbian Americans." It pointed out that the incumbent is Republican Allen Trovillion, who last year told a group of high school students in his office lobbying for a gay inclusive "Dignity For All Students" bill that they would go to hell for such activity. The aging homophobe is term-limited out and Howell is running for his seat. Trovillion has endorsed the Democratic candidate that Head supports. "I'm not prejudice against gays," Trovillion claimed in the Sentinel. He has not met Howell and said, "I hear he doesn't stand for the same things I do." Log Cabin called for the Stonewall Democrats "to hold their Democratic Party accountable when they attack openly gay candidates." John Marble, spokesman for National Stonewall Democrats, called Head's comments "unfortunate."
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